Mission: Hand/headstands or bust. Reflections from my first yoga retreat.

Conversation when I'm leaving for my retreat with my family....Me:  My intention for this retreat is to finally face my fear of inversions (including hand/headstands but not limited to them) and be able to do them w/o assistance.  Husband/kids:  You better or don't even bother coming home!All giggling a little, but at the time, for some ridiculous reason now as I can clearly see, that seemed like a valuable and worthy intention, as if my life would be monumentally improved for myself and all around me if I can stick and handstand unassisted.  How wrong I was.....Still present in this state of bliss that was present for my week long yoga retreat, I'm continuing to process what it was about being in the retreat that feels so transformative.While being in a beautiful tropical location is AMAZING, that was not what made it transformative.  While having healthy (and vegetarian!) food prepared for me every meal was delicious and refreshing, that was not what made it transformative.  While practicing yoga twice a day for 4-5 hours a day was relaxing, challenging, restorative, exhausting, and beautiful, that wasn't what made this retreat restorative either.In my processing....for now, this is what I want people to know, and how my conscious mind shifted to allow the transformation to begin.The entire experience as out of my comfort zone, and I encourage EVERYONE to seek to do things that are.  That is where change happens, but doing things that make us uncomfortable and challenge our limiting beliefs about ourselves and our lives.  Does it need to be a yoga retreat?  Certainly not!  But being both the observer (which is a role I am often in as both a therapist and an introvert) and the participant, I could see the shifts happen with others and feel myself shifting as well.  It wasn't in "who could stick this pose" that made it trasformative, it was more in the putting ourselves in uncomfortable positions & conversations, challenging both our physical practice as well as our emotional and intellectual belief systems that allowed the work to truly begin to promote the change that every single person was there to experience.We all could've gone to a resort in the tropics and sipped on cocktails all day long while turning the pages of the latest romance novel on the beach and it would be lovely, but transformative?  Likely not....For me, the quiet moments, the gentle and genuine experiences had the greatest impact and I hope and pray and intend to carry them with me as I continue on this journey of life.....the walk on the beach with one of the teachers and a few others (whom I didn't know) for 2 hours when my introverted self wanted to shrink into the sand and stay small and invisible....but I did it anyway.  The honor of braiding a new-friend's hair, an activity I cannot even remember doing for another since childhood, if ever!  I was in tears at this simple, intimate opportunity for a friend with beautiful long & shiny and brilliantly black hair.  Listening to a new-friend play the ukulele for me and sunrise as we sipped tea and coffee and talked about the hard stuff of life.  Sharing in a circle the stuff I don't like about myself, and feeling genuine love and support and space from this group of then, relative strangers who are now people I consider friends.  Helping a new-friend do upward facing bow (google if you've never seen) and watching her evolve from "my body can't do this" to allowing 2 strangers (at the time) cheer her on and HELP her to work WITH her body rather than against it to achieve what she deemed impossible.  To holding space while others cried.  Or were quiet.  Or scared to share.  To laughing so hard my sides hurt.  Waking in the morning and drinking tea again...why did I ever stop this practice?  Waking in the morning, before sunrise, not because I had to be anywhere (because....um....I didn't!) but rather to watch the sunrise, or journal, or mediate or all the above.  Sharing a meal with relative strangers, and talking about how much we, as humans, have in common yet we all feel so separate and in our own freaking heads we rarely take time to look at it from this angle.  Being vulnerable, saying this is hard and I don't want to do it because I am afraid of failing and what others will think of me/us.  Being able to give oneself permission to go to bed early because the intention is to wake up early and work with our bodies to allow change to happen.  Limited phone/computer/netflix/facebook/social media/chores/responsibilities..... allows one to look at life differently, and until we step away and really look at our life and patterns, we cannot (or I couldn't) see any other way.  Challenging our limiting beliefs, our patterns, our childhoods, our relationships and realizing that NOTHING and I do mean NOTHING is permanent...it all changes.  We can fight it, like we are swimming up stream and frustrated and angry and filled with distress, or we can simply learn to let go and allow ourselves to go where the river of life is intending us to be.....that is the work.   That is the transformation.  That....was the process where my new, pure intention was able to present itself more clearly, and a peace filled my being in a way that I haven't felt in so long I don't even know what to call it yet.I left the retreat, for the first time in memory, filled with great happy memories but also literally giddy to go home to see my family and friends.  Giddy!  Those who know me, know my natural set point is serious and calm, but giddy?  Rarely if ever.  I said hello to people at the airport.  I said thank you to every airport staff member I came across.  I commented on book a young man was reading, The Power of Now, as I am too.  I sat at the airport without music, or my phone, or my computer or ....and just let myself be.  While all of that might seem silly or insignificant, I cannot express enough that it IS not my natural set point, and was not a conscious thing I was doing.  I felt freer to do because I released on some level things that needed to be so that a new- transformative version of myself could emerge.Upon coming home, I ran up to my kids and gave them the biggest hugs and stopped and fed our new adopted pet squirrel "Chonkers" and cheerfully told them stories that could be shared (while honoring the sacred space of the retreat and all its beautiful attendees) and BOTH of my children, 21 and almost 17 year old boys, separately commented how much happier I seemed.  Without prompting, they both saw it in me.Our teachers were both right, sticking a handstand (unassisted) WILL not dramatically change ones life.  TRUTH!  But putting oneself into uncomfortable situations and allowing ourself to feel whatever emotions emerge, and allow the change to come and direct us where we truly need/want to be....will.I am filled with gratitude.  And have such a clear sense of the journey and the lessons along the way......forever will be grateful the universe looked at my original intention of wanting to stick and handstand unassisted and laughed at me....and said.....there is a bigger intention for you to strive for.....May be at a later date.....Peace....in your journey of life......