Dates: 1st – end April – 1 month training

About: With an emphasis on safety, we work to develop and refine technique, alignment and professional qualities.  This course offers plenty of personal attention, support and encouragement to build confidence and help each student experience the strength, discernment and joy that come through Yoga.  Move forward with your practice at your own level of proficiency whether you decide to become a teacher or not. Being a Yoga teacher means working creatively together with students to support their evolution at all levels. It can help us to focus our lives with love and compassion.

Cost: €1800 all inclusive of..

●   Two Asana classes per day
●   Daily Chanting and Meditation
●   Delicious Vegetarian Meals
●   Anatomy and Physiology, Teaching Pregnancy and Kid’s Yoga
●   Ample Teaching Practice
●   Introduction to Yoga Philosophy

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Or experienced the amazing feeling of riding in harmony with another horse-being, jumping fences and taking the pace and the obstacles, all in your stride?

As time is speeding up, being able to ride the pace, stay calm in the saddle, feel confident that we are holding the reins is all increasingly important.

Knowing how to overcome obstacles is vital.   Rather than fall into emotional spirals of fear, anxiety and the many symptoms that make up stress, with the right strategies, the “challenges” become opportunities for us to reach higher, expand our comfort zones and even begin to enjoy the exhilaration of flying over fences into pastures new.

One of my favourite riding instructors gave me immaculate advice: sit back and allow your horse to carry you forward in life.

So making the time to meditate, to calm your mind, enables the calm to resonate at a cellular level.   Yoga and Qi Gong and Tai Chi bring you back into your body, helping you to centre, focus and feel strong, flowing energy.  Any combination of the above, practiced regularly, with joy (rather than pressure) will help you reconnect with your life-horse at a deeper level.  This will enable you to get into your life stride: so you can ride in greater harmony and allow your horse to carry you up and over challenges along the way.

There are clear steps to model for jumping fences on horse-back successfully and they can be beautifully translated into day-to-day living:

* Walk the course first – on foot, see the reality of the size of the fences and work out how many “strides” you will need to jump each one.    It is essential to be grounded! The faster the pace of your life, the more important it is that you can feel firmly grounded, in your body and are able to consider the best realistic strategy for any challenging situation.  Look at the fence from both sides – take off and landing.  See difficult situations from various perspectives and this will help you distance yourself emotionally and find the more balanced, sleek and success-oriented solution.

* When you are preparing to jump the fences, warm up first, jumping smaller fences in the practice ring first

Ensure you are not taking on too much! If a challenge or situation feels overwhelming, look at bite size pieces that you feel you can deal with.  Build your confidence and then have that final face to face conversation that takes the most strength, clarity and courage!

* Find your own mantra that helps you stay in the zone

*Create an internal belief that you CAN jump the fence! and repeat it like a mantra “over” and “over” again.  Ensure it is positively stated and in the present tense, this will encode your cellular memory, so that you begin to resonate this belief: that means you will be feeling it as a truth, rather than purely something positive you are saying.

* Practice, practice, practice – remember there is no failure, only feedback to help you adapt and refine your techniques.

* Visualise, in a multi-sensory way, what you will be seeing, hearing and feeling when you have cleared the fence successfully.  Write this down and read it back to yourself regularly.  Just imagine… the excitement and anticipation of that feeling of clearing the fence.  Maybe even relief!

Enjoy becoming a master of your own life, see the obstacles as opportunities for you to heighten your awareness, expand your consciousness and blossom magnificently, in body, heart and mind.

For life coaching to enhance your ability to sail over the higher fences and navigate the cheeky obstacles that turn up unexpectedly…. contact larah@ibizaretreats.com.

Do you need to deeply relax, regenerate, recover? Disconnect from your daily life, from stress, trouble and worries? Receive clarity about life issues, job problems or your love life?

This individually tailored retreat, supports your own ability to find a new inner balance within – physically, emotionally and spiritually. We guide you through a process of transformation in which you can tap into your inner resources, experience fresh inspiration and gain a new perspective. Discover your true potential as you listen to the call of your soul!

Date: 18th – 23rd March

Cost: €795 all inclusive

What’s included: * Daily yoga to tune up the body! * 5 nights accommodation on a single occupancy basis * 2 delicious vegetarian meals per day * 2 guided meditations * 4 body treatments during your stay

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President Ikeda – SGI International – world peace movement

When we accumulate the treasures of the heart, the treasures of the body and the store-house come into our life automatically…

So this Valentine’s week take care to notice the treasures your heart wishes to accumulate, experience and receive.

Ask yourself: How do I want my heart to feel? Radiant? Glowing? Light and free? Open? Joyful? Childlike? Happy?

Make a list of your heart-treasures and notice how amazing this enables you to feel.

Literally, just by thinking about it and focussing on it and writing down. you are drawing in this energy and receiving it back from the Universe – it is the law of attraction in action.

Then:

* Believe you deserve this!

* Ensure you are affirming that you are allowing them into your life

* Practice feeling heart-opening, heart-warming, bubbling-over gratitude…. (you really can ham it up here!) so that you can activate the Universal law of attraction and attract even more treasures of the heart into your life.

May you enjoy great love this week and spread it far and wide.

May this love fill you with joy and inspire your journey in life.

With lots of love…. the Ibiza Retreats team….

Love is all you need!

And you have so much more to share and to give…. with and to the world around you!

Yet as long as we are depending on the love of another to feel love flowing through us… we are dependent.  This love can never be as consistent or permanent as we (and our egos) need it to be.

Love is a feeling, an emotion and a magical vibration.  When we are feeling love pulsing through us we emanate a submolecular level, a super-high frequency that attracts more loving experiences and people in to our lives.

So how do you get more of this delicious, nutritious love-fest into your life?

Focus on loving yourself – as well as others – this Valentines!

Have you noticed how wonderful you feel when you give of yourself self-lessly to others?

Keep doing this! By all means.  Yet for the purpose of giving yourself a love-injection that will uplift you into spring, for this February focus on loving yourself and appreciating your body, feeding your heart-felt needs and nourishing your spirit within.

1. Loving yourself & Appreciating your Body

Ahhhh the inner-critic.  How often do you actually look into the mirror and appreciate who and what you see before you.  We all know that most “perfect” images in magazines are photo-shopped – yet there is part of us that still buys into it.  So start to vitally appreciate yourself and your body - say thank you to your body for being strong and carrying you through life so well despite all the toxins we often subject it to.  Thank your body for everything that it does.  Focus on the parts that you love about your body, your curving hips, your finger-nails, your smile, your softness.

2. Feeding your heart-felt Needs

Have you made a vision board?  This is just slightly different…. ask yourself what do I NEED in my life to feel the happiest, most joyful, most contented I can be?   It may be to feel TRUST and LIGHTNESS and FREEDOM, it may be being in nature, swimming…  create a needs board – or simply write a list (like the below).  This will bring it to your attention – and where attention goes, energy flows.  You will naturally start caring more for your needs.

And this then runs on to…

3. Nourishing Your Spirit

Your spirit is like a 5 year old child, light and happy and free.  It is that part of you that, if it were socially permissable to do so, would be often dancing in the rain, laughing out loud in the middle of a packaged tube, would be singing at the top of your voice.  Your spirit loves expression, the care-free creative expression of you in your essence: the happy, healthy, vital core of you.

So how can you engage with this part of yourself?  Think about all the things that you simply LOVE to do! That fill your heart with joy – without any goals or achievement attached, where the joy is in the doing and experiencing:

* Painting
* Savouring a delicious cup of tea in bed first thing in the morning
* Listening to exquisite classical music
* Practising yoga in the sunshine first thing in the morning
* Running through fields of flowers as fast as I can

And then…….. focus on doing them – just for February! And notice how, in loving yourself, you attract more and more of this wonderful high vibration into your life….  and how you have so much more to share with your family, with your partner, with your loved ones around you.

Beautiful!

The retreat takes place in an idyllic ancient finca – welcome to Casa Corazon (house of the heart). Birdsong, misty sun rises to melt even the most hardened of hearts and carpets of purple morning glory.

Enjoy inspirational, balancing guided meditations with beautiful Valerie – one of the wise-woman of the island – to help you realise your goals.

Let us nourish you with healthy organic food, and guide you to balance. See – it can be reached after all. It just takes a little effort. x
Dates: 16th – 19th May
Cost: £495 per person
Duration: 3 nights and 4 days

Includes
* Accommodation
* Full board
* All meditations and support

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Perhaps your prefer to pick up a book that helps you think and feel more positively (I just love Dr Wayne Dwyer’s the Power of your Intention) or maybe you open up your iphone and search online, following your favourite blogs and preferred journalists and writers.

So if you opt for news – newsflash! What you are reading can dramatically change your life!  Right now, whatever you are reading is stimulating emotional responses in your body that are changing the way you think and feel physically and neurologically.

What are the first words you read each morning?

So just like the food that you eat, how careful are you with the words that you read?

We can all too easily forget that when we are reading news, it is already through somebody else’s eyes.  It has been translated into an angle, a focus that their editor (and audience) requires to keep feeding a need for more of a certain type of information.

We are emotional beings and we are driven by our thoughts and emotions.  Newspapers sell well when there is a “big piece of news” that causes many people to react and to feel something. Headlines appear on tea-time television.

How often is this feeling something good? How often is the news simply making you feel more negative, worried and fearful because of what “they” say about the world’s economic situation, the ongoing seige in Libya, civil wars in Africa… how does that make you feel about yourself? about life? about our world?

There is SO much good in the world.

There is so much bravery, compassion, courage and beauty.

Yet how often do we actually get to read GOOD NEWS?  How often does the news you read actually inspire you to think and feel better things about the situation, to send them loving prayers and intentions, or to take some form of positive action to support a leader who is bravely risking their life to go against the will-power of institutions and dictatorships?

How many of you reading this have stopped listening to the radio, watching the news on TV and “filter” the information in newspapers to avoid succumbing to the doubts and fears that sadness that not just the stories, also the way that they are told, can encourage?

I most certainly get my news filtered!  And then I look for positive aspects to chant for, to meditate on, how can I, little me, support or feel good towards this situation?

What a gift to pick up the new DeTodo.  An Ibiza-wide broadsheet that helps you find “almost everything” that you are looking for in Ibiza.  Lovely David Moss, the editor, has revamped and revitalised De Todo Good News Paper for 2012: it is officially Ibiza’s first GOOD NEWS PAPER! Check them out online here: http://www.detodoenibiza.com/

To write a GOOD NEWS story, the focus needs to be on encouraging the reader to think and feel positively towards the situation.  To put a situation in a positive light, a cup “half-full” approach, this needs to be the new angle for journalism.

Science is increasingly meeting with spirituality in the new consciousness that “everything is energy”.  Quantum physics can be both proved and also can blow our mind with concepts our conditioned mind cannot yet grasp fully, about time-space reality.

What more and more of us are agreeing with is that the power of our thought is phenomenal.   That when many minds get together to meditation, to pray, to think the same thing collectively, this has an enormous impact, consciously and subliminally on a person, a situation or event.

This has been used negatively in the past, to drive fear and create support for violent and aggressive actions.

Yet we can all come together, wherever we are in the world and choose to think and feel positively about situations that are happening.  Like the millions of people around the world who prayed simultaneously for the water to be clean and clear after the radioactive waste disaster in Japan.  These situations more and more are encouraging us to take positive, affirmative, life-enhancing action.

Our next blog is about the Water of Life… and the power of meditation, of choosing your thoughts, of the words that we think and feel on us and the world around us.  So that your power to positively change your world – and the world around you, will be, like a clear glass of water, clear and life-givingly transparent.

Lots of Love x

Sunset at the pool - Shunya, Ibiza

Set in a beautiful location and specially-chosen for it’s inspirational setting, this retreat will provide you with the perfect environment to really focus on your writing. With top author and Booker Prize nominee Carol Birch and her team to guide you.

An ancient finca in lush countryside – with sunset views over the infinity pool.  Nourishing food, the odd yoga class if you so wish and beautiful beach walks.

Relax, open your mind and let the creativity flow….

Dates: 19th – 26th May

Cost: £1150 per person

Includes

* Accommodation
* Full board (apart from free day when breakfast is provided only)
* All tuition and workshops

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Just Stop! Yoga and Life Coaching Retreats this Spring Time

Just Stop! Yoga & Life Coaching for a wonderful Lifestyle Detox this springtime!

Dates: March 27th – 31st

Join Larah Davis, Rebekah Fensome and the team of world-class teachers & therapists from Ibiza Retreats that make up the Just Stop! team to tailor-make your retreat to bring you life-enhancing benefits for body, soul and mind.  Refuel with plenty of tools & techniques.  Empower your spring into summer-time. Find fresh focus and feel fabulous in body and mind as we support you to reconnect with your life path, your life purpose and plenty of inspiration from beach trips and cliff-top walks on our beautiful white island.

In the heart & soul-warming Can Morrel, with sabina wood beams, beautiful fig trees and hectares of countryside around, just 10 minutes from the turquoise waters of Benirras beach.  Soak up plenty of Ibiza’s magical natural energy!

- A professional and experienced team of teachers & therapists

- Study of yoga to develop your own practice

- Life Coaching & Wellness Coaching to support you with practical strategies to maintain your balance when back in reality

Cost from €860 (sharing) including

• Room and delicious full-board fresh, seasonal organic cuisine
• 5 yoga sessions (for all levels) with pranayama breathwork and meditation
• Life Coaching 1:1 session, Wellness & Energy Coaching 1:1 session
• Full body stress release massage or cranio-sacral therapy
• Mind Body Spirit Concierge service with Ibiza Retreats

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How is everything happening? Precisely in the way you willed it to for this year…. or, are you needing to think and be flexible?  To find new “positions” that help balance situations?  Just like on the yoga mat?

Here are some practical tips to become more of a “witness” to be able to “observe” the situations unfolding, rather than feeling “stuck in the middle” of situations, of negotations between clients and suppliers, this will allow you to respond in the best ways, with courage, with fluidity and with grace.

Just like a chameleon, you can watch and listen and learn and await with poise for the perfect moment to say the right things.. without pushing or pressing an agenda….

This is brilliant for resolving challenging situations and changing situations within all types of relationships – at work, within your romantic relationships, families and friends.

It will set you on a life-yoga path for your year ahead and help you be more in the flow of life – where the right things that really are best for you flow to you more easily!

If we feel ourselves striving and pushing to hard, it is because we are going against the current.

So give this a go and learn how to flow….  simply:

Be like a chameleon!

The animal card for a chameleon talks about being sensitive, being the silent witness, rather that reacting on emails and writing hurriedly to try and save and resolve, rather step back, allow yourself to become still and to breathe and to blend in with the background.  Then, as you watch events unfold, you can contribute sensitively to support the way that the situation is meant to flow.  This is not about being passive, just as in many yoga asanas, like Tadasana (Mountain Pose) we are actively engaged with life, rooting to the earth and to nature, relaxed in our body yet strong and connected, all muscles are prepared and ready to respond at the right moment, for the clearest next movements, following the next conscious breathe.

1.  Stop – look – listen:

To the emails, to the conversations, allow others to speak, to offer their perspectives, their ideas and their insights (every challenging or uncomfortable situation offers a LOT of growth and learning)

Watch the correspondence, look at the patterns in different people’s actions and behaviours, listen to the dialogues.

2. Remember – what is the HIGHEST GOOD? What is it that all of us in this situation wish to happen, to achieve, to transpire?

What is our common goal?

What is YOUR truth in the situation?  Does the achievement of the original goal REALLY feel good to you – or, now that you have looked and listened more deeply, are you happy if events happen in a different way? Could this open up more space and time for other opportunities to blossom?

3. Reflect – on the truth – and when you are asked for a response – reflect the truth!  That is all you need to do! Just like a chameleon allow the light and the true colours to flow through you.   This will help you see things for what they are, to help you clarify the best path of action for you and for everyone concerned.

Its that time…. January…. when our body most wants to be in hibernation.  After the Christmas festivities and the joyful celebrations ringing in the amazing promise of our new year, 2012, the next step is to celebrate your body and your mind, in fact…. your whole being.   Whilst alcohol and wonderful, loving, company can lift our spirits, being able to maintain our own strength, our own inner-smile, our own positive vibration takes self-management, self-knowledge and…. yep, some work.

And sometimes, we need experts on the case: mechanics for the mind, technicians to enhance our physical wellbeing and specialists to soothe a tired soul.

Which is why we created the MOT for body, mind & spirit – a tailor-made retreat that encompasses holistic TLC plus yoga, pilates, personal training and lovely Life Coaching with NLP to support you in supporting yourself…. and making some tweaks to your lifestyle – or possibly even greater transformative changes, that will bring you greater health and happiness.

We had the pleasure of welcoming esteemed journalist and writer, Caroline Sylger-Jones for an MOT and she enjoyed the benefits immediately… and put the strategies into place to enhance her life when back at home.  Whilst going no further as all clients’ journeys are… of course… confidential, she put us into her Times feature on life changing breaks.

There are some wonderful resources out there to support your wellbeing in this mad, crazy – and yet still wonderful – world.  You can check out Caroline’s online resource www.queenofretreats.com for plenty of useful antidotes and of course, please email us with any work YOU want to do on yourself.   Aching shoulders need fixing?  Tired mind needing to unwind? Patterns keep emerging that you need to break through and release?  Our MOT is a tailor-made retreat for single travellers or private groups.  If you would like to join a group retreat and still with tailor-made personalised attention then our Just Stop! Retreats are perfect…  with lovely Life Coach Rebekah Fensome bringing her Clinical Hypnotherapy skills to the table alongside Larah’s NLP & Energy Healing based Life Coaching for balancing your lifestyle completely.

You can enjoy a thorough resetting of your internal compass so you can look – and feel – fabulously back, or onto, your ideal life track.

And all in the beautiful, magical, environment of our gorgeous white island of Ibiza.

Traditional Sivananda style Teacher Training 

Dates: April 1st – 12th and June 15th – 26th

Join Spirit Body Yoga for an Ashram-style community residential teacher training. This course offers plenty of personal attention, support and encouragement to build confidence and and help each student experience the strength, discernment and joy that comes through yoga.

Move forward your practice at your own level of proficiency, whether you decide to become a teacher or net.

- A professional and experienced team of teachers (Nora Belton and Kirana Stover)

- Study of yoga philosophy and values

- The 8 limbs of classical yoga

- Introduction to yoga texts (The Yoga Sutras, Upanishads, Vedas, Bhagavad Ghita)

- Applied anatomy and phsyiology

Cost from €2000 including

• Room and board
• All tuition

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Ibiza is the home for many courses about holistic healing. 2012 is set to be a very magical year and this is a very special course. The Bach Flower Study Program at Buddha House, Ibiza hosted by Joan Jacobs gives you the opportunity to study and train as a Bach Flower practitioner. You will learn about the Bach Flower remedies in depth and how to prescribe them. The Buddha House Healing centre is a beautiful and natural environment, a perfect setting to study in and meet amazing people. Located on the top of a mountain it has breathtaking views across the Island. The fresh mountain air is cleansing and purifying for the mind, body and soul.

The remedies were discovered in the 1930’s by Dr Edward Bach an English physician, he identified 38 flowers and plants that had the ability to heal the emotional imbalances of the body resulting in an overall equilibrium of the mind. Dr Bach was a physician and Homeopath who spent his life searching for the purest methods of healing. He believed, as many doctors do today, that attitude of mind plays a vital role in maintaining health and recovering from illness. They work by treating the individual rather than the disease or its symptoms.Today these safe simple remedies are used world-wide by medical and complementary health practitioners, psychotherapists, counsellors, dentists, vets and private individuals. The purpose of the remedies is to support the patients fight against illness by addressing the emotional factors like depression, anxiety and stress, and are particularly helpful for the many people who feel generally tired and unwell without a specific medical diagnosis.

The course is taught by Joan Jacobs, holistic healer with 25 years experience as clinical healer, educator and speaker. Her clinical expertise is addressing mental, emotional and spiritual patterns associated with disease and activating the body’s energy system to restore health. To find out more about the teacher you can read an online interview here. Joan conducted an interesting interview with the director of the Bach Flower Centre in the UK, Stefan Ball. Click here to listen.

For the full course details and registration click here.

If you’re quick enough you can enter a competition to win a half price place on the course – for entry details click here.  The latest day to enter is Tuesday the 10th January 2012.

…..and they even bring you more pleasure along the way

So what would you like to leave behind? As Janus, the God of January encourages you to do:

> Can you let go of anger?

> Can you forgive those you feel have hurt you?

> Can you leave guilt for things you wished you had done differently or better in the past?

And what would you like to dream into reality this New Year of 2012?

What can you consciously intend to come true for you? (and those around you)

> Can you begin each day with a new yoga or meditation practice that sets you up positively in body and mind?

> Can you be kinder to yourself, gentle with your actions and tender to your loved ones and friends?

> What will your perfect year bring for you? For your self, for your home, for your career, for your health and for your family?

This is the time of our lives to allow our dreams to become true!

So dare to dream and know that the more you do, the more you can listen to your heart-felt wishes and your inner-most needs. The clearer and cleaner you are being with your intentions, the more aligned you are becoming with your subconscious wishes and the more easily you will attract the circumstances and opportunities into your path to enable you to take the necessary actions for your dreams to become your reality.  (And just think – and feel – how marvellous that will be!)

And keep marvelling…. this is the magic of life!

We hope to welcome you here for marvelous, magical and life-enhancing treats here in Ibiza in 2012.

So from all of us at Ibiza Retreats, we wish you a wonderful 2012, full of wonder, full of joy, full of light, full of health and happiness and loving, giving and receiving times.

Send only the texts, emails and messages that spread love and light and peace.  Read only cards and books and magazines that help you feel light and happy – and the same goes films  and programs on TV… soak up the cheesiness and fill your boots with glee!

We are as happy and healthy as our physical cells, the thoughts we think create the emotions we feel so the happier we are in mind as so we are in body.  Hence the celebrations are not to be taken lightly, yet rather – as an opportunity to express and be as delighted and uplifted as you dare to feel and be!

Share the smiles with others on the streets, sing carols and listen to music that helps your heart to sing.

This helps your mind and body relax and is an enormous boost for your wellbeing.

And rather than worrying about what you eat – savour each piece of chocolate or morsel of meat.  Appreciate the flavours, the indulgence, this special time of year and know that soon, with January pending, you have the opportunity, supported by the earth, the season and the appropriate moment to detox and cleanse and clear.

We wish you a MERRY, joyful, Christmas time and a healthy, happy, inspiring and whole-somely wealthy New Year!

x Larah x Susie x Shambala x Cheryl and all the team at Ibiza Retreats

Gratitude opens the heart chakra, as we consciously focus on appreciating all that we have in our lives and helps to sustain a light and loving, positive vibration, which genuinely radiates far and wide.

Gratitude helps create a prayer for those who are ¨without¨ whilst ensuring you remain in a positive state of body and mind, as our inner thanks vibrates out in powerful waves.

So focus, consciously, just for 5 minutes, on all you have to be thankful for:

- a healthy body or healthy mind (or both)
- a loving partner – or the ability to love yourself (because you know you can choose to do so!)
- a warm home – that you can make wonderful and welcoming
- family and friends that care for you
- a job – even if you would love a job you love better…
- freedom to choose how you spend your Christmas time
- the opportunities you have every day to enrich and enhance your life
- the challenges and obstacles that have enabled you to grow, transform, strengthen

Focus just for 5 minutes on the many gifts you are already receiving and notice how this warms you from within!
A wonderful technique for supporting you when spending time with even the most challenging relatives and family situations, your welcome becomes more genuine.

And…. as is the Universal Law of Attraction… like attracts like and this practice will carry you through to an abundant and fortuitous New Year… enjoy.

December is now in full swing, mulled wine and christmas festivities are merrily beginning and the body, our kidneys and liverespecially, need even more TLC as this is traditionally the hibernation season…

So… rather than reaching for an extra cup of frothy coffee, give yourself a gift of naturally uplifting and purifying tea.

Here in Ibiza our mountainsides are covered with amazing scented Rosemary – a herb that refreshes the system and which, very simply, cleaned and placed in super-hot (not boiling) water makes a delicious revitalising tea that also tones our organs.

Add lemon for zest and a perfect “awakener” with extra vitamin C zing… and a teaspoon of rosemary honey for mother nature’s finest antibacterial potion.

Ahhh and ginger, from the earth, is a natural antisceptic that wards of colds and staves off flus and is, in Chinese Medicine, a fire root that helps to burn up also damp and unhealthy emotions.  Chop finely and simmer and THEN add the lemon and honey to taste.

Feel healthy and happy naturally this December – tis the season to be merry after all…

Delicious!

Date: Thursday 22nd December

Where: A beautiful rustic finca in the north of the island

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That’s what we all need´to lift our spirits, to warm our hearts, our minds, our bones. Golden rays ignite that inner smile and leave our skin, hair and nails glowing with a natural healthy sheen. Indeed, winter sunshine gives us that happy-making, Vitamin D infusion that combats the now widely recognised SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder) and that genuinely prevents AND cures dark-nights-and-days depression.

So much more than just a break from the daily routine… investing in a get away where you can treat yourself to a medicinal dose of Vitamin D is vital for our vitality. When living in Northern Europe in winter, it can be a huge challenge. It is not a vitamin that can be eaten or drunk, vitamin pills and sun-lamps can be a necessary alterntive option, however sunshine alone gives the “real deal” benefits.

Here in Ibiza with over 300 days of sunshine per year, it is truly glorious to feel the warming rays on your back as you walk through the countryside and along empty beaches.

Boutique agroturismos and many bed and breakfast Fincas are offering open fires, organic seasonal fare and mulled wine under the stars. With therapists giving winter rates for massages that relieve aching muscles and charge flagging batteries, plus horse-riding, mountain biking and yoga and meditation why not join us here in Ibiza for some winter-warming retreats and that much needed healing sunshine?

PS Thank you Charlie Chester for the image! Taken today in Ibiza! x

Think of your emotions like sweets to help you let go more easily of negative feelings like guilt and anxiety.

See them for what they are and rather than attaching to them, give them a colour, a flavour and a texture and notice how this helps you to dissociate from the feeling more easily.

We have to taste all the different emotions! This is what ensures our life is full of flavours that enirch our experience and help us to grow however… you can decide in each moment if you want to ride a wild emotional rollercoaster or if you want to glide with more balance, more presence, more self-control.

* Suck on the calmer, peaceful, emotions for longer, this will help you soothe your soul
* Savour the delicious vibrancy of joy, hope and positivity
* Chew on anticipation and excitement for energy that will lift your spirits
* Close your eyes and draw from the the spicier flavours of passion and courage
* Exhale the fresh mint of cooling trust and clam

And love??? Keep surplus packets in your pocket for an essential daily dose of the life sweetener that never grows old….

Your emotional health is as important as your physical health – so eat the sweets that matter and enjoy….

We are all looking for ways to get fit and energise during the winter – and what better way to start than with an Ibiza Fit Camp… Running now – and through to next year!

The retreat takes place all round the island – but you will be based in the lovely M Wellness fitness centre in Santa Eularia with spa, pool, juice bar and the fantastic team at M Wellness to hold your hand throughout…

From €899 on an all inclusive basis.

• 7 nights accommodation
• Total fitness programme including a wellness consultation, full analysis and inspirational talks from experts
• Healthy meals and juices

Ahhhh the bliss of stepping into the studio or practice space.

The phone goes off.

The emails abate…  iphones and blackberries stop pinging and ringing… and that delicious space that silence creates helps to bring that inner-feeling of calm to pass even before the pranayama has begun.

Space – time – to be – to feel – to stop – to experience and to lose yourself in the guidance of your teacher, as you move from asana to asana.  Your yoga mat is your temple space and your body is your temple : indeed! Yet when you have created the space inside with your breath, you are feeling calmer, clearer, centred and balanced in body and mind, how often do you bring this experience into the midst (or should that be mist??) of your daily life?

It is said that it takes 30 days to successfully establish a new habit.  Recoding our mind – and therefore our body – with the messages that eventually enable us to take our hands off the gear stick and to enjoy the relaxed mode of auto-pilot ; so give yourself this healthy-habit challenge:  create calm in your life just ONCE each day with these simple steps:

* Stop – put your iphone/blackberry and other electronic devices to one side – ensuring they are switched off.

*  Stand or sit in a position where you can create alignment :

- plant your feet squarely on the floor and feel your connection with the earth below

or

- sitting cross-legged OR if on a chair with your legs hip-width apart and feet planted on the floor – again, feel your connection with the earth below

* visualise roots travelling down from your feet or your seat bones

* open up your palms and bring your thumb and fore-finger together

* consciously relax your shoulders, rolling them back to open up your chest

* release your neck and allow your chin to gently tip in

* bring your tongue to the top of your mouth behind your teeth

* relax your jaw

* smile and breath – inhaling the breath through your nostrils, up to the top of your head and as you exhale visualise your breathe releasing all toxins, all tension all aggggghhhhhh you may be feeling down to the earth below

* continue for 10 x cycles allowing your breath to fill you more and more

* complete by raising your hands over your head and extend your hands, fingers interlinked above your head

* release

Now – how are you feeling?

Notice the differences – and benefits – in how you are thinking and feeling – physically AND energetically.

Repeat! (just 39 days to go)

And let us know……     how when and where is your Life Yoga benefitting you most?

Let’s stick with the diet example: if you eat healthy foods and control calories then you will lose weight, and that might be your aim, but think for a moment about the food part: what should you be eating? If you’re going to change your eating habits, steer clear of fad diets that will cause you to yo-yo and instead focus on eating healthily – plenty of fresh vegetables, fruits, grains and pulses, lean protein like fish or poultry. You can still have variety and eat a lot but you’re cutting out the processed foods – great for losing weight, but you’re also cutting down on the toxins you’re consuming, so as well as losing weight you’ll start to feel better, have more energy, get a better complexion, and so on.

Now throw in exercise. The more calories you burn the more weight you’ll lose, so exercising will help you lose weight, it will also tone your muscles, strengthen your heart, keep your joints mobile and have a whole load of beneficial knock on effects. For example, numerous studies have now shown that resistance exercise like training with weights strengthens bones as well as muscles, and helps slow the decline of our bone structure as we age.

So now you’re losing weight with healthy eating and exercise, but you’re experiencing a load of other beneficial effects as well. If you’re being careful about what you put in your body, you should be careful about what you put on it, so how about overhauling your cosmetics and skincare for a more natural approach?

You can see that the by taking a holistic approach to health and keeping an open mind to new approaches, you can actually get much better results than by focussing on a single element alone, and that the multiplier effect of such an approach can deliver not only good, but life-changing results.

Autumn is when our whole body needs us to slow down.

With less sunshine to charge our batteries we physically do need to rest more, to look inwards and care for our whole selves.  It is a time in nature when we most need to restore our system, replenish our organs – especially kidneys, adrenals and liver  – and to slooooooow down.

So these discomforts and dis-eases that are all different forms of sickness have many benefits in handkercheifed disguise!

It is our body’s way of allowing our immune system to recover, of expiating toxins = physical, emotional, stress-induced and excess-induced so that we can rebalance our system for the winter time.

* You have to slow down – and even stop completely if bed-rest is required.  This can stop the over-thinking mind and create time and space to allow new insights, inspirations and reflections and learnings to flow in.

* You have to begin to take care of yourself properly, eating the right foods, listening to your body’s needs – and the needs of your whole being

* In listening to your body and drinking more water, upping your Vitamin C you are bringing your equilibrium back into balance

* In clearing your throat with coughs and lungs and chest with sneezes you are opening up your heart space and your throats to be able to express and communicate your needs more easily

* This allows you to speak your truth even more easily and freely allowing your vital life force energy to flow, so that you can live in greater balance and harmony

So when you feel your body aching, the exhaustion kicking in, say thank you to your body for giving you a clear message: that it is time to retreat and to take care of yourself, to reconnect with your needs so that you can enjoy more and more wellbeing!

Larah Davis is the founder of Ibiza Retreats and also offers 1:1 Life and Wellness Coaching, health checks and harmonising for body, mind and soul  – email: larah@ibizaretreats.com for more information…

Ibiza Retreats are offering tailor-made retreats for single travellers, couples, friends and families this winter-time…  enjoy the white island’s winter sunshine, yoga, walking, time in nature, slow down, be, with holistic “MOT’s, destress and pamper with plenty of massage and therapies, delicious organic food nourish your spirit and magical mother nature, beaches and pine-forests to replenish your soul…

Use your body and breath with greater awareness… and how this influences the relationship with your horse

The retreat takes place in a rustic finca in the Sant Miguel / San Lorenzo valley in the heart of the Ibizenc countryside.

Course fee €425 and food & Accommodation €370 – day rates available

Last min places available – 15-22nd October!

ENQUIRE NOW

Enjoy this Monday morning breathe for life recipe:

To begin your morning – and every morning full of fresh, life-force, smile-infused energy

…and to help you speak your truth and express yourself with ease, with grace and clarity:

Inhale the fresh, clear air like the beginning of a new day… a clean, clear space… opening up new possibilities…

And exhale the old, tired, used air, feel your muscles let go, feel a sense of deep release…

Inhale the scent as if you are in a forest of pines… watching the sunrise, as we do here in Ibiza, over the water, over the fields, over the hills in the distance…

Exhale the embarrassing moments you would like to forget, the words best left unsaid, the fears, the pain the suffering…

Inhale life force, new life energy, feel the prana running through your body, your mind and lifting your spirits as you begin to smile

Exhale tiredness, restrictions, exhaustion, tension and pain…

Inhale clarity of mind and feel your chest opening… feel your heart space opening even more, feel the muscles of your shoulders opening and expanding…

Exhale concerns and resentments, guilt and despair…

Inhale positivity, new life and clear, clean fresh air…

Exhale stresses and tension release them back to transform

Inhale lightness and laughter and the innocence of a new-day-born

Exhale old ways of being, habits that limited and held you back

Inhale a feeling of your chest opening with butterfly wings ready to fly

Exhale the strain of controlling of holding on far too tight

Inhale the power of love unconditional, of trust in life, of laughter to bring light

Exhale toxic thoughts and feelings from your belly towards the grounds

Inhale a smile that infuses you with lightness and open your mouth wide (as if to singggggg)

Exhale fear of the future and all pain of the past

Feel your feet on the earth, raise your arms above your head to the sky…

Feel gratitude and thanks for being born with this gift of potential in life…

…and feel your smile sparkling from the inside….to the outside… radiating

For breathwork and meditations to yoga and life & wellness coaching email us to experience the magic of these experiences to help you breathe for life…  here in Ibiza’s beautiful nature… info@ibizaretreats.com

So, it’s with thanks to Ann-Marie and her beautiful family, who came for a family holiday; or family ‘retreat’ should we say this summer.

And you can read here what she has to say on her site Yano – dedicated to a holistic approach to raising children and to family life. Ibiza – the best kept secret!

Feel free to contact us if you feel like something a bit different for your 2012 family holiday…. love from Ibiza Retreats

Tanit Goddess of Ibiza - Inspired Artistry

This amazing mosaic, made following a template of aperiodic tiling (Roger Penrose), was designed and installed in a Blakstad Finca by an artist called Christina Bryer who had no knowledge of Tanit before…

And yet THIS is Tanit the goddess protectorate of Ibiza – of fertility – of dance – with the sun shining through….

Christina… the artist… had no knowledge of Ibizan history nor had she had physical connections to the island before creating this work. Yet it grew into this pictorial representation of Tanit, which renowned architect, Rolf Blakstad identified on viewing her finished work for the first time.

Mere coincidence? Or another of the many mystical Ibizan synchronicities that we come to experience on our magical white island…

Or something connecting at a higher level of consciousness? To inspire and connect us with the fact that we are all, indeed, connected?

What is particularly interesting is that Christina works in a structured and disciplined method of exploration or aperiodic tiling which has been described to others as “sacred geometry”. This is the geometry used in the planning and construction of sacred monuments, spiritual sites and religious alters, meditation temples and temples for prayer, sacred groves and even village greens… with symbolic and sacred meanings embedded within the shapes and architecture.

Infusing higher levels of spiritual awareness within the structure and layout of the tiles, invoking energies at a higher level.

Thank you Christina… for bringing this gift to the island to remind us of our connectedness… read more about Christina by clicking here.

And please share! :

What other Ibizan synchronicities have you experienced?

There is no such thing as coincidence – what experiences have helped you open your mind to higher possibilities since living in – and visiting and loving Ibiza?

How well Ibiza offers this… the most amazing parties, incredible music, beautiful people and vibrations and energy that draws us here to let go, to let loose, to feel free….

So how many times this year have you given yourself permission to really go for it?

To dance all night… to soak up the feel good vibes of positive sounds and uplifting music, on the beach, under the stars, feeling free to be yourself, to dance out tension, to move with the rhythm, to feel your smile expanding from within…

And so the closing parties in Ibiza approach – our white island famed for dance parties and midsummer madness is more and more becoming known for what we are doing too… here at Ibiza Retreats…. connecting you with the Hidden Healing Heartbeat… a rhythm that continues all year around…. to help you to BE yourself, to feel FREE to express yourself and to find your flow, your rhythm in life…

And even better this year – feel free to enjoy the Yang as well as the Yin… surrender to your wild side and then give yourself the time and space to really rejuvenate yourself again…

So many of us opened our minds on dance floors, lost in the euphoria of the experience… and we come back to the White Island for more – so to acknowledge this and that, with being wiser in life, it often means we are older too… it is no better time than now to enjoy a post-party purification and a healthy dose of pampering, with Wellness Coaching, steam and sauna to release toxins, yoga to revitalise, delicious healthy cuisine, vibrational healing and reiki to rebalance you energetically and reflexology to ensure that your liver and kidneys are boosted too.

Vrom 5th – 7th October at Atzaro Spa with us, a world-class team of therapists and life coach to artists and DJ’s from all over the world, Clare Scivier – click here for further info…

And please – share with us – how do YOU post-party purify?

Re-energize yourself with relaxing meditation, revitalising yoga, energetic reiki, healing massage and joyful dance!

Retreat takes place in a dedicated retreat centre in the Ibiza campo between Sant Miguel and Sant Lorenzo. Just minutes by car from the sparkling waters of Benirras.

Cost from €699 on a half-board basis

• Accommodation for 6 nights
• Breakfast and lunch
• All yoga tuition
• All teas, coffees and mineral water