Retreat! Why Getting Away Is Sometimes the Best Way To Get In Touch With Reality.
I spent the past week in Mexico teaching Healthy Deviance to folks who said it changed their lives. And it might — if they succeed in bringing it home with them.
Increasingly, I’m hearing from a whole lotta folks who say they’re fed up what currently passes for “normal” daily life. Between the time poverty, economic worry, media overload, social isolation, political chaos, and existential dread, there’s a sense that reality is broken, something to be escaped.
Several years back, when I was shopping my book around to major publishers, I was warned by several that its unusual title — “The Healthy Deviant” — would scare off a lot of potential readers. And perhaps it has.
But I always suspected it would attract those readers for whom it was intended. Namely, people who are interested in deviating from the distorted, unhealthy defaults that have come to define our dominant-culture reality.
I’ve come to believe there are a lot of us. Enough, anyway.
I was happy to connect with a bunch of ‘em this past week at Rancho La Puerta in Tecate, Mexico. The Ranch (as it is affectionately called by its regulars) has repeatedly been rated by Travel and Leisure magazine as one of the world’s top-rated wellness retreat destinations.
Each week, it attracts a crew of close to 200 well-educated, well-heeled, and wellness-oriented folks. It’s a group that is, compared to most, doing very well.
Even so, a lot of these well-resourced, accomplished, and broadly privileged folks are still struggling with a lot of the same problems as the rest of us.
Problems staying focused.
Problems sticking to healthy plans.
Problems managing their energy, attention, and mood.
Problems with self-esteem.
Problems staying connected to a sense of meaning and purpose.
Problems maintaining hope for the future.
They, too, express frustration — even dismay — at the state of our current reality. But while on retreat this past week, some also experienced welcome relief from it.
A number of my workshop attendees reported that their early experiments in Healthy Deviance had proven life-changing.
In particular, they were impressed by the power of what I call the Renegade Rituals of Healthy Deviance.
One guest told me that practicing the Morning Minutes had lifted his dread of waking early to do a rather rigid and elaborate 75-minute routine, and had him instead looking forward to just waking gradually and listening to his own instincts.
Another guest reported that ceasing her resistance to rest, listening to her very real fatigue, and building Ultradian Rhythm Breaks into her days had turned her from an inveterate non-napper into a new napping fan.
A third guest excitedly shared that after practicing the Nighttime Wind-Down just once, rather than taking “one last look at the day’s news,” she’d had the first unbroken night of sleep she’d had in years.
What each of these folks (and others) described reflected a return to agreement — vs. argument — with how their physiology (neurology, metabolism, digestion, hormonal regulation, etc.) actually works. And how our human DNA has naturally prepared us all, over 2.5 million years of human history, to work at our best.
The “way we actually work” (meaning our base requirements for optimal function) is not something most of us are formally taught.
It’s not something we’ve been encouraged to acknowledge or respect. It’s not something we’re supported in discovering for ourselves.
On the contrary, our Unhealthy Default Reality works tirelessly convincing us to ignore our basic needs and grasp endlessly for everything else — from ultra-processed foods and ultra-distracting technologies to ultra-impressive achievements in the realms of wealth, power, and fame.
Learning to accurately perceive and prioritize our own basic needs amounts to a disruptive, revolutionary act. It’s also a very tall order.
And that’s why I like to offer people a doable starting place with the daily practices I call Renegade Rituals.
It’s always exhilarating to hear from people who’ve tried these practices even once or twice during the span of a weeklong retreat about what a huge difference they’ve made.
The challenge, of course, even for these folks, will be taking the practices home.
Because back home — here in the Unhealthy Default Reality — is where such practices tend to be more difficult to pull off. And precisely where they are most crucial.
Home, for most of us, is where the Unhealthy Default Reality holds sway over our daily patterns and choices, and where our most basic daily needs are rarely ever considered, must less met.
And this why home is often not best place to begin practicing healthy change.
I have written at length about the Renegade Rituals of Healthy Deviance. I’ve dedicated full chapters to them in my book. I’ve recorded podcasts, written blog posts, and created webinars about them.
I tell people about them while in line at the grocery store and sitting in airport lounges. I give this information away for free, not because it isn’t valuable, but because it is invaluable — stuff I think every one us needs and deserves to know.
That said, I suspect that many people who learn about the power of these simple interventions, and who are initially very excited to try them, never manage to put even one of them into practice.
Why? Because practicing them during the course of so-called “normal” lives, even for a day or two, often proves surprisingly challenging, particularly at first.
Being on retreat — separated from our own habitual, run-rate reality — can make it vastly easier. A few reasons for that …
First, while on retreat, you are largely free from most of the Unhealthy Default structures, stresses, and incentives that have you operating on automatic and ignoring your body’s signals.
Second, while on retreat, you’ve expressly opened yourself to new ideas and activities, embracing novelty, discovery, and experimentation as a source of pleasure and fun.
And third, in most retreat environments, there are countless built-in supports for embracing healthier, happier modes of living — without threat of punishment, ridicule, or shame.
The wonderful thing about trying out healthy new practices while on retreat is that you get a chance to experience the results of successfully executing — not just reading or learning about — these new habits.
You get a chance to experience and notice the changes these new patterns are producing — not just in the way you feel, but also in the way you mentally and physically function.
You get tangible proof that these adjustments actually work as promised, and that leaves you vastly more prepared to repeat and sustain them when you return to so-called “normal” reality.
You don’t have to get away to a world-class retreat destination to bust out of your own unhealthy daily patterns and try new ones. But it definitely helps to get at least a little away.
That might mean setting aside a weekend during which you are willing to suspend your normal daily schedule and build in some extra time (and reminders) to consciously observe healthier ways of managing your energy, time, and attention.
It might mean going camping in the wilderness for a few days, limiting your connection to all things automated and electronic, and noticing how your body-mind naturally adjusts.
I might mean going to stay with a friend, or swapping homes with a friend, just so you have an opportunity to notice and gently challenge whatever automatic patterns have become the “normal” default-mode for you.
To start, it might simply mean setting some stricter boundaries around when you are on and off duty during the course of your days and nights.
One of the most important things I’ve learned in my decades as a health journalist is that environment drives behavior. And this is certainly true of Healthy Deviance.
John Ratey, MD, famed Harvard Medical School psychiatry professor and author of a great many excellent books on body-mind health (including Go Wild: Free Your Body and Mind from the Afflictions of Civilization) often uses the metaphor of "the elephant and the rider" to explain how the human brain works.
Essentially, he describes us as operating in two very different mental modes:
the "rider," representing our rational, conscious decisions and directives); and
the "elephant," representing the more impulsive, emotional, and instinctual aspects of our decision-making selves.
Ratey argues that since the lumbering elephant within us can easily overpower our rational self, particularly in times of depletion, distraction, or temptation, we’re best off using our “rider” brain — in those rare moments we have access to it — to carefully prepare and shape the paths our elephant-minded selves will later be inclined to follow.
On retreat, we typically benefit from the healthier paths that have been pre-shaped for us. We notice how it feels to have more of basic needs met.
Perhaps most important, we begin to experience more of our own energy, vitality, and potential. Once we’ve experienced the benefits of that, we stand a greater chance of returning home and building pathways that take advantage of the new body-mind knowledge we have gained.
Starting next week, I’ll be sharing a series on the Renegade Rituals of Healthy Deviance (text for all, video lessons and other extra goodies for paid subscribers) to help you rethink and reshape your own daily defaults, if you choose.
Until then, wishing you a happy Easter (if you celebrate that holiday) and a healthy start to spring. And if tomorrow is a day off for you, I hope it is a relaxing, rejuvenating, retreat-like one.
Great reflection on opportunity to step away ::in any fashion:: to close the gap on who we desire to be.