Girlie Adventures

Greetings from the snowy climes of central Vermont. Everyone here is plotting their winter getaways to help them through the remainder of the season. I’m no exception as we’re soon to be heading off to beautiful northern California where it’s already spring! Daffodils have already bloomed! It’s hard to imagine as they are at least 3 months away in Vermont. Gasp!

In our last post, I outlined the actual happenings on our retreats, but I didn’t go into detail about our femme focused activities. These outings serve as a counterbalance to the deep reflective work that we do together. It is our pleasure to put the treat in retreat!

I am a BIG chocolate fan so getting more familiar with my favorite guilty pleasure seemed like an ideal diversion from the hard work of self-discovery. I trust this love of chocolate is shared by many of my sisters in transformation. So I was excited as we ventured forth to the local bean to bar chocolate factory, which is woman-owned, by the way. It did not disappoint! We had the chance to walk around the place for a minute prior to the very knowledgeable docent telling us everything there is to know about the history, sourcing, and production of cocoa, and we sampled chocolate from various source countries. Just like wine and coffee, the cocoa nibs from different countries each have a distinct flavor profile - some dryer, some sweeter, some more bitter. Who knew? It was a treat to gain a deeper understanding and appreciation for one of my favorite things, and isn’t chocolate grounding somehow… Afterward, we all wound up taking home treats for our loved ones, and let’s be honest, for ourselves! I took home something rather nontraditional - a 5-gallon bucket of spent cocoa shells to use as mulch! I felt so exotic bringing this home to Vermont where maple is king.

The other major girlie adventure was the bra fitting! I remember when Oprah filmed an entire show on bra fitting, and after this experience, I know why. Most of us don’t even know our accurate size! The owner of a local lingerie store, another woman-owned business, is our guide for this experience and she knows her way around foundation-wear. As we were planning our retreat, I was a teensy bit skeptical about this venture, but it was a major fave with our attending goddesses. By the time this activity comes up in our weekend, our group is so open and sharing, this seems almost like a normal group activity. Our guide came loaded with many options based on information we’d provided in advance with regard to bra sizes and style preferences i.e. sporty, sexy, underwire, etc. She measured each woman privately and we took turns trying on bras (in a private room), but most of our ladies came back and modeled! It was amazing how easy it was to drop our body-shaming self-talk and be willing to be seen as beautiful in all our glory! That being said, modeling is not required.

And lastly, just like on Grey’s Anatomy back in the days of Yang and Grey, nothing beats a spontaneous 30-second dance party. Except maybe a 30-minute dance party! This was completely spontaneous, but free form dance - with no partners and no judgment was an amazing opportunity for self-expression. As always, dancing with nobody watching is medicine for the soul.

Again, all of these femme focused adventures are optional, but not to be missed. As breaks between meditation, journaling, coaching, deep listening, each of these activities provided a much-appreciated diversion during our time together.

And we aren’t limited to just these choices. Because we aren’t limited!

So, we’re curious, if you had the option of the excursions listed above, or something else, what would you choose:

Olive oil tasting

Hiking

Spa treatment i.e. massage, or pedicure (self pay)

Yoga

Breathwork

Please leave your comments here on the blog - we’d love to hear what interests you!