My Hiatus, It’s Time For a Change
August 5, 2010
hiatus from busyness
Every now and then you just need to stop all the noise and hunker down for a change. So that’s exactly what I’m doing. I am putting everything on rest mode until the Fall.
Why? How? Whew, that’s a big deal!
Yes it is. It’s not easy to give up all the doing and all the busyness that keeps our wheels of everyday life turning. All of that turning, churning and busyness makes us feel important to the world, like we’re ‘putting our time in’ and contributing something rather than just being a meaningless laze.
Ah yes the busyness does have some value, but truly I believe that if we don’t take rest from it all, take time to confront the intimidating quiet and the stillness, then we will have truly lose touch with real life.
It’s not that my life is so busy that I need to slow down and rest. It’s that I’m actually heeding the call of quiet and silence before the real need even shows up.
heeding the call
I do find this kind of thing intimidating – what the heck will I do with all my time? I know that sounds silly but try it yourself and you’ll see what I mean. All of those things we do give our life a subtle worthiness that is hard to wean ourselves off of.
But we have to find an essential trust in life don’t you think?
Here’s my plan. I am going to set out without even knowing how I will fill my time. Ah, the scariness of it all. Who knows what can emerge if I trust the not-knowing.
Creativity could abound or I could sleep my way through it. I could read a ton of books, or write up a storm or none of that or all of that. Yes there are endless possibilities but I will not plan to do any of it.
Being in tune with yourself requires the courage to not know what’s in front of you.
beautiful silence
So I will be back my friends but what you’re going to hear from me for a little while is the beautiful sound of my silence.
I hope you will enjoy it and possibly take some silent time for yourself as well.
If it inspires you, which I hope it does, see what of the busy things you do, which ones could drop away and still have your world turn. Know what I mean? The world can go on without you doing all of those endless tasks.
If you’re so inspired try it yourself and I’ll meet you in the silence!
Video: Retreat 42
August 3, 2010
If you’d like to join us for an upcoming retreat, please feel free to contact me at annie@anniehart.com. We’d love to have you!
Mike Shares About Retreat 42
May 12, 2010
Here is a wonderful story from one of our first Retreat 42 voyagers, Mike Blackstone of Phoenix, Arizona. Here’s what he says about his experience on the retreat.
I was fortunate enough to be invited on the first Retreat 42. I couldn’t wait because I had a significant life project that had stalled. Retreat 42, the way Annie and Ian described it seemed to be exactly what I needed and the timing was so perfect, as well.
Going on that virtual retreat turned out to be so much more than I expected, and it was simple. All I had to do was carve out a small amount of private time each day to go inside and “stand” face-to-face with my “critic and pessimist” and talk my greatest fears.
Annie and Ian’s support was so important at that point because I could have given up. Sticking with it, I was really surprised that lasted only a few days, when optimism and peace of mind slowly began to show up, and within another few days I easily and effortlessly resurrected my project.
And wonderful things in my life way beyond my project started to happen. If you have never had the experience of getting more than you imagined and hoped for, get ready for a new “first” in your life on Retreat 42.
There were still rough spots before the end of my Retreat, and each one got easier and easier to get past, stronger than ever each time. Annie and Ian had been through theirs and they shared and warned of what we could expect. Knowing what to look for and what I might be up against was just everything. I had such confidence in their care. They are truly “from the heart” people.
If you are determined but just can’t get something going you really want and care about, Retreat 42 will be one of the best decisions you ever make.
Thanks Mike!
If you’re interested in learning about Retreat 42 or how you can join the next one, please email me at annie@anniehart.com.
Or join me and some of our Retreat 42 community on the Radio Show this Friday March 14 at 11 am. The show can also be downloaded later.
Featured Video: Brian Talks About Retreat 42
May 5, 2010
Brian was one of our 24 adventurers who did our pilot program for the Retreat 42. Everyone had a very different outcome of the retreat, Brian’s was to deepen his faith and spiritual life. Beautiful! Thanks Brian and all the adventurers. We will be launching in the fall. Stay tuned!
Retreat 42 – We’ve Launched the Ship!!
April 11, 2010
Wow, who knew that out of the confusion of my life, I would create something as amazing as Retreat 42, my brand new program for retreat in daily life.
Back in December, I was feeling stuck about getting bigger projects off the ground. I had several bodies of work that I never finished and it was really bugging me.
This coincided with meeting my now business partner, the fabulous Ian Waddelow who lives in France, although he’s a Brit by birth. Ian contacted me last fall and we hit it off immediately and began to collaborate.
Ian has amazing creative energy and wisdom in spades. He is a senior consultant to CEO’s and boards dealing with strategy and brand marketing. He’s also an educator at several major business schools in England and a well-known speaker at conferences and events.
Let me tell you, Ian is a wizard at what he does. He transforms businesses in a way that I’m pretty sure, they don’t even know what hit them!
After meeting Ian I was asking myself - What does it take to get bigger projects off the ground?? And I decided to put myself on a retreat in daily life to figure this out.
My premise was this – every great idea came from somewhere. We have this idea that when we need inspiration, that we need to ‘wait on the muses’, but I decided that waiting on the muses wasn’t good enough. Mine are too fickle, they’re always off shopping in Paris!
Waiting on the muses is a phrase we use to infer that inspiration is fickle or out of our control. But is it? If inspiration comes from somewhere else, where is that somewhere else and how can we tap it whenever and wherever we need it?
If you think about it, every great idea, every artistic masterpiece, Eureka moment, life changing work or project comes from a realm that the mystics call the 99%. This is the place of ‘divine inspiration.’ All creative ideas come from a place beyond the ordinary five senses.
That’s why it feels like we can’t tap inspiration when we need to. But I decided that there must be some way to tap it reliably and regularly. This was my quest to find out exactly how.
I took time every day to listen to music that would take my brain to another state. No, not New Jersey, but another brain state that’s called the theta wave. I tried not to work or think too hard, but just let ideas and inspiration come easily.
Each day when I woke up, I spent time writing, journalling and jotting. During the day, I would just allow inspiration to come and I would jot that down as well.
At first I didn’t even know exactly what I was going or how I was going to figure any of this out and it was pretty scary to commit to something that you don’t know exactly what it is! I decided that it needed to be 42 days.
Why 42?
- the mystics went into the desert for 40 days. I figured in our modern life, we need a day to get in and a day to get out = 42!
- it takes ’6 weeks to get a change into the bones’ – 6 weeks equals 42 days.
- the first lines of creation in the ancient Aramaic equal exactly 42 letters.
This all seemed to line up perfectly and so 42 days was set in my mind. I gave myself a few guidelines upfront. I agreed that I had to finish the retreat no matter what. I told myself that even if up with absolutely nothing, it would be ok and I committed to giving it my all and trusting the power of inspiration to guide me.
I did the same thing for 42 days and by the end of it, believe it or not, I had created an entire body of work – I had written a whole book and created an entire process that I didn’t even know I was creating.
How’s that for pure magic!
Once I was finished, I decided to take a risk and invite my new partner Ian onboard as a collaborator.
I’m sure Ian won’t mind me saying that he was pretty skeptical at first. I’m sure he thought my idea was pretty wacky, but he trusts me so he agreed to go on the Retreat 42 himself.
At first I was a little worried. Ian’s results seemed mixed. I wasn’t sure it was working and being British, he didn’t tell me much :>)
But then somewhere near the middle of the retreat, things started to happen – the ground started to quake and something new started pouring forth. After he finished, he suggested we try it out with a group and so we launched a Pilot program of 24 brave adventurer’s who agreed to try out our program for free.
I’m happy and proud to say that they did it! Their last day is today and they made it through the desert and have come out with gifts. I’ll let some of them share their stories in upcoming blog posts.
It was amazing to watch an entire group go through this process. They are extraordinary people from all over the world – England, Germany, Spain, Belgium and the US. They helped us to see that Retreat 42 really works, anytime, anywhere. 
Thanks to them, Ian and I are proud and delighted to announce:
Retreat 42 is officially launched!
We will be starting our first programs in the Fall, with an amazing line-up of goodies – from self-guided retreats, to themed programs and even (get this) wonderful in-person retreats in amazing locations around the world.
We have made the package and the pricing incredibly attractive. You just won’t be able to resist trying this out for yourself!
And I guarantee 100% that it is the most life changing thing you can do.
It was for me. I wrote a whole book and created an entire body of work in only 42 days – something that I never thought possible. If you’d like to know more about Retreat 42 or join one of our upcoming programs, please email me or Ian. We’d be happy to chat to you.
You can connect with us at annie@anniehart.com and ian@ianwaddelow.com. I encourage you to get to know Ian. He’s someone really worth knowing.
POP! Here comes the champagne – Retreat 42 is officially launched.
42 Day Creative Retreat Process, Details Revealed
February 25, 2010
Yesterday I revealed some of the details of the 42 Day Creative Retreat process for the very first time my friends Jeff Simpkins and Eric Cook.
If you should want to listen, it was a very lively show and I think you’ll get a lot out of it!
Click here to listen
Enjoy!
42 Day Creative Retreat Process: The Details Revealed
February 21, 2010
Woo-hoo here we go folks. This week for the first time I will be talking about the 42 Day Creative Retreat process live on a Webinar with my wonderful colleague Jeff Simpkins.
Here’s the description:
42 Day Creative Retreat Process: How to go away every day
Date: Wednesday, February 24, 2010 @ 1 pm Eastern
You want to do bigger things in life but sometimes those bigger, more meaningful projects seem impossible to get off the ground. How do you take time out of your busy day to dedicate to the things that really matter to you? More importantly how do you overcome that ever present inner critic that tells you you can’t do it? Join Annie Hart (that’s me), creator and developer of the 42 Day Creative Retreat Process which helped her create a nearly complete body of work in only 42 days.
Now what’s not to love about that folks?
You want to do bigger things in the world and it’s darned hard to get them off the ground right? That’s why I put myself in the ‘desert’ of my own life to find out how to crack the code and I’m bringing it out to the public now for the very first time.
Please join us. Jeff is great – very lively and engaging. He is the one who I tell the funny story about that he turned me on to Bea Fields, the blogging class and the power of Twitter. This is a man with a lot of heart, knowledge and expertise.
He will be hearing about the process for the first time as well. So do be on the edge of your seats to find out all the juicy details!
The Webinar is free but you do need to register. Just click here to do so.
Coming soon, my collaborator Ian Waddelow and I will be launching a 42 Day Retreat pilot group. How fun is that!
So stay tuned for more and as always get out there and change the world!
Annie
Video: Creative Retreat Inspiration
February 8, 2010
Video: Where Oh Where Does Fulfillment Really Live?
February 1, 2010
Where Oh Where Does Fulfillment Really Live?
January 31, 2010
The mystics say that there are invisible realms, hidden dimensions to our Universe that cannot be seen, felt, tasted, touched or experienced with our five senses. So the question is – Where Oh Where Does True Fulfillment Really Live?
Years ago the love of my life had a dream about me in which he took me to the top of a very tall building. As we looked out from the top he said to me, “I’m going to take you to other beautiful worlds.”
Ironically the love of my life broke my heart, but I never forgot that dream and I’ve always wondered, Where are those other beautiful worlds? Maybe you wonder too?
Too often in our daily life we go about busily feeling the stress and urgency of our daily tasks and commitments. We have so many things that we want to do and we also want to make a difference in the world at the same time. Jeez, isn’t it enough just to do my job, tend my family etc., do I have to make a difference in the world too?
But the irony is that this is the very reason that we are here on earth – to make a difference and to create a better world. So what are we doing when we’re do darned busy and how do we find meaning and fulfillment in the midst of our busy lives?
One of the many amazing things that I discovered on the Creative Retreat process was where true fulfillment really lives. I spent my 42 days happily engaged in the process and woke up every day feeling a sense of deep meaning and purpose. How did that happen? Nothing really changed in my life from one week to the next, and yet somehow the mission of the retreat gave me a deep sense of fulfillment.
I was totally surprised by this. I had no idea.
It made me really think about how meaning and fulfillment are two of the biggest things missing from our busy modern lives and yet these two elements are the most crucial to life itself and what we are here to do.
Ironic isn’t it – that the thing we crave and need the most is the most elusive? It is not inside the busy freneticness of life, I can tell you that for sure.
Why mystics sat on mountaintops or went for 40 days in the desert is because they knew the mysteries of life and were dedicated to tapping them. We need to be dedicated too.
If we are to leave a better world – a world of meaning and fulfillment for others, then we need to be able to have the energy of inspiration whenever and wherever we need it. That is the basis of the Creative Retreat process and in the next few months I’m going to share with you the possibility of joining me on this journey of meaning and fulfillment.
I will be inviting 24 adventurous souls to try the process with me absolutely free. You will have the help and assistance of myself and my colleague who is creating the process with me. Together we are going to break the barriers to creating more fulfilling lives and meaningful work.
Want to join us? We’d love to have you! Please email me at: annie@anniehart.com to express your interest. Also if you’d like to listen to the kick-off Radio 42 Show, please feel free to listen.
You can meet my wonderful colleague and collaborator Ian Waddelow, a brilliant consultant from Europe. We are very fortunate to have Ian onboard.
Today take just a moment to stop, breathe and feel into these other beautiful worlds. They are right here all around you, all the time. You just need to stop, feel, look, listen and eat some good chocolate for them to appear out of the mist.
The mystics knew where true fulfillment really lives. We should follow their path.
Please join me every Friday for Radio 42 – the Meaning of Life, the Universe & Everything. It’s a fun, inspiring show that helps you change from the inside out.
Yours in that which brings greater meaning to life,
Annie
Connect With Annie Hart
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