This has been an amazing Wholistic Woman Retreat journey. It is true that it’s about the journey, and not the destination, or else we would have arrived in Sedona, AZ 10 years ago. We really needed the last decade to learn and grow our own programs, develop our community, and create a safe environment for women – and in the case of 2020, a safe way to travel with each other. For me, it’s easier to work backward starting with now – the present, and then retrieve the last 10 years of growth.
Traveling Sisterhood…
My life and business have been immersed in travel, and I am like “The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants” coach if you have ever seen that movie. Naturally, I have been focused on a WWR destination retreat experience because of my love for travel. Sedona was the soulful place to make that dream retreat a reality – just as WWR was a dream for our founder Carol. Twenty women in 2020 joined us in red rock country – my most favorite place. It was fun to have the founding coaches be my “wing women” for retreat take-off and other special WWR team members, including one of our past co-founders, coach Jeanette. Together, we arrived and it exceeded my expectations…Sedona sisters for life.
Be Whole…
When we started Wholistic Woman Retreats over 10 years ago the vision was to offer women retreats for one to two days and now we have experienced a three to four-day retreat! We also offered monthly in-person meet ups that turned virtual in 2020. Our group of founding coaches were go-getters putting on two retreats the first year – a one day and a two day! Oh my! We were just getting started. Wow, we thought we can do this with our team strengths that make us “whole” – which became our motto – Be Whole…in heart, mind, body, and spirit. We formed a like-minded Wholistic coach approach, like in “The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants”, the one pair of jeans fit the four best friends of different sizes and personalities, sharing them equally to lead them in heart and spirit and to feel braver. Our organization leads that way…loving your sisters and loving yourself.
Connection and community…
We learned over the decade that our women love retreats and wanted to retreat more often. Somewhere in the middle of our time as an organization we took monthly Build Your Own Business (BYOB) Success workshops from my business model and morphed them into our WWR community. The different venue locations, coaches, and creative topics opened the door from 10 to 20, to 30, to 40 and sometimes 50 women, month to month. The connections grew stronger over the years. This is one way we created a safe space in our community and developed the motto that we follow to this day…come as you are when you can.
Coaching Circle and Growth…
During this time we expanded our coaching community bringing on partner coaches. This is my favorite part of our growth as an organization. We are so much more and stronger together. We built internal and external coaching opportunities – supporting and meeting each other where we are and developing our coaching circle. We work as a team to strengthen our retreats, membership, alliances, sponsorship programs, and most importantly ourselves. We are women- on- the- grow becoming our best selves. Carol, our founder, became an author writing her first book Lost and Found; Laura, a co-founder, faced her fears with public speaking and jumped out of a plane – wait can we pause and say that again, Laura jumped out of a plane! For myself, I recognize my 15-year company milestone that includes joint ventures in airports with Minute Suites, the Travelers Retreat, and my Wholebeing Institute Certification in Positive Psychology. Our founding and partner coaches have all grown so much personally and professionally.
Celebration of sisterhood…wherever you are
We celebrate hundreds of women from our day retreats, overnight retreats, monthly events, international women’s day events, women’s conferences and organizations, and our Soulful Sedona destination retreat. This has been the time of my life. That’s when you know it is right – and feel a calling to go on. We now have businesses that believe in our organization and offer scholarship funds to assist our women-on-the-grow.
Gratitude, growth, connection, and celebration are words to wrap-up this year and this decade. Meaningful words that will be our foundation for what’s ahead. One of our founding sisters is now branching out on a new journey and one thing I know, like the “Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants”, is that we will be together even when we are apart. Thank you Laura for being on this 10-year journey. Thank you Carol for the invitation to be a part of something so much bigger than me. Thank you to all the WWR founders, partner coaches, community and members, sponsors, and alliance partners. Whether you have traveled one mile or hundreds of miles with Wholistic Woman Retreats, I look forward to being on this journey wherever you are… and celebrating sisterhood.
Off we go!