It doesn’t take much to twist my arm into a ‘retreat’, ‘meditation day’ or any type of ‘wellness event’. So when my good friend and mentor Tom Cronin invited me to his one day urban retreat in Sydney I was SO excited and it couldn’t have come at a better time as my meditation practice needed an overhaul.

Tom Cronin is a leading meditation teacher globally. He hosts awesome retreats throughout Australia and overseas, has a myriad of books, is featured in magazines and online publications and is a well-respected speaker. His business ‘The Stillness Project” has a mission to help as many people as possible to transform and meditate globally with an awesome, supportive community and a selection of programs to choose from to take your meditation as deep as you want. I recently did the faster deeper bliss program which  was a great lead up to the one day urban retreat as it got me meditating regularly again and Tom’s videos and guidance are so useful (perfect for the beginner meditator).

Tom also happens to be my mentor and close friend so getting to spend a whole day with him and learn from his wealth of knowledge was such a treat and an experience I will treasure forever.

The 1 day Urban Retreat and Vision Day

Tom hosts one day urban retreats in cities throughout Australia and you can find the link to his events, here. I took part in the Sydney retreat and I went in not knowing that much about the day (I intentionally wanted an open mind and heart to really experience everything thrown at me on the day).

We all arrived at 8am to a venue in Sydney’s Eastern Suburbs, there were about 25 of us in the group. We started having a chat with the group about what we were looking to achieve on the day. The group was so relaxed and safe, it was a place to let go and not fear any judgment from others.

After an introduction from Tom, we delved into the art of ‘Rounding’. Rounding is based on four limbs which come together to create a deep level of rest in mind and body that activates a powerful healing process. The four limbs are broken down into approximately an hour for each ’round’:

• Asana: yoga movements to release the body and release blocks (15-20 minutes)
• Pranayama: alternate nostril breathing (3-7 minutes)
• Meditation: sitting comfortably in stillness (20 minutes)
• Shavasana: lying in restful pose (10 minutes)

We did 2 rounds and then we stopped for lunch. We had a beautiful Ayurvedic vegetarian lunch which was so delicious and the perfect opportunity to connect with the other participants.

After lunch we started our ‘vision’ exercise which I had no idea about and it was a great surprise. We talked about the meaning of ‘transcending’ and the difference between the ‘higher self’ and the ‘lower self’. This was a great introduction to the ‘Better Version of my Self’ (BVS) that we were asked to brainstorm. Analysing your self and your being can be quite daunting, especially if you are still working on a few things internally. It was really great to write down how I envisage the BVS to look like. Then we split into groups and using our BVS we wrote a short movie script which would encapsulate our individual BVS identity. Again this was really useful in plotting out where we are heading and how we can manifest our movie.

Creating a vision for yourself can help to eradicate limiting beliefs and make you feel more in line with your path and that you are on the right track or you need to make some changes. I would highly recommend brainstorming your ‘vision’ and coming back to it regularly.

For the rest of the afternoon we did two more ’rounds’ and then finished with a catch up of how we were all feeling. It’s safe to say, everyone in the group had a deep, immersive experience and felt like their meditation practice had been re-ignited.

If you want to hear more from Tom Cronin you can follow his Instagram page here and here. Also make sure you check out ‘the stillness project‘ for upcoming events on your area.

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