Is it time to retreat?

Being in Roma, reminds me how those Romans, masters of strategy, knew the value of retreating.

For sometimes, in the face of the enemy, the best thing to do is to withdraw. To pull back and to take stock of what is working and what is not. To gain a clearer picture about what is needed in order to adopt a more favourable position.

The enemy, if that is what you want to call it,  can come in a variety of forms.  We can get focused on it being external, the competition, an outside influence, the other.  However sometimes the most challenging of all is that which is within us.   As written in the Bhagavad Gita, “the mind acts like an enemy for those who do not control it”.

The value of retreating, whether it feels imposed or our choice, lies in exploring our inner world.

In the context of having a community, organisational, leadership or personal challenge, is it time for you to retreat from…

… a deep seated fear?

… a fixed belief?

… a cognitive bias?

… a deep rooted opinion?

… a faulty assumption?

… a negative habitual pattern?

… energy-sapping thoughts?

… old stories?

… a way of working?

… ineffective processes?

… unhealthy ways?

… an unsustainable lifestyle?

… unbalanced priorities?

… voices that aren’t your own?

…

The gifting of retreating

When we retreat, we treat ourselves to understanding our world and ourselves a little bit better.  We detach from reactivity to breathe a little bit deeper.  We reset our nervous system to remember our essence.  Practising gratitude for our lives, we distil the lessons of our experiences for our own evolution.  As we get more intimate and expansive with ourselves and our relationship with the external world, we develop and practise new ways of thinking, being and doing. As a result, we are gifted fresh perspectives, new alternatives and a reconnection with the longing of our hearts.  And our strategic objectives.

I encourage leaders and teams to retreat for their own healing, rejuvenation, development and evolution. Inviting them to ground themselves and relax into being a witness to the cycles of their own lives. So they can reflect with courage and compassion, to see the opportunities for renewal, reimagining and regeneration. This can take a variety of forms, in little and big ways.  It can be in the micro-moments in which we press our reset button, or when we take THAT space between stimulus and response.  For Earth Converse, it is in the core of the coaching we offer. And certainly retreating is integral to working with executive teams and the leadership programmes we run.

May you retreat well, whatever form you want to take.