Connecting with loved ones and yourself
Summer is a social time as we enjoy the outdoors and increased gatherings with family and friends. Though, when Xmas is done, the New Year rung in, it can also be a time when we can finally sit still.
Just prior going to print I was fortunate enough to spend two nights at Maruia River Retreat, which sits on the edge of 500 acres of native beech forest (read more in our 2020 Travel Guide on page 68). The villas at Maruia don’t have Wi-Fi and there’s no phone coverage, so it forced me to slow down. I’d been so rushed getting there I’d forgotten to bring a book and while I could have borrowed one from the Maruia library, I decided to just sit with myself instead. Listening to the water from the nearby creek dancing over stones was deeply meditative and I realised it had been a while since I’d connected with myself. Having that space to ‘be’ also got me thinking about goals. What did I want to explore or achieve in 2020? But also it allowed me to reflect on the positives of 2019, thanks to Dr Alice Boyes column on page 139. As Boyes rightly points out, the start of a new year is often associated with setting goals/resolutions for change but sometimes these can be fraught with feelings of failure and self-criticism when you think about goals not achieved like being “thinner, fitter or tidier”.
