How to Care For a Soul in Stressful Times

If you’re located in a spot where full-blown fall is happening right now, you probably already know the bliss I’m about to describe. And if you’re not, I wish I could teleport you here for a couple of days to experience it. Being in Downeast Maine these past few weeks has felt like waking up inside one of those YouTube cozy fall ambiance videos. The leaves have been so bright I can’t even begin to describe their color. We’ve had Northern Lights on multiple nights. And the comet’s been visible for weeks now too.

Here’s my best attempt to capture the magic⤵

It’s been glorious.

You can probably tell from my last few emails and blogs that this kind of weather has been great for my reading life. But, after three recent books that turned out to be duds and a long couple of weeks of hustling to catch up with work tasks, family stuff, and the necessary planning logistics that come along with living like a nomad, I don’t have a new book to share with you today.

Instead, I want to talk about caring for our souls.

Last weekend marked the one weekend every fall when I pack up my hiking boots, my favorite clothes, my watercolor sets, and all my journals and get out of my head, into the woods, and snuggled into a bed & breakfast room with a clawfoot tub for a long, relaxing four-day weekend with friends.

Retreat time.

To be honest, I don’t really like leaving my family for the whole weekend. We have routines and daily rounds I love, our morning coffee rituals, Saturday morning farmer’s market visits, quick trips to the bookshop and coffee shop, and sunset watching in the evenings. I don’t like missing that stuff. I love our life and I don’t like to be absent from it. Here’s why I do it anyway — 

It brings me back to the real me.

The older I get I seem to be getting better at identifying when I’m slipping too far into “work me” or “mom me” or “crunchy outdoorsy me”. While writing that election email, I noticed a temptation to slip down the rabbit hole into “activist me” or even “angry me”. And I’ll admit, with some of the good books I’ve been loving lately, I feel kind of ready to meet “retired me” who might be able to make more time to read faster.

My fall retreat is where my “just me” comes out to play.

So being able to spend the weekend back on Mount Desert Island and Acadia National Park for our Well + Wander women’s retreat hiking, kayaking, e-biking, writing, painting, shopping, firepit-sitting, and visionboarding with a whole bed & breakfast full of women who love that kind of stuff too was just what I needed.

A few details ⤵

We started the weekend with a lobster bake dinner and a post-sunset kayaking trip to Hadley’s Point. We paddled in complete stillness and saw bioluminescence in the water and a full-on meteor shower above. For our e-biking excursion on Saturday, we had gorgeous sunny weather all the way and enough warmth to have a picnic lunch and a watercolor painting session on Jordan Pond. Then, on Sunday, we hiked Gorham Mountain and spent the afternoon exploring Bar Harbor and painting, resting, and journaling at Yellow House.

Every morning we walked the Shore Path to watch the sun rise over the ocean in all her glory. Every evening we sat around the fireplace and shared stories, personal growth wins, and big dreams. My favorite part? Watching women who never thought they could journal suddenly writing for hours, women who haven’t used watercolors since they were a kid finding a love for it, and even one special woman who hadn’t read a book for pleasure in decades suddenly quiet her mind enough to read multiple books in one weekend. Magic.

A few of my favorite photos ⤵

I wish you could have been there, my friend — I’m working on all kinds of ideas to make that possible in the coming year, thinking about new locations with more affordable accommodations, summer dates, different workshops, all of it. So, if you have a retreat idea, question, or location possibility to share, email me — I’m here.

Now for the matter at hand — how to care for your own soul right now. . .

This coming week feels extra heavy for those of us in the States. It’s election week, a big election week, and plenty of big messages, feelings, and opinions coming to a head on Tuesday. Even if you’ve been protecting yourself from the madness of it and sticking to all of your personal care routines, you may still be feeling the effects without even realizing it.

So, I wanted to share a few suggestions to help ⤵

Try to imagine what’s the best that could happen

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Feel what you’re feeling — don’t try to ignore it

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Set boundaries, communicate them, and keep them

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Take extra care — extra sleep, extra water, extra walks

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Recognize how it’s affecting you — talk or journal about it

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Reach out to one person with an act of kindness (a text, a letter, a gift)

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Reach out to yourself with an act of kindness (bake, take a bubble bath or nap, buy a new book)

I’m writing those on my to-do list for Tuesday. Will you join me?

I’ll also be finishing my spooky thrift shop Halloween book this coming week, too — The Witches of Bone Hill by Ava Morgyn ⤵

It’s different from almost everything I normally read, and I’m loving all of the cozy fall feelings it’s giving me.

So I suppose you can add that as another suggestion for taking care this week — read something delicious. And if you need a listening ear, I’m here.

Always.

Take care, my dear.

Take so much care,

Celeste

💛