As I sit here at 7:30am on a Sunday morning, finishing my daily journal entry, feeling energised, listening to Tina Turner buddhist mantras (yeah it's actually a thing on Spotify, look it up), and twiddling mala beads for comfort in my hands, I have to wonder how I got here. Where is my hangover? What has happened to my well needed Sunday lie-in from the accumulated exhaustion from the previous week, my craving for a bacon sarnie? My habitual routine of needing to watch cooking shows all morning with an utter disregard of the weather outside and any planned activities of the day ahead? These things haven't happened and yet I'm OK.
I seem to have had a defining change moment, one of those road to Damascus moments. A Scrooge McDuck-on-Christmas-morning awakening. Or a Jamie-Lannister-realises-he-doesn't-always-need-to-be-a-bastard moment after spending a transformative week on a yoga retreat an hour north of Lisbon, Portugal recently.
There is a bit of build up to this, I wouldn’t normally class myself as the type of person who would book a retreat. Google them? Yes, who doesn’t look up that 10 days digital detox retreat in Ubud during the most excruciating of work conference calls? But actually going ahead and booking it, at short notice and then turning up, well, a lot of us do it transpires, in fact the Wellness Yoga Tourism business is predicted to hit $919Bn in 2022, so that gives you an idea of the popularity, but I somehow never thought that this would be my cash adding to this pile.
Yet for multiple reasons, I found myself scrolling the Book Yoga Retreats website, clicking the all important ‘Confirm Booking’ button and moving into uncharted territory and paying my deposit for a week’s break with 4Elements Retreat. Paying just 20% of the final fee (the rest payable on arrival) gave me a get out clause, I could still bail at the last minute if I needed to and only be 150€ out of pocket. Not an insignificant amount, but certainly an easier pill to swallow than the total 749€.
And that’s how I found myself groggy eyed and awake at 4am for a taxi to the airport on a cold and wet UK morning, then landing in exactly the same weather in Lisbon two and half hours later. When I had packed my suitcase back at home, I had checked the local weather and was chuffed to see Lisbon temperatures at reassuring 25°c. I was in no way packed or prepared for the 12°c and rain that greeted me instead.
I had a whole day to kill in Lisbon* in the rain before heading back to the airport to be picked up by my co-host for the week and yoga teacher, Pedro.
(*Much more on this, and where to eat in a separate blog post!)
Pedro picked up four passengers from the airport that day, an even mix of men and women all with various backgrounds and reasons for attending the retreat. There was another person awaiting us at the venue who had stayed the previous week having travelled all the way from California.
The rest of us arrived as the clocks went back so the sun had long gone down by the time we pulled up at our villa and home for the week. As this is a family run retreat, it may not be for everyone, but it worked well for me. Husband and wife, Pedro and Ali run the yoga classes, excursions, kitchen garden and cooking, Pedro’s mother helps with the cleaning and looks after 11 month old Matteo, and it is Matteo who has the main job of keeping all of the guests entertained with his adorable gurgling and babbling during meal times and some of the excursions. A couple of cats, including an eight week old kitten, help maintain a general sense of calm when the kitten isn't trying to climb the leg of an unsuspecting guest during mealtimes. Again, this might not be to everyone’s liking, but having the family and cats around brought a sense of normality and peace to the house during the day. Not to mention a huge hit of dopamine and serotonin from regular cuddles and interactions. I came to think of them all as living therapy props.
The Food
Our first evening was a home cooked meal from Ali, they have an extensive kitchen garden so all of the vegetables we ate that week came from less than five meters away. Green and red lollo rosso lettuce, beetroots, red peppers, cucumbers, tomatoes, aubergines and tamarillo fruit to name a few. Ali is an accomplished vegetarian cook and everything she cooked was delicious, nutrient dense and comforting.
As a non-breakfast eater in the week normally, I came to look forward to Ali’s breakfasts, chocolate overnight oats, chia seeds and spirulina bowls, coconut porridge with flax seeds, all of which came with freshly squeezed orange juice, a boiled egg from the obliging chickens in the garden, freshly baked bread and a local pumpkin and walnut marmalade that I had to buy jars of and squeeze into my suitcase as I think I developed a bit of a habit.
Lunches and dinners were also provided mainly from the garden, with dinners tending to be slightly lighter, allowing us to digest and be ready for early morning 7:30am yoga without any tummy rumbles.
We ate Vietnamese style rainbow rolls, veggie bean burgers, pumpkin soup, rainbow falafels, vegetable curry, roasted chestnuts, veggie satay and even a fragrant veggie biryani and raita that we tucked into at nearby village park during one of the excursions.
The food is great and excellent quality for the overall price of the retreat. That said, if you feel like eating pastries in one of the many local cafes, or grabbing food elsewhere to mix it up, you are completely free and able to do that. There are no stern looks or comments from anyone, its not that kind of retreat.
The Excursions
Being an hour north of Lisbon meant that we were in serious surfing territory so we got to visit multiple beaches most notably the famous sight of the 100ft waves, some of the biggest in the world, it’s now a site of legend for most surfers. While we didn’t see waves of that size on our trip, it's still a magical place to be for sunset. (If you have never heard of Nazaré, watch this clip, it’s phenomenal.)
Other surf beaches included Peniche and Ericeria, both the home of multiple surf schools, great places to eat and drink. We visited in low season, though I get the impression that the surf schools take over during the height of summer and you can find yourself holidaying with a bizarre cast of Dawson's Creek meets Love Island characters which might not be as relaxing as you planned.
We also found ourselves in historic towns like Torres Vedras and Obidos walking the ancient streets and walls, and tasting local delights like cherry liquor in chocolate cups or ourico’s from Ericeira, unbelievable soft little cakes made from egg and almonds, they are to die for.
Of course no trip to Portugal is complete without a visit to a vineyard. We drove thirty minutes or so to the town of Zibreira and lovely family run Quinta da Boa Esperanca to try their local wines (and the first bit of meat in a few days for some of the group!)
Back at the villa, our downtime was mostly spent walking the 30 minutes or so into the local town of Santa Cruz to enjoy a blustery coffee and pasteis del nata on the dramatic beach. 4Elements is in such a good location for self guided walks along the coast, whether Santa Cruz or Porto Novo, the retreat sits on the marked coastal path so longer walks, especially in summer months are really easy to do. This is certainly an area of Portugal that I will be returning to to spend more time in.
The Yoga
Now for the main event, the yoga. As a relative newbie to yoga, or someone who has dabbled a fair bit over the years and can copy a teacher doing a sun salutation, but doesn’t know her Hatha from her Ashtanga, this was the bit I was a tiny bit worried about. Yet it was the calm of the yoga that drew me here in the first place, so I came open and ready to learn. I did dip back into some sessions at home beforehand, and I think this was a good reintroduction before the intensity of twice daily classes, but it's not really a necessity. One thing that was very clear from both Pedro and Ali, is that we were encouraged to listen to our bodies. If it doesn't feel right, then we don’t have to do it, if you are tired or sick and don’t feel like you’re able to do a 7:30am class, then that’s your call. I had to skip a class or two due to migraines and at no point did I feel like I wasn’t embracing the retreat, rather it was more important that I had listened to what my body needed.
The schedule is a 90 min 7:30am yoga that varies from Hatha and Ashtanga, but kicks off with extensive breathing techniques, some of which were new to me but likely familiar to most yogis. Spending upwards of 20 minutes breathing through alternating nostrils did feel a bit weird at first, but then I noticed my heart rate going down a little bit more each morning and while I was trying to concentrate on which nostril to hold closed, I certainly wasn’t thinking about the stresses and chaos that usually whirl through my brain before 8am on a weekday morning, so I went with it.
After breathing exercises, the morning sessions tended to be more intense, the poses got our heart rate up and set us up for the day. There was a fair amount that I couldn’t do straight away, but Pedro has an inclusive style of teaching and can be hands, or feet(!) on with helping you tweak, or crunch, into poses. Ultimately I felt challenged during these sessions but safe and just outside the limits of comfort which made me feel like I had achieved something, all before 9am each day,
Evening yoga was a different thing altogether. I came to see it more as meditation and relaxation, especially Yoga Nidra which typically involves no movement whatsoever. We experienced a sound bath using chakra bowls, which to my hardened and deeply sceptic head was surprisingly very spiritual and relaxing. There’s nothing quite like paying cash to lie down in a room while someone wallops a gong and circles a bowl to produce a vibrating hum, but honestly, it is one of the most relaxing things you’ll ever do.
The evening session that stuck out more for me was the session of mantra chanting. Of course it feels weird and self conscious, but we were all encouraged to surrender into it and just let the sound come out as we followed Pedro who expertly and melodically broke down the mantras into manageable chunks for us to repeat and follow. I think this impacted me more as I was transported back thirty years to junior school. Sitting cross legged, just as I was here, but back on that familiar polished wooden school hall floor. Two hundred children all singing the same school hymns that everyone knows by rote, all so familiar that it took such little effort. Much like the mantra chanting, that childhood communal singing would come together quite beautifully, as only the sound of innocent young kids, who don't yet know the pain of mortgage payments and PPI cold calls, singing their little hearts out can do.
What I learned from these sessions is that there are multiple techniques to help centre and calm yourself. I have only just started to realise the struggles that I’ve always had anxiety and stress and the impact that this has subsequently been having on my health. These sessions made me realise that its up to me to find as little as 10 or 20 minutes in a normal busy day and either apply the breathing techniques learned, or turn on a guided meditation from one of the many apps available and my breathing will regulate, my heart rate with slow down, my anxiety and stress will reduce and fundamentally, I’ll just feel better.
Was it worth it?
Unequivocally yes. I was deeply sceptical about the whole thing but it was the right experience at the right time for me. As well as anxiety management, the most valuable lessons were letting go of control and being focused on right now. I didn’t need to think about what I was going to cook, where I was going to go or even what I was going to do that day. And that was OK. I know that this is often hard to recreate back in our busy normal lives, but it made a huge difference to me and I developed good habits that I am still using today. Although I had plenty of things to do each day, it was the first break where I felt like I had allowed myself to have a real rest, and you can’t put a price on that.
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