What is Nurture: A Retreat?

NURTURING

March 27th, 2017

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While like-minded explorers have a rich and fertile playground to discover what Nurture is all about on this website (it's built to encourage meandering and digging and I'd like to think that a reader who gives herself the time to move from page to page may even find a secret garden or two that speaks to her soul), it was recently pointed out to me that some readers want “just the facts, ma'am.”

So, here they are. I'm (of course, naturally, hilariously) dying to elaborate, but look to the tabs at your left, or click the menu button above if you're on mobile and there's all manner of details for those of you who enjoy a good meander.

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

NURTURING

March 12th, 2017

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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.)

The Slow Drizzle – lessons from honey

NURTURING

February 26th, 2017

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Never one to pass up a movie meant for kids that includes sly adult references, I quite enjoyed sitting down to Zootopia with a bowl of popcorn (lots of butter & a sprinkle of alder smoked salt – yum) recently. There is a memorable scene with sloths as DMV workers who take approximately 8563 minutes between actions. It's hilarious. They're sloths. It's also excruciating.

Surprised by my physical reaction to this scene (I squirmed; I flinched; I wanted to throw pillows), I took some time to consider why.  And then it struck me – my own life lately has felt like someone hired those very sloths to work in the Department of Answers to Questions my Soul has been Asking Lately (DAQMSHBAL), while simultaneously bringing up a feeling of urgency in the lessons that have been coming up in quick succession. These lessons have been around letting go of things I thought I wanted and clearing of the old – patterns, properties, people, pilled sweaters. It's left a lot of empty space and the first instinct is to fill it. But if not with the old, the comfortable, the habitual go-tos, then what?!

How to grow and not shrink from looking at what we hide.

NURTURING

February 21st, 2017

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I have been examining a lot of backends lately. No, not that kind (although I did walk behind a man in a suit recently who made me believe wholeheartedly in the effectiveness of tailoring). I mean the behind-the-scenes of my finances, my daily systems, my online presence and my thoughts. Believe me when I say that sometimes these areas are ones that I happily shove under the proverbial rug and do a lot of the mental equivalent of blocking my ears and saying lalalalala loudly, hoping all will simply sort itself out. When I do that, it's because I'm afraid of what I will find there. Usually, I'm afraid I will find Shame. Yes, that old friend; frequent guest of my credit card bill, unswept kitchen corners, and deeply grooved beliefs it holds onto like a binky. 

You Care Too Much

NURTURING

February 13th, 2017

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I have thrown myself at my fair share of metabolic fires lately, especially in this past half year. After years of staleness and stagnation and stubborness, something in me finally clicked and I was like: no more.

I figured it was high time I met myself and learned to love what I found there and not settle for anything less than love in return. 

I'm writing you this post, very late at night, past my bedtime actually, mere moments after slaying a personal dragon. I'm finding it a bit difficult to put words on the page, because I'm still basking in the afterglow – that very particular lightness of being that occurs when you act in discord with your past and in perfect harmony with your soul and the future it desires. I told my soul it could go frolic in my mind field all it wants as long as it doesn't bother me while I write. When I'm happy, I don't tend to express it very largely, but I do have a field in my mind where my soul does things I would never do in real life, like somersaults, backflips and Maria von Trapp “The Hills are Alive” twirls. That's what it's doing right now as I type.