A peek at the Nurture Spring Menu

NURTURING

April 24th, 2017

One thing you might not know about Nurture is the fact that allergies and food sensitivities are accommodated with the opposite approach those of you who need to eat this way might be used to. Cardboard baked goods, fruit plates and soy substitutes will never grace your plate at Nurture. Instead, I get really passionate about working with restrictions in such a way that an attendee with limited food options feels NO limits at the table. 

The Nurture approach is, in a nutshell, to face the challenges life inevitably brings us in our personal lives and businesses and apply creativity liberally to inspire a solution.  This approach not only solves the 'problem', but embraces beauty (even in the breakdown), attention to detail and being present to the process itself as an act of deepest love. 

A Day in the Life at Nurture: A Retreat

NURTURING

April 10th, 2017

7:28am

You wake up from one of THOSE sleeps. The delicious kind where your body rests fully and your dreams are sweet. Maybe it's the quiet (aside from a lake loon or two). Maybe it's knowing you have the full three days to unwind. Maybe it's the local wine, the hearty dinner, or the heartier laughs from the night before.

Your feet swing over the side of the bed onto the handmade rug below. Your roommate is still snoring slightly, and you giggle a little as you slip past her, across the old hardwood floor to the bathroom to draw yourself a bath in the clawfoot tub. 

Sprinkling in some of the herbal-infused bath salts from Sunfire Herbals that were in the 'Self Care Starter Kit' you got when you arrived, you sink into the warm water and breathe in the lavender, your hands absentmindedly swirling the flower petals as they float past. You linger. You breathe deep. The lavender mixes with a slight hint of freshly roasted coffee wafting up from the kitchen below, where a murmur of lighthearted voices indicates that breakfast preparations are underway…

What I wrote that changed everything. It even birthed this retreat.

NURTURING

March 12th, 2017

I've got a juicy little tidbit for you this week (well, little is relative – it's a good long share). As I was doing some behind-the-scenes preparation for the upcoming retreat, I needed to comb through some old Nurture Google docs. It took me waaayyy back to when Nurture first started and was still operating under my personal email address. While in the archives, I stumbled across an 'archeological specimen' I think you might enjoy. It is a journal entry I wrote to myself from a place of personal darkness and creative stagnancy, PRE-NURTURE.

Little did back-then me know that a mere 6 days later (!!!), I would fatefully meet a stranger – the woman whose off-handed comment unknowingly changed my life.

She gifted me with these magical words: “Well, Sonja, I don't have a magic wand to give you a farmhouse, but I DO have an idea. You should take your love of food, creativity and self care and combine them into a weekend retreat and rent a farmhouse for a few days!” This website is a good indicator of what happened from there, which is nothing short of magic (oh, and also a lot of hard work. That too.)

Just play it cool, boys, REAL cool. (But, actually – don't.)

NURTURING

November 15th, 2016

I recently sat across from a good friend who is the type of person who can rock a grandpa sweater and somehow have it be both sexy and playfully ironic. (Pause: HOW?!). His heart is solid gold, his demeanor warmest-of-warm and his talents would leave anyone gobsmacked yet he goes about his humble way, truly caring for each soul he encounters. He's a gem, and I consider myself lucky to be able to spill what's on my mind about what's going on in my life. On this particular occasion I fiddled absentmindedly with whatever was in my hands, telling him about recent developments in my personal and professional life and talked about how being with the unknown – all this new territory – can be so exciting and scary. 

His advice? “Play it cool.”