Plan Seasonal Retreats for Self-Care and to Reconnect to Your Purpose | Melanie Knight | Skillshare
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Plan Seasonal Retreats for Self-Care and to Reconnect to Your Purpose

teacher avatar Melanie Knight, Creativity, wellbeing, self-care

Watch this class and thousands more

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Taught by industry leaders & working professionals
Topics include illustration, design, photography, and more

Watch this class and thousands more

Get unlimited access to every class
Taught by industry leaders & working professionals
Topics include illustration, design, photography, and more

Lessons in This Class

    • 1.

      Introduction

      3:06

    • 2.

      Class project

      1:19

    • 3.

      Journaling & Recording

      3:15

    • 4.

      When?

      2:47

    • 5.

      Themes & Intentions

      1:44

    • 6.

      Where?

      1:46

    • 7.

      Activities

      4:49

    • 8.

      Overcoming Obstacles

      2:24

    • 9.

      Atmosphere

      2:32

    • 10.

      Resources

      2:14

    • 11.

      Planning

      0:22

    • 12.

      Journaling Prompts

      1:27

    • 13.

      At the End Of Your Retreat

      1:15

    • 14.

      Creating your own notebook

      12:45

    • 15.

      Class Project Reminder

      0:37

    • 16.

      Summary

      0:51

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About This Class

Seasonal retreats can help you to prioritise self-care, reconnect to your purpose and live your life more intentionally.

You might benefit from seasonal retreats if:

  • Your life sometimes feels out of balance
  • You feel like you’re often going through your life on autopilot
  • Some months blur into the next in a seemingly endless cycle of work, watching TV and sleeping.

Learn how to plan personal seasonal retreats that will help you to:

  • Reconnect to your vision, purpose, goals and intentions
  • Reflect on your achievements and habits
  • Feel inspired and refreshed
  • Refresh your creativity and generate new ideas
  • Connect to nature and the rhythms of the year

You will learn how to plan a seasonal retreat at home or away from home, using the prompts and worksheets provided or by making your own journal. 

We will explore:

  • Why do I need a seasonal retreat?
  • What is a seasonal retreat day?
  • How do I plan one?
  • What do I do on my retreat day?
  • How do I make it feel special?
  • A simple way to make your own retreat journal

Meet Your Teacher

Teacher Profile Image

Melanie Knight

Creativity, wellbeing, self-care

Teacher

I'm passionate about supporting people to develop self-care strategies to improve wellbeing and mental health.

I enjoy a variety of arts and crafts, particularly using Procreate to create digital illustrations.

See full profile

Level: Beginner

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Transcripts

1. Introduction: Hello. My name is Melanie Knight. Welcome to my class about planning personal and seasonal retreat days to give you space and time to reconnect to your purpose and your intentions. First, let's take a look at some of the signs that you might benefit from taking a day to reconnect to yourself. You might feel that your life is not in balance, that some things take up more of your time than you'd like or you don't have enough time for the things you want to do. Maybe you feel that you're sometimes going through life on autopilot, drifting from one day to the next with no clear sense of direction or intention. Perhaps you find that some months feel as if they blur into the next in a familiar routine of work, watching TV and sleeping, and you can't really remember what you've achieved. A retreat day can help you to reconnect your big picture: the values that are important to you, your purpose and direction, the goals you want to achieve, and how you want to intentionally live your life. It can give you time to reflect on what you've achieved and on how your life is going, and your habits. A day to yourself can help you to feel inspired for the month ahead and refreshed, ready to take on new challenges and goals. It can give you space to think more creatively and to generate new and fresh ideas. For example, if you've been feeling unsure about your direction for your career or business, a retreat can give you the space to come up with new possibilities or ideas. The seasonal aspect of your trtreat can help you to slow down and connect to nature and to the rhythms of the year. It can be easy to lose touch with the seasonal changes in our modern, often urban, environments. So what is a seasonal retreat day? I try to take seasonal retreat for about one day per month or at least eight days over the year. Sometimes it's not full day. An uninterrupted chunk of at least a few hours can work well. This is a day for you to spend time with yourself in peace, mindfulness, self-care, and reflection. Activities during your retreat day can include gentle movement, reading, journaling, a simple ritual, planning for the month ahead, creating something just for yourself, resting, and celebrating yourself and your achievements. With this class, I'll share some journal prompts for you to use on a retreat day. And I'll show you how to create a simple notebook to record your thoughts and insights. I hope you'll enjoy taking this class with me and learning how to plan your own personal seasonal retreat days. 2. Class project: Your project for this class will be to share part of your plan for your retreat day. During the class, we'll work through how to plan your seasonal retreat, either on the worksheets that I provided or in any other format that you choose. You can take a photo or a screenshot of your plan and upload it to your class project, or just write about your plan and your project description. After you've taken your retreat, you can edit your project to add a photo of something from your retreat day or some of your thoughts and reflections. I've created worksheets to help you to plan your day, which you can download from the projects and resources tab under the class video. This class and these worksheets will help you to plan where to take your retreat. We'll look at possible locations and how to create a retreat atmosphere, even if you're staying at home. You will set an intention for your retreat and then plan what you will do, choosing activities and resources that will work for you. We'll also look at how to make space and time for a retreat day within our busy lives. In the next video, we'll explore some different options to record your thoughts and journaling during your retreat. 3. Journaling & Recording: It can be helpful to decide in advance how you're going to record your thoughts and journaling during your retreat, as this may influence how you record your plans. I like to have my plan at the front of my notebook for the retreat so I can refer back to it easily during the day. One of the simplest ways is to use a notebook or sketchbook. You might already have one that you've been saving for a special occasion. Or you might want to purchase a notebook that feels right for this retreat. You could write your plans directly onto the first few pages of your notebook. This can also be a great way to avoid the fear of the first page of a new notebook on your retreat day. Or you could print out the planning worksheets at a size that fits your notebook and glue. them in. Some people prefer a digital journal, maybe using an app such as GoodNotes, Notability, Noteshelf, or another similar app that simulates a notebook on your tablet, phone, or computer. You can import the PDF worksheet into a digital journal and write your plan onto the worksheet. Making your own journal or notebook means you can include different types of paper, pockets and printed worksheets. If you're making an A5 notebook, you can print out the file called 'plan and review worksheets - DIY notebook'. If you can print it as a booklet onto A4 paper, this will be A5 size when folded in half and you can include these sheets as pages in your journal. In a bonus video. at the end of this class, I'll show you a simple way to create your own notebook. I'll also create a full class on here later about creating notebooks, so please follow me to be notified about my new classes. Here you can see the setting on my printer to print a PDF file as booklet. If you choose 'both sides', this will print four pages onto one sheet of paper. The settings may be different depending on the app you're using or your printer. So you may need to look up how to do this for your printer. Your first task is to decide how you want to journal and record your retreat day. The way you are recording your retreat will influence which downloadable file will work best for you. The file called 'planning worksheet' can be printed as normal on full-size A4 sheets or as a booklet, and then folded in half to give an A5 size pamphlet. Or you can import this PDF file into a digital notebook app. With the editable version, you can type directly into the text boxes if you have a PDF app that supports this. You could then print out the completed worksheet with all of your responses. The version called 'plan and review worksheets for DIY notebook' is designed to be printed onto A4 paper as a booklet, so that it is A5 size when folded in half. Now that you've decided how you're going to record your plan, go ahead and download the appropriate version of the worksheet from the projects and resources tab under the video. In the next video, we'll look at how to link your retreat with seasonal events. 4. When?: I find it useful to link my retreats to a particular seasonal event or celebration. This can give me a broad focus or theme for my retreat. I don't always take my retreat on the exact day, but I look at events that are happening around that time. In the downloads under the projects and resources tab, you will find a sheet to download and print out, which gives the dates for some seasonal events that you could use and themes associated with each phase. You don't have to use any of these; you could choose your date and intention based on what you need in your life right now. The most familiar events are the changing seasons. These can give you a focus for things to look out for on a mindful walk. Or you could think about what themes you associate with each season. Since ancient times, people have studied the changes to the position of the sun in the sky and held celebrations and festivals around the times of solstices and equinoxes. Equinoxes mark the two points in the year when the day and the night are of equal length. Solstices mark the points when the day is at its longest and the shortest. Pagan traditions also sometimes mark the points in between the solstices and equinoxes. And some of these were used as the basis for Christian and other festivals. You don't have to follow any particular religion or spiritual practice. The themes associated with each festival are fairly universal to a range of cultures and more to what is happening in nature than to a particular spiritual practice. The dates shown are for the Northern Hemisphere. If you're in the southern hemisphere, you'll be at the opposite point in the cycle. Because the moon influences the earth's tides. It is believed that it also influences our human bodies through the water contained within us. New moons are believed to be a particularly good time for setting intentions for the coming month. Those who believe in astrology also link the moon with the zodiac sign that it is passing through. The downloadable sheet shows the dates for each moon phase this year and the astrological themes associated with each of the new moons. Or you may choose to simply take your retreat whenever it fits in best with your schedule. Choose when you will take your first or your next retreat day, and write the date on your planning worksheet. You might also want to consider how long you will have available and write this down too. In the next video, we'll explore how you can set an intention for your retreat day. 5. Themes & Intentions: I find it helpful to have a broad intention for my retreat day. This can help to guide the activities I choose. Your intention might have come up from the themes associated with events from the last video. Or here are three more ways to think about your intentions. You might have a broad goal for what you want to get out of your retreat day. For example, to restore and refresh myself, to reconnect to my vision and goals, to review and refresh my habits, to feel inspired, or to review the balance of different areas of my life. Or you could have a question that you want to explore. This could be a very broad question such as, 'where is my life out of balance?', 'What do I want to focus on next?', 'What do I need to change?' Or 'what is going well in my life?' Or you might have a question about a specific situation of choice that you're facing. For example, 'should I change my job?' or ;how can I make more money?; Another option is to think about how you want to feel during or after your retreat day. Do you need to feel rested, inspired, creative, energized, relaxed, balanced, for example. The next section to fill in on your planning worksheet is 'Why?' Write down your theme or your intention of your retreat. In the next video, we'll think about possible locations for a retreat day. 6. Where?: You can take your retreat day almost anywhere. It doesn't have to be expensive or involve booking anywhere. You could stay at home for your treat day. In a later video, we'll look at ways to create a retreat atmosphere at home. If you have a garden, you could use this to explore some of the seasonal changes just outside your door. Particularly in warmer weather, you could take part of your retreat day outside, for example, journaling and a quiet spot in a park, on a peaceful beach, or in the woods somewhere. Even in colder or wetter weather, I try to incorporate a mindful walk in nature into my day. If you prefer to get out of the house, but still want to be indoors, consider a location such as a cafe or library for part of your day. Many libraries have desks, especially if they have a reference area. A cafe can be a good spot for some indulgent refreshments, as well as space to sit with your journal. If you are able to take a night away, this can be a great opportunity to make a retreat feel longer and more separate from your day-to-day life. There are many options depending on your budget and preferences. For example, a campsite, an Airbnb, a bed and breakfast, or hotel. Alternatively, research retreat centers, near you. Some of them will allow you to use their facilities for your own DIY retreat. Or you may find they offer retreats that include some flexibility and time to yourself. On your planning worksheet, fill in the location for your retreat day. In the next video, we'll look at some of the activities you might choose to do on your retreat day. 7. Activities: This is where you get to really personalize your retreat day plan with activities that work for you and your theme and intention. For an easy reference guide, you can download the list of ideas that I will be going through from the projects and resources tab. Aim for a balance of activities throughout your day. Try to mix up physical and mental exercises. Plan for more active and more restful activities. Balance reflective activities with more creative ones. This will ensure that you don't get too tired or overwhelmed during the day. I like to start the day with some gentle movements such as yoga or walk. I also plan short bursts of dancing or walking to keep my energy up during the day. Reading can be a good way to kick-start some inspiration. This can be a good opportunity to delve into a self-development book or to slow down with some thought-provoking poetry. I often buy a well-being themed magazine and save it for my retreat day. This also means that I have a supply of images and words that I can cut out and use in my journal for collage or just for decoration. If you prefer listening, download a podcast or an audio book instead. Set aside some time for reflection. In the resources section, you'll find some journaling prompts, including questions to write about and lists you could create. You could also general about a question that you would like to explore. I also like to do in life assessment where I evaluate each area of my life and look for areas that need a bit of focus or a boost. I have provided a worksheet called 'Wheel of life' that you can use to help you to do this. A simple ritual can be a good way to start or end the day, to focus your mind on your intention, or to relax. This can be as spiritual or a secular as you choose. If you have tarot or oracle cards, you can use these to draw a card to reflect on or for a more formal spread. Lighting a fire or a candle is a simple way to mark an occasion or create a particular atmosphere. Planting seeds could represent setting intentions, and they can act as a reminder of these as you watch the plant grow. You could relax with a visualization or meditation, or give yourself some Reiki or a massage. There are some good sound bath videos on YouTube. After reflecting on how things are going in your life at the moment, you will probably have identified things that you would like to achieve or change. This is a good time to look at your diary for the month ahead and see why you could make some changes. You will also probably want to set some intentions or goals for the next few weeks. Or identify a habit that you'd like to focus on or some action steps to take. You could create a vision board as a visual representation of these. Allow some time to create something. This doesn't have to be an Instagrammable masterpiece! It can be something very personal, just for yourself. You could link this to a mindful walk, for example, choosing a theme, to lookout for and photograph or sketch, or creating something using objects that you find outside. You might want to create an affirmation, quote, talisman or small altar area to remind you of your focus or intention for the month ahead. Or you might want to lose yourself in the relaxing repetition of a crochet or weaving project, giving your mind time and space to wonder. Give yourself some time to rest. You could take a nap, meditate, spend time in nature, read something relaxing, or try some breathing or mindfulness exercises. I like to end my day by celebrating. Celebrate yourself, your recent achievements, or celebrate giving yourself this time and space. You could plan a special meal or indulgent treat. Maybe buy yourself something special, get a massage or do some self massage, or just end your day with a pampering bath. On your planning worksheet, write down some activities that you want to do during your retreat. Some activities might fit into more than one category. You might want to set a loose schedule for your day to give you an idea of how a fit into the time you have available. In the next video, we'll look at some of the things that might get in the way of your retreat day and how to plan to minimize their impact. 8. Overcoming Obstacles: It's not always easy to take a day for yourself without being interrupted or feeling guilty. But some advanced planning can help to minimize interruptions and guilt and allow you to enjoy your day to yourself. If you live with housemates or a partner, this could lead to interruptions during the day. You could choose a day for your retreat when the people you live with are out at work or doing their own activities. Or you could think about other locations where you can take your retreat. Look back at the previous video about this for more ideas. If neither of those are possible, ask the people you live with not to disturb you during the retreat day. Try to choose a room where you can be alone without any distractions. Having young children around will make it hard to give yourself uninterrupted space and time. Consider arranging a baby sitter or for them to spend the day out with your partner or at their grandparents. Or maybe you can make arrangements to swap child care with a friend. Another thing that could get in the way of your retreat might be feeling guilty about other things that you feel you 'should' be doing. Decide what you need to get done before your retreat day. For example, getting ahead on some housework, or crossing some items off your to-do list. Or just ignore them for a day! Hopefully, you can return to your to-do list after your retreat with a renewed focus. Or you might realize that some of the things on your list just don't need to be done, or maybe not by you. Social media and e-mail can distract you from the atmosphere that you are trying to create on your retreat day. If you can, disconnect and turn off your phone and your computer, or at least turn off non-essential notifications. Let people know that you'll be disconnected if you think they might be worried about not being able to get hold of you. Print out worksheets in advance, so that you don't need to turn your computer on. If you want to use online resources such as visualizations, videos, or music, bookmark these so you can find them quickly without becoming distracted. On your planning sheet, identify any obstacles that might get in the way for you. Make a plan for how you can prevent or minimize these distractions. In the next video, we'll look at how to create a retreat atmosphere, even if you're staying at home. 9. Atmosphere: Consider the atmosphere that you want to create for your retreat. You might want to think about how spas and retreat centres create a peaceful, luxurious environment. Began to think about what you want to experience on your retreat day with each of your senses. What do you want to see? A tidy space can feel relaxing and peaceful. You could accessorize with twinkling fairy lights or colorful crystals. Maybe buy yourself a bunch of flowers or pick some from your garden. You could also think about colours that link with the season or with your theme. What would you like to hear? You might choose different sounds for different activities: some in silence, others with a gentle background of nature sounds, and different play lists for energizing and relaxing. Prepare your playlist in advance. What scents would you like to smell? You could use scented candles, essential oils, incense, perfume or a diffuser to create an energizing or relaxing atmosphere. Think about the flavors you want to experience. I try to incorporate lots of healthy nourishing foods, plus a few indulgent treats, often choosing foods that are in season when possible. And make sure you've got plenty of drinks available or herbs and fruit to add to water to make it more interesting. Depending on the season, you might want to surround yourself with soft cozy textures and blankets, or light and luxurious silk. Think about how you can incorporate some touch and maybe sent through products such a luxurious hand cream or body lotion. Plan what you will wear on your retreat day. You might want to choose comfy cozy clothes or to dress up in an outfit that makes you feel good. Accessorize with jewelry and perfume, maybe choosing items that have particular significance for you or link with your theme. Bring out your playful side with a temporary tattoo or that flower head dress that you bought at a festival years ago! Use your planning worksheet to make a list of what you want to experience on your retreat day. In the next video, we'll consider some of the resources that you might want to have available on your retreat day. 10. Resources: During the week before my retreat, I usually have a basket or box where I start putting aside items that I want to have available for my retreat. If you're going out for the day, you'll want to pack a bag with some of the items that you'll need. The first thing you'll probably want is a range of stationery. You'll have the notebook that you've chosen an earlier video, and you'll probably also want to have your planner or maybe a sketch book available. Some small blank pieces of card are useful for jotting down quotes or important thoughts, or for creating small pieces of artwork. Gather a range of colored pens plus scissors and glue. I also like to have some inspirational stickers that I can add to pages in my journal. Consider what you'll need for your art and craft project and what you might want to use in your journal. I usually have a small tin of watercolor paints, which I use for artwork and also handwritten quotes. Old magazines are useful for images for collage. And ribbon or thread can be useful for many things, such as tying items into your journal or decorating items. Gather some things that will provide inspiration, such as a favorite deck of tarot or oracle cards or some affirmation or quote cards, and books, poems or magazines. I like to do a special food shop a day or two before my retreat where I look for a few indulgent treats as well as nourishing seasonal foods. I have a box or basket in my kitchen where I put aside non-perishable snacks so that they're readily available on the day. You could create a menu for the day. If you're going out, plan possible venues where you could stop for a meal or refreshments. Or pack a picnic. You could even pack a picnic to eat at home or in your garden. Identify the resources that you would like for your retreat day and list them on your planning sheet. You might want to start gathering these resources together in a bag, box, or basket. In the next video, we'll finish off our plan for our retreat day. 11. Planning: To finish off our plan, we're going to identify any actions that we need to take before our retreat day. Go back through your plan and identify anything that you need to book, buy, or prepare. Write a list on your worksheet and start getting those items done so that you are ready for your retreat day. In the next video, I'll share some more resources that you can use on your retreat day for journaling. 12. Journaling Prompts: I've created a few prompts and a worksheet that you might want to use in the reflection and planning activities on your retreat day. You can download these from the projects and resources tab under the video. The journal prompt sheet contains questions that can help you to reflect on the last month and to plan for the month ahead. I usually print these out on sticker paper and cut them out so that I can stick the questions into my journal and write underneath. Or you could print them on paper and glue them into your journal. One thing I find helpful for reflecting on different areas of my life is a life assessment or Wheel of Life. In the large sections around the outside, I write a sentence or two to describe what it would look like if I was at 10 for this area. I try to keep it realistic and personal to me. Then I color in between one and 10 of the smaller segments to show how I would currently rate that area of my life. That usually shows a few areas that are rated lower than the others, so I identify at the bottom of the sheet, the action I could take to move that area up to the next rating. I've also created some prompts for creating lists, such as a list of what brings you joy or what you are grateful for. Again, you could stick the prompt into your journal. And then write underneath. In the next video, we'll look at some of the possible outcomes of your retreats day. 13. At the End Of Your Retreat: I try to finish my retreat day having created something that will remind me of my intention or my focus for the coming month. This is often in the creative activity or from a page in my journal. For example, you could create a small piece of art or write out quote or affirmation, maybe on a small piece of card that you can keep visible somewhere in your home. Or you could create a small altar area in your home with objects that will remind you of your intention, or a simple talisman that you can wear or carry with you. Towards the end of your retreat day, go through your journal and identify any actions that came up that you want to take over the next month. At the end of your retreat day or the day after, spend a bit of time reflecting about how your retreat went. Think about what worked well and what you enjoyed. Also consider what didn't work so well or what you didn't enjoy, and how you could do anything differently on your next retreat day. Over the following month, look back at your journal regularly to remind yourself of the insights that you've gained. Keep your reminder somewhere where you will see it daily, for example, on your desk or near your bed. 14. Creating your own notebook: I'm going to show you a simple way to make your own retreat notebook. I'll also do a more in-depth tutorial on different ways to create notebooks in a future class, so please follow me to be notified about my new classes. You will need some sheets of paper. This could be a mixture of different types, ,or example, plain paper, drawing or watercolor paper, tracing paper, patterned paper, and lined paper. An easy way to get lined paper to use in your notebook is to take a few pages from the center of a cheap lined notebook or one of those notebooks that you started using and never filled up. You'll also need a sheet of card for the cover. To bind the notebook, you'll need a stapler. This is easiest with a long-arm stapler, but you can also use an ordinary stapler if you place something soft underneath, such as an eraser or a large lump of Blu-tack. For an even easier option, you can buy elastics that are designed to be used with traveler's notebook systems. I found them on Amazon and I've included a link in the resources section. Print out the 'plan and review worksheets for DIY notebook' using the booklet setting. If you'd like to use the Wheel of Life worksheet, print this out on A4 paper. You might also want to print out the journal prompts and journal lists. You can either print these on sticker paper or you can use glue and stick them in. First, I'm going to arrange all my pieces of paper. I've already folded all of them in half. I'm making an A5 size booklet, so I'm using A4 sheets that I've folded in half and then just pressed down with a bone folder to get a nice sharp crease. You could just do this with a finger or with the edge of a ruler. This piece of card is going to be my cover. Then I'm going to use this junk mail envelope to create two pockets. So on one side, I've cut off a corner to create this pocket. On the other side will be this window, which I thought might be something interesting. I will probably cover, the envelope in some collage, at some stage. The first thing I want in my booklet is my plan. So I've printed this as a booklet so that at the front are the pages with my plan and on the back is the space for my review of the next month and the review of the retreat, and some deliberate blank pages for anything else I want to add. I'm trying to line things up as I go. Then I'm just going to mix in some different types of paper. I've got some sketchbook or watercolor paper and some tracing paper. I've got some double-sided patterned paper, which might make a good basis for collage. This is a slightly different size, So I'm just going to try and line it up centered. Some pages are also slightly longer than others, so I'm going to trim it at the end. I've got some ordinary blank printer paper. I've taken some pages out of a lined notebook. I just pulled out the staples, and this is a nice, easy way to get paper that's lined in the right direction. Then I've got some plain colored paper and tracing paper. I quite like being able to use tracing paper to make layered images by using paint or pen on tracing paper so the collage or painting below shows through. Some plain paper again, and lined paper. More plain paper. And then in the center I want my Wheel of Life assessment because I want to be able to use this at full size. So that's going to go on the top, so it becomes the center. The easiest way to bind all of this is to use these elastics, which I found on Amazon, that are designed for travelers notebook systems. And these simply slip over the entire notebook and hold of the pages in place. This is a great option for flexibility because you can take out the pages, rearrange them and then either leave them bound like this or staple them when you're completely finished. So I quite often use my notebooks like this on my retreat day and then staple them more permanently afterwards. But I'm going to show you how to staple them today. The first thing is to try and make sure everything's lined up the way I want it to, just trying to push those in the fold, make sure they're all lined up there. And then I'm going to use a couple of binder clips to hold it in position once I'm happy. One at the top and one at the bottom. If you've got a long arm stapler, that makes this quite easy because you can simply place that on there and staple in the center. But if you don't, most staplers are able to be opened out flat. They take a little persuasion sometimes, but you can usually open them out completely flat like that. And then I just use a rubber underneath my pages to stop it going through to the table. So I place the rubber underneath where I'm going to staple, line up my pages over the rubber. And then you can staple and pull it off the rubber. You can see it leaves the points sticking up. And you can just push those down with the edge of a pair of scissors or something. So they're completely flat. There's a slight bulge here, so I'm just going to move that off. And I'm going to do the same with the other part there, placing my rubber underneath. You can measure where to put these staples. But I usually just do it by eye. Sometimes it gets a little bit wonky like that. That's better. Just pull the rubber off those ends. And push those down. It doesn't look very neat at the moment. I've got lots of pages sticking out. And you will find the middle always sticks out because of the distance here between the fold. So what you can do is use a metal ruler. And a craft knife to trim through all of your pages. The key here is to just try and do a few pages at a time. You're not trying to get through the entire book at once. So you want a nice sharp blade - I've put a new one in for this video. A safety ruler helps because it keeps your fingers out of harm's way. But you can do it carefully with a flat metal ruler. And I'm just going to slice down there. I've probably only cut through the cover on that slice. With the next slice, I'll get a little bit deeper into the next page. And just keep going, to cut through all of those pages. So you can see I've finally cut through all of those pages. Hopefully I've got a nice neat edge. Just might need to shave off a few of those raggedy bits. Very carefully. Shaving those clean. And I could trim my bottom here as well where it's got a bit out of line. So I could just trim top and bottom if I want to. I've printed my journal prompts on to sticker paper because then I can just peel them off and stick them onto the page where I want to do that journaling. So I've cut them out. And I'm going to tuck those into my pocket to keep them ready for my retreat day. And then I'm going to do the same with these journal lists. You can see I've printed these but I haven't yet cut them out. I'll just tuck those in there until I cut them out. You might want to start decorating your cover before your retreat day. Sometimes I also start decorating one of my first pages with some images that link with the season. So for example, my Easter retreat. I did this page with images linked to Ostara. And there you have your own retreat journal with space for your planning, space for artwork, collage, journalling, your life assessments, and then space to make your plans for the coming months and review your retreat. So plenty of space for your journaling and all of your creative activities. 15. Class Project Reminder: Don't forget to share your class project. Now that you've completed your planning worksheet, please share a photo or a screenshot of part of your plan, for example, the activities page. If you're creating your own retreat journal, it would be great if you could share a photograph of that as well. After your retreat, you could take photo of one of your activities or a page from your journal. And then you can add this to your project by clicking on 'Edit Project'. Or you could add some writing about how your retreat experience went. 16. Summary: Now you're ready to take your seasonal retreat day. You've planned the location and how to create the right atmosphere. You've set an intention for your retreat and then planned the activities and resources that will help you to achieve this. And you've thought about how to overcome anything that might get in the way of an uninterrupted and guilt-free day to yourself. I'd love to see your plan in your class project before you retreat and your reflections after your retreat. I also really appreciate it if you could leave a review to let me know what you thought of the class. And please follow me on here and on Instagram at @imperfectlyme42 to stay updated on my future classes. Thank you so much for taking this class with me. Now, go and enjoy the benefits of your personal seasonal retreat day!