When was the last time you stepped away from the demands of everyday life long enough to really listen to yourself?
Not to get a jump on your to-do list. Not to learn something new or figure out how to get better at something. Just to give yourself a little room to breathe, reflect, and notice what's happening inside of you.
What have you been longing for? What have you been putting off? What might you want if you gave yourself the time and space to find out?
The view from our Hidden Valley hike in Moab, Utah.
These are some of the questions I've been sitting with since returning home from Courage Quest, a four-day women's retreat in Moab, Utah, that I co-led with my friend and colleague Priya Nalkur.
There's something extraordinary about stepping away from our usual routines. When we're no longer moving from one responsibility to the next, we can begin to hear ourselves again. We have room to notice what we've been putting off, what we've been longing for, and what might need our attention.
Our time in Moab gave us plenty of opportunities to practice that kind of noticing.
Learning from the landscape
Bowtie Arch, Corona Arch's friendly neighbor
The desert has a way of shifting your perspective.
We watched sunrises and sunsets paint the red rock faces, arches, and canyons in light. We breathed in the crisp fall smells of sagebrush, juniper, and pinyon pine. We stood before ancient petroglyphs, imagining the Fremont and Ancestral Puebloan people who carved them.
And we noticed the trees and plants growing out of seemingly impossible cracks in the rock, finding a way to thrive despite the harsh desert conditions.
I kept coming back to those plants. What does it look like to find a way forward when the conditions aren't perfect? How often do we wait for everything to feel safe, settled, or certain before we allow ourselves to grow?
Sometimes a change of scenery helps us see possibilities that are harder to recognize when we're smack dab in the middle of our everyday lives.
Discovering what courage feels like
The group after completing the 600 foot elevation gain in its first 0.6 mile on our Hidden Valley hike. Phew!
At Courage Quest, we didn't just talk about courage. We experienced it.
Like navigating steep cliff faces in a Hummer at sunset, feeling my stomach drop as we climbed and tilted at angles that made me wonder whether we'd tip over.
Floating down the chocolatey Colorado River between towering red rock walls, talking as a group about the difference between courage and bravery.
And hiking to Corona Arch at sunrise, where each woman crossed an important and unique threshold under the arch and found new way to navigate what comes next.
These experiences invited us to notice how we respond when we're scared or uncertain. What helps us keep going? When do we trust ourselves? When do we let others support us?
Of course, courage doesn't always look like navigating a cliff face or doing something physically adventurous.
Sometimes it's telling someone what we really think. Admitting we want something different. Setting a boundary. Asking for help. Or allowing ourselves to imagine a future we haven't quite given ourselves permission to want.
Making room for connection
The Courage Quest crew after rafting on the Colorado river and exploring Moonflower Canyon.
Perhaps the most extraordinary part of the retreat was how quickly the women began to connect.
Women telling the truth about their lives within an hour of meeting. Recognizing pieces of themselves in one another. Finding the courage to share what feels tender, uncertain, or unfinished.
Inside jokes forming within 24 hours. A shared playlist taking shape, filled with songs to remind us of our own strength long after we returned home.
No woman left behind. Every hiking pace held with reverence.
And each of us shouting “Courage” into Moonflower Canyon, witnessed by a wren, a reflective pool, and towering cottonwood trees.
Throughout the retreat, I was struck by the generosity of these women. The way they listened, encouraged, made room for one another, and offered care without needing to fix or solve anything. And just as importantly, the way they allowed themselves to receive that same generosity.
For many of us, giving comes more naturally than receiving. We're accustomed to being the dependable one, the person who notices what others need, who holds things together, who makes sure everyone else is okay. Letting someone else show up for us can feel surprisingly unfamiliar.
But there's something powerful about being in a space where you don't have to earn care by being useful, where you can both offer what you have and allow others to offer something to you.
For so many of us, being capable, dependable, and responsive to others comes naturally. We know how to show up for our work, our families, our communities, and the people we care about.
But how often do we make room to show up for ourselves? To pause long enough to notice what we need, reconnect with what matters to us, and allow ourselves to be supported, too?
You don't necessarily need four days in the desert to begin. Maybe it's an afternoon with your journal, a neighborhood walk without your phone, a conversation with someone who helps you think differently, or simply protecting a little time that doesn't have to be productive or useful to anyone else.
And you don't need to have the answers before you begin. Sometimes the first step is simply creating enough space to hear your questions.
I'm so grateful to Priya for dreaming up Courage Quest and inviting me to join her in bringing it to life, to Trish Scales from Trails Diverged for guiding us so thoughtfully through the Moab landscape, and to each of the women who said yes to this courageous adventure. I'll carry the stories, laughter, and moments of connection with me for a long time.
And if the idea of stepping away from everyday life to reconnect with yourself and other women speaks to you, I'd love to get you on the waitlist for future Courage Quests and keep you in the loop about future retreats (click the buttons below to indicate your interest).
Three years ago, I surveyed many of you about your dream retreat. I've wanted to bring a small group of women to a favorite hot springs resort in New Mexico for YEARS, and after experiencing the magic of Moab, I can finally see the path toward making it happen much more clearly. 🌿
I'm so excited to explore what's next.
With gratitude,
Stacy
