You only have control over 1% of what happens in life
A few days ago happy gal and I had the privilege to host an annual retreat with friends and friends of friends. This is an event where we have anywhere from 12-20 guests and each attendee must lead a 30 minute session on whatever they want. If the retreat had a slogan, it would be a weekend to Connect. Engage. Inspire.
At this event, you’re not labeled by your profession (unless you want to), or what you’ve achieved in life. You enter without knowing anyone and leave feeling like you’ve known everyone for years. As an attendee said when I asked if everyone could share one emotion they feel: “safe”. Organically, it has become a space where people are willing to remove their guards and become vulnerable, joyful, and willing to share but also willing to listen. Below a few of our learnings from the weekend.
On control vs intention
Some of the discussions this past weekend were at odds with each other. On one side, we learned that we only have control over 1% of what happens in our life. However, we also learned the importance of being intentional with how we live our lives. This reminded me that we need to let go of control. Controlling schedules, controlling people, controlling events, etc. This will help reduce anxiety, stress, and frustration. And we should design life so that we live with intention, intention to live a good life full of love, care, balance, and happiness. And focus on what we can control: our breathing, our sleep, our diet, our gratitude, and a few other things.
Passion and being a kid
Many chats this weekend had folks sharing their passions. Passions for good coffee, boxing, breathing, writing, dogs, bucket lists, photography and more. Made us think that it’s important to live passionately. If you lack passion in your life, revisit what makes you create sparks, excites you to wake up in the morning, and explore frameworks to help guide you. Similarly to how when you’re a kid, you’re passionate for little things, the most important part was that you had fun when you were a kid, there were joyful moments (even if you had a shitty childhood, our innocence allowed us for moments of pure joy). It’s important for us to play Marco Polo in the pool more often and be a kid again. We ended the weekend with a 30 minute of 5 rhythms meditation, a dance with the goal of letting go. It was amazing because everyone just let go and danced like no one was watching.
On connection, trust, and relationships
Throughout the weekend there were discussions in the importance of building relationships, on being connected, and a feeling of trust. Happy gal and I recently made the decision to move to Southern California from Northern California and the weekend reminded me that regardless of where you live, you can build a strong community if you invest the time and energy to build it. This retreat has been 6 years in the making, and now we have had over 45 people attend the weekend event and the average number of events each guest has attended is 2.4! This shows people come back! I used to wonder why this was the case but this weekend solidify something important – we all crave connection. When I say we, I don’t mean happy gal and I, I mean we as everyone of us, around the world. We NEED connection. We need this to stay healthy, to stay happy, to stay balanced. There are a few studies that show relationships prolongs life, etc. I’ve written about this before here, here, and here. To summarize all these blog posts: invest the time in building connections – don’t wait until it happens to you (it might not), and prioritize relationships.
To that end, given the move, I need to find even more energy to create community while at the same time start planning a heavy recruitment cycle for my friends and family to join us down south where there is beach, sun, and us! #MovetoLaCostaWithUs
Summary of sessions
- What is your bucket list?
- We’re Not Really Strangers game
- Breathing exercise – Wim Hof method
- Endless Wave dancing meditation
- Being a kid again
- Giving advice to your younger self
- Photography tricks
- Omnipreneurship
- Sleep cycles and importance of REM
- Information on dogs
- How to find good coffee in any city
- Qualities you look for in marriage
- Silver linings of COVID
- Writing a child’s story
- Learning how to box
- Stoicism as a hack to a Good Life