Permission granted: it’s time to reset, the foundher. way.
From founders, CEO’s, small business owners to corporate leaders, each year, a group of women drive through the gates at SOMA for the annual foundher. Reset YOU experience.
Carrying a little more baggage than just their swimsuits and comfiest pair of yoga pants, these women are bringing another year’s worth of exhaustion, stress, world-weariness, as well as a deep desire for change.
"I am so ready for this," they echo, as they slip their shoes off, one by one, and step into a space that has been deliberately and thoughtfully curated to offer maximum restoration and rejuvenation, on life-giving Arakwal land in the Byron Bay hinterland.
With five days and four nights of nutritious food, daily education classes with guest speakers, massages and facials, infrared sauna, ice baths, a zen garden and freshwater infinity pool, rainforest walking trails, and twice-daily yoga practices in that iconic geodesic yoga dome, surrounded by a bamboo and lychee forest — it sounds like heaven on Earth.
And it is.
But foundher.’s signature Reset YOU retreats experiences aren’t designed as the typical ‘eat, sleep, yoga, repeat’. It’s a five day inner leadership journey to build stronger embodied awareness in order to transform how they show up in life and work long after the retreat is over.
It is a deliberately designed immersion to create a much-needed transformative Reset, of YOU. Offering a beautifully designed progam this provides each guest with a deeper understanding of stress, sleep and our nervous system, we practise intentionally shifting how we recharge through gratitude, body and breathwork, and the vital rituals, rhythms, routines that inject more BEing work into our daily lives.
Want a glimpse into what it’s like to reset at SOMA with foundher? Come right this way. And while you’re here, we’ll show you five ways to hit the reset button from wherever you are, and whatever you’re growing through.
THE PATH AWAY FROM BURNOUT
While the paths that lead each woman through the gates at SOMA, and the lives waiting for them when they return, look tangibly different — there is a pervasive and shared sense that the way things are just isn't working anymore (if it ever really was).
Each of them cares deeply about the work they do in the world, and they want to feel more inspired and recharged to do it. And they are hungry — not just for the thoughtfully prepared banquets bursting with flavour, colour and nutrients from our partner Burbury Whole Foods — but they want to be educated, inspired and given new tools that create and navigate their own future of work.
Wholeheartedly sick of feeling like they can never do enough, be enough, create enough, contribute enough, [insert verb] enough — these women are ready to finally be somebody who does something about that.
We assume — if you’re still reading this — that you resonate too. So, let’s do something about it. But first — as with all things, we need to know how we got here, so we can move forward with intelligent action and embodied awareness.
THE THING ABOUT STAYING STUCK IN BUSINESS AS USUAL LEADERSHIP PERFORMANCE.
Many of us are keeping up an unsustainable pace out of fear of what happens when we slow down. Because while the hustle is hard, slowing down can be harder. And that kind of deep, bone-tiredness takes more than a few days on a sunlounger to ‘fix’.
The difficult thing about living your life at breakneck speed is that — over time — our nervous systems get used to this fast pace. They might not like it, but they’ll do it. Then, they get stuck in this way of operating, so much so that they will start to crave it and our body adapts to now make reactive, wired, tired and survival the norm.
If not being able to kickstart your productivity engine without a deadline or the fear of letting others down, feels familiar, then you’re right there — in the not-so-sweet spot. And if you take a look around — everyone’s doing it. So, can it really be that bad?
Working long hours (51+) can have detrimental effects on health — from increased stress, depression to higher rates of certain chronic diseases.
2023 Independent Review into Workplace Culture at EY Oceania
The short answer is yes. Because there’s no way we can do our best work, be our best selves, or solve any of the world’s most complex challenges while we’re still running an outdated (and faulty) operating system.
In order to successfully lead the future we want, it’s not about what happens ‘out there’. It’s about becoming fit for complexity by giving our own internal iOS a mighty upgrade.
LET’S UPGRADE OUR COLLECTIVE OPERATING SYSTEMS
Here’s the thing: our bodies and our minds are not meant to be permanently stuck in overdrive, constantly pushing and doing, doing, doing. We are meant to have an ‘off’ switch.
Yet, over the past few years in particular, we have gotten so good at operating in a survival state that we have forgotten what homeostasis feels like. We have lost sight of equilibrium, and our self-care has become a distant speck on the horizon. And we get great at ignoring the signs that we’re heading towards burnout, some not even wanting to go anywhere near the ‘b’ word because it might mean we can’t handle the heat.
That is — until it all comes crashing down and our system needs a mighty reset, which is exactly why Reset YOU was created. More than a ‘fly-and-flop’ for burned out souls, this is a retreat experience for high-performers, designed to teach you how to create a greater way of living and working, with a supercharged reset on an annual basis.
This is lifestyle transformation; generating a ripple effect far greater than any one individual in the ecosystem.
It is about redefining who we want to BE, then redesigning what we want to DO. It is about sharpening our skills of self-authorship. And this is what inner development looks like and feels like, which is to say — not always comfortable, but entirely necessary.
By taking that next step towards a more sustainable pace, these 13 courageous women are effectively saying that they are no longer interested in quick fixes and bandaid solutions. We assume — if you’re still reading this — that you aren’t either.
Need a nudge to get started? In the words of our guest speaker and world-renowned psychologist, Dr Rebecca Ray, ‘permission [f*cking] granted’.
YOU ARE NO LONGER AVAILABLE FOR MINDLESS HUSTLE
Done with being too busy for life?
If you are ready to embrace a new way of BEing and DOing in the world; one that supports sustainable thriving and designs you into your life, not out of it, let’s get started.
Here are five inspired ways to hit the reset button right now, from wherever you are and whatever you’re growing through:
1. Create a Sensory Oasis at Home
SOMA’s gentle palette of polished concrete and honeyed timber, accented with the raw beauty of crystals and handmade rugs, is no accident. It spells: sensory oasis. It signals rest to our burnt-out minds, a whisper that here, you can simply be.
Unfortunately, most of our homes don’t look like SOMA (the literal set of teleseries Nine Perfect Strangers). But, that doesn’t mean we can’t create SOMA within — by intentionally adjusting our inner terrain and introducing elements of ‘presence’ and calm into our built environment.
It's the little things that turn a space into a sanctuary. From a gorgeous IKOU candle to a supportive cushion or even a post-it note on your desk reminding you to breathe — think about how you can incorporate small and subtle cues to slow down and consciously recharge as much, if not more, than you do your phone.
2. Get out of your comfort and into your Zone
Lydia Lassila OAM (ZONE by Lydia), our Masterclass host on future-focused high performance, spoke often about that magical, internal state of flow where you feel like you can do and be anything. She describes that flow state, or being ‘In The Zone’, as a state of mind where you become hyper-focused and fully absorbed in what you are trying to execute on the highest level, whether in the sporting arena or the business one.
“Being ‘In The Zone’ can just happen. All the elements that are required for you to get into a flow state CAN come together and you COULD be lucky that you could get ‘In The Zone’ when you need to. But who wants to leave that up to luck?” — Lydia Lassila, How to get ‘In The Zone’
From visualisation techniques to grounding rituals, if you’re ‘not feeling it’ and instead — you’re feeling stuck, uninspired and lacking in energy and enthusiasm — then it’s time to shake things up. Literally — shake your body out. Or maybe you need to shake up your routine. Try something new. Take a different path. Seek a new perspective. Do something different.
What you’ll soon find is that the practice of disrupting yourself actually enables your brain to form new neural pathways and encourages thinking that’s bigger, more creative and more expansive. Discomfort can be an extremely effective catalyst of growth, and unlock new ways to define possibilities for high performance, productivity and potential.
3. Cultivate Gratitude, and start to reap what you sow
There’s a saying we love, that: ‘when you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change’. In many ways, this is what a daily gratitude practice can do; rewiring our brain, and overcoming its negativity bias.
When we turn off autopilot, our brains start to look for things each and every day that we have to be grateful for. It won’t cost you a cent but you’ll feel SOMAch richer 😉.
You get to decide how to rewire your brain — and positive psychology gifts us daily gratitude as a scientific approach to rewiring our brains (neuroplasticity). Start small and watch your world transform.
4. Plan your own Self-Reflection process
When it comes time to leave SOMA’s stunning infinity pool and the king-size bed you’ve starfished in for four nights, the dread can start to creep in. How do I keep this going in my ‘real’ life? What do I do when I get home and the [insert daily interruption]? We’re so glad you asked!
Because even though Reset YOU shares some similarities with other retreats in that you book a few days away in a beautiful location and enjoy a few hours of ‘eat, sleep, yoga, repeat’ — we know you can’t stay at SOMA forever. Real life will come calling, and when it does, we want you to have the upgraded operating system to help you navigate it. We will never leave you stuck.
It’s also important to us that we offer as many people as possible the chance to ‘reset’ from wherever they are, which is why we are SO excited to have just launched the foundher. Reset YOU Guidebook. Filled with insights and ways to help you cultivate presence and spark inner development → get your hands on a freshly printed copy (recycled paper, of course) and kick off your very own SOMA-style self-reflection process, along with this curated foundher. Spotify playlist.
5. Make the brave decision and ‘Press Play anyway’
Right now (and be honest) — can you hand on heart say that you are living your best life, or your backup plan? There are always a million and one reasons why you can’t take a day off, say ‘no’ to that task, go on that retreat, say ‘yes’ to that dinner with friends, invest in that self-care ritual.
If ever you needed a reminder to stop waiting for the perfect moment, to put down the burdens of 'I can't' and pick up the mantle of 'I will' — this is it. Seriously, this is IT.
You are too amazing, life is too precious, and the world is too desperate for change to wait another minute.
Instead of getting stuck on creating the ‘ideal conditions’ to do things differently, the self-authoring move is to just do it anyway. Take the backpack full of rocks off, and put it down. Be brave. And in the mantra gifted on retreat by Lydia Lassila OAM ‘press play anyway’ on your best life without waiting another minute. You might surprise yourself with just how capable you really are.
Ready to embrace a new rhythm for how you work and live? Join us at Reset YOU in 2024.
Grab your King Suite and sun lounger by the pool, and find answers to everything you want to know: Reset YOU Luxury Retreats 2024