You are going to hate me but…
…by the time this lands in your inbox, I will just have finished a three-day solo wellness retreat in Thailand.
I know, I’m a complete bastard and I can only apologise.
To say it was a shock to the system is an understatement. The whole point of a wellness retreat is putting your own health and relaxation at the forefront, and it felt like a brain-spinning U-turn swapping full time work, childcare and Christmas party season in London for kombucha, massages and meditation in a serene villa complex near Bangkok.
Those who know me well will have a hard time believing I’ve unwound to anything looser than ‘tightly-coiled metal spring’. My mate Anya still laughs at the time I sat bolt upright next to her in a posh spa’s chill out room, asking exactly how many minutes of relaxing I should pencil in.
So it’s no wonder the lovely old Thai lady who performed my first massage gasped when she touched my back - my muscles have essentially turned into rock hard tectonic plates, grinding angrily over each other with every move. Oh no, I thought, she’s going to tell me to do more mindfulness. Or journaling. That I have to swap running for aerial yoga. And she’ll probably advise me to give up all my favourite things in life: pissing around on Instagram, drinking Fanta Zero, watching telly, eating at least six large squares of chocolate a day. Peak life for me is doing all four of these things at the same time.
Actually, her prescription was: “You need fun, enjoy, travel, party”. Her slightly broken English hammered it home succinctly, indicating that my boulder-like back is a result of taking life too bloody seriously. And something twigged in my brain.
The last time I received this advice so directly was from my lovely grandfather, nearly 20 years ago. It was in a hospital in Surrey, and the last time I’d ever see him, although I didn’t realise that at the time. But he must have known, because I remember after I kissed him goodbye he grabbed my hand and told me: “You just have fun in life Sophie”. It sounds like it could just be an off-hand comment I know, but there was a clarity to it, a real sense of parting wisdom. Perhaps he could already spot my stress-head tendencies, or maybe this was simply the best knowledge he had gained from what everyone would later agree was “a bloody good life”.
I reflected on this memory while I lay on that massage table, trying not to dribble through the face hole (my biggest spa-based fear). One thing a solo retreat really does give you time for is reflection, which I haven’t done for about three years. I’ve been so caught up in the fast pace of life - and worrying like mad about everything - that lightness and fun have often gone by the wayside. And silliness! Honestly, I was so silly in sixth form I’m amazed I got a single A-Level. I want some of that back. Of course not everything can be a laugh a minute, but I think my brain got so fine-tuned to relentless negativity during covid that’s it’s left a cloudy grey hangover. With that in mind, I’m shunning self-denial for my 2023 resolutions and setting just one positive goal: have more fun. And before you get scared, I promise not to force any of you to go to an adult play park with me.