writer, yoga teacher & Queen of Retreats Ambassador Lucy Greeves

‘Ever since I became a full-time writer seven years ago, yoga has been a lifeline. At the most prosaic level, yoga asana work brilliantly to stretch achy shoulders and open tight hip flexors after a day hunched over a keyboard. Teaching and attending classes at my local studio gives me a supportive social network that can be sorely lacking in a freelance lifestyle. And it’s good for my soul: writing is a solipsistic profession but when I’m teaching yoga, I can’t help but focus completely on other people for once! But most importantly, my own yoga practice provides me with grounding and calm when I’m spending too much time in my head.

In April this year, I finally got a chance to test everything I’ve learnt about yoga and writing on some real live writers. I taught a week-long Writers’ Retreat with Yoga, a programme I cooked up with centre director Claire Berliner when I first visited Totleigh Barton on a writing course last year. We had no idea who would come, but we knew that the place itself is supremely conducive to studious concentration and that the newly renovated barn, with stonking great medieval oak beams above and brand new underfloor heating below, would make a great yoga studio.

Fortunately, the course sold out quickly, and I found myself in a rain-sodden but still beautiful Devon valley with a class of fourteen talented writers – novelists, poets and screenwriters as well as non-fiction types. These were people with substantial work in progress, some on their fifth draft of a screenplay and others on their third or fourth novel. So they didn’t need me to teach them about writing, but they were all looking for some kind of relaxing and balancing practice to support their writing efforts. We started the day with a 45 minute stretching and seated meditation session, then reconvened mid-afternoon for 90 minutes of Hatha yoga ending in a long guided relaxation session. In between, everyone scribbled or typed away furiously.

In the evenings, we ate and talked together, about writing and yoga and our lives. And on the last night, more than half the group shared a few paragraphs or a few poems – fascinating to find out what people had been crafting and polishing in between our group sessions, and a lovely way to end the week. It was a very supportive atmosphere overall, with lots of sympathetic advice on offer about getting things finished and published, as well as the invaluable sense of being part of a peer group of ‘real’ writers. A writing course wouldn’t be worthy of the name without a tiny bit of daily word count one-upmanship at suppertime, but I’d like to think that in this case, it was somewhat tempered by the general increase in yogic equanimity. (Ahem.)

Most of the time, I teach drop-in classes to busy people in London. Leading a retreat is a real luxury in some ways. You can clearly see the effect the teaching is having, because you get to work with people each day and watch them build on the things they learnt the day before. And you also meet people away from their day-to-day concerns, in a headspace that allows them to really sink into the practice and explore layers of awareness and relaxation that aren’t always available when you’re taking 90 minutes out of a busy work day to do yoga.

As a writer and yogi, I’m thoroughly persuaded of the complementary benefits of both practices. But it was really valuable to share what I’ve learnt with other writers, and see the combination work for them too. One of the retreat participants wrote this to me afterwards, summing it up as well as I ever could: “I found that the morning session, with emphasis on meditation, was extremely useful for getting me to the point of readiness to write. The afternoon session was wonderful for getting rid of aches that had built up over the day and also for moving me on mentally, so that I could reflect on my day’s writing. I found that the yoga enhanced my creativity, preparing me so that the rest of my time was better used.’

Lucy will run a yoga and writing retreat for Arvon next April 2013, and plans to run her own yoga and writing course this Autumn. Interested? You can drop her a line or book here

Day five: ‘This morning my rescheduled paraglide is cancelled again due to back wind. I rearrange it for this afternoon, feeling slightly concerned that I might not even get to do it before I leave tomorrow. I have a private assisted stretching session with Vishnu instead, then a herbal steam, and a long pool swim. Like every day, I order my breakfast in my villa – this costs extra, but it’s easier, it means I can sunbathe naked, and I get to enjoy a view of the sea, something you can’t do from the Arabic restaurant where breakfast is served.

Lovely simple urns adorn the private sandy gardens of each villa

Visiting practitioner Khun Noom gives me a Royal Thai massage today –  she is tiny but incredibly strong, and uses her feet as well as her hands to unknot me. She also uses singing bowls and a spot of chanting – to encourage me, she says, to ‘be in the here and now, to let go in each moment and stop thinking’. You know, the usual thing. The thing I try to do each day of my life, and often fail at so badly.

I feel energised after, all ready for my 3 pm paraglide. I’m taken right to the top of a mountain behind the resort, harnessed up, and asked by a gigantically tall Belgian guy who is to be my tandem partner to start running down a slope. It all happens rather quickly, and suddenly there I am, scooped up and lingering in the air.

Paragliding over Zighy Bay

I feel totally safe in the gigantically tall Belgian guy’s hands, suspended as I am in the warm air, watching the shadow of the paraglide below me. It’s wonderful to be up there among the mountains, but after ten minutes of gentle swooping I start to feel a little sick. We then swoop from left to right to descend, and I feel even more sick. Once landed, I breathe deeply, smile and say I enjoyed it, but I realise I am lying.

The shadow of The Queen of Retreats’s paraglide on the hot rock

I end up feeling sick for two hours after – an effect, I think, of the adrenalin rush – and berate myself for not booking the thai massage for after it rather than before. I’ve done white water rafting, bungee jumping and dune buggying in my time and loved them all, which is why I thought paragliding sounded so sexy – maybe I am getting old? I admit I loved those adrenalin highs when I was a lot younger – certainly none of them instilled in me a feeling of wellbeing, more like terror-induced fits of giggling. Lots of people will love it, of course.

Dee kayaking on the calm morning sea the morning of the Queen’s departure

Day six: Ah, that’s better. I’m up early this morning to make the most of my time before I leave, and do some yoga before an 8am kayak with the lovely Dee. There’s a mellow sun coming up, the sea is calm, and we amuse ourselves spotting extravagant crabs on the hot rocks. Afterwards I swim in the sea, then plough up and down in the pool, then sunbathe a little, putting off the moment I have to pack up my things and leave.

I feel renewed after my 5 nights here, my body feels ironed out, my mind refreshed and steady, and I admit it will be a wrench to leave the heat, the easy pace and the sheer luxury of having the time and space to do what I need, when I need, to make me feel good. Not to worry – it’s back to real world now for me’.

Six Senses Zighy Bay offer 3, 5 and 7 night wellbeing breaks dedicated to adventure, fitness, detoxing or slow living. You can book one or ask Six Senses a direct question here: [contact-form]

© Queen of Retreats

‘ The sun is out again. Hurray! I get up late, have my hot water with lemon and ginger, do a decent yoga practice in front of the open doors, then finally get my sea swim, as this is the first day the sea hasn’t been filled with huge waves – it’s lovely and calm, pale turquoise and warm. I could do without the truck shifting sand along the beach, but last week’s storms have dragged too much sand away and the resort are replacing it for guests.

I have a late, light breakfast with lots of water, a mango smoothie (my staple), Arabian bread with humous and Jasmine tea, then lounge about in the sunshine reading and dreaming till it’s time for my mountain hike with Slovenian Dee – Alex’s partner, she is equally as capable and charming.

A 4 x 4 jeep takes us into the glorious sandstone Hajar mountains, which are such as essential part of the Musandam Peninsula. They are quite a revelation, towering about us as we drive through the gulleys, absolutely awe-inspiring in their beauty and remoteness (if you make it out here, you must get into them, as they’re not something you appreciate fully just by admiring them from the resort).

The hike is wonderful, just on the right side of challenging for my energy levels that day and it’s great to have easy, female company. It culminates in a steep walk up to a tiny settlement which hasn’t been used as a village, Dee tells me, for over 30 years – before that, it was home to a family of villages for over 800 years.

Now, there’s just one friendly Pakistani guy who tends goats all year round for the landowner – an incredibly lonely job. We share smiles and some milky tea with him, then wander the plateau to explore.  There’s a prayer circle, a water filtering system, terraces where the inhabitants once grew crops and a graveyard where three head stones are engraved with a helmet, a necklace and a child’s game to denote who is buried there. For some reason all I can think is what it would be like to give birth in such a desolate place.

Back at the resort a few hours later, sweaty and happy, I feel completely chilled out. I have a shower, then join some people for drinks in the resort’s rather magical organic herb garden. Dinner is a seafood barbecue with lots of salad options. Falling asleep that night is supremely easy.’

Soon, day five. Six Senses Zighy Bay offer 3, 5 and 7 night wellbeing breaks dedicated to adventure, fitness, detoxing or slow living. You can book one or ask Six Senses a direct question here: [contact-form]

© Queen of Retreats

‘Glorious day! The sun is out, I get up with energy and head straight down onto the beach, a hop, skip and a jump away. I shell hunt for my daughter, walk a bit, then get my camera and experiment with the light. The waves are a little too high this morning for a tranquil swim, so after a hot ginger with lemon I do some lengths in the pool, then it’s back to my villa for my yoga practice. I order fresh mango and porridge in my villa for breakfast – it’s so much easier and quicker than heading up to the restaurant, and I end up doing this every morning till I leave.

At 10 am I cycle up to have an Arabian facial at the spa. This is the life. It’s something extra I’ve booked, a little beautifying indulgence to go alongside the thai and deep tissue massages that are included in my Sense of Adventure 5 night deal. Again, the therapist has a lovely calm presence and is very thorough – she uses yoghurt to cleanse, a fig and jojoba concoction to exfoliate, cucumber to tone and a mask of oatmeal and honey to moisturise. While it soaks in, she massages a macadamia and henna oil mask into my hair and scalp, then, at my request, massages my feet as well. It’s all superbly done and just the kind of indulgence you come to a resort such as this for. After – the usual ginger tea and cashew nuts (the only thing ever on offer). I skip flicking through a book this time and head back to my villa for a spot of sunbathing – nude, naturally, as each villa is so secluded there is no chance of being overlooked and it feels so very freeing.

At 1.30 pm I am treated to a Stepping Stones life coaching session with Steve Harvey, the wellness manager. Based on The Work of Byron Katie, it’s very interesting stuff.

Now I can be very sceptical about all the systems of thought introduced by all the different people in the holistic world that I’ve come across over the years, but Steve has his feet firmly on the ground, a kind, gentle presence, a warm, Glaswegian lilt to his voice and a cracking sense of humour. Somehow I trust him.

We work through Byron Katie’s ‘Judge Your Neighbour’ Worksheet – you pick your issue, then answer questions about it. The form encourages you to reveal the worst side of yourself. ‘Don’t be kind’, it says, ‘be petty and judgmental’. For every statement you make about your ‘neighbour’ (situation/parent/friend/person you have an issue with), you are then encouraged to ask four questions -

Is it true?

Can you absolutely know that it’s true?

How do you react when you think that thought?

Who would you be without the thought?

Steve uses the form to help you understand Byron Katie’s system ‘The Work’, a form of meditation designed to raise your awareness of your thought processes in any situation. By asking the four questions of any given situation, you liberate yourself from ways of thinking that might be holding you back and stopping you from doing something.

Steve explains: ‘Everything is perfect as it is, except when we start telling ourselves stories about a given situation – he should do this, she should have done that, I should be doing this, and so on. By analysing our thoughts using the four questions, we can see that it is only ourselves we hurt by judging others and by expecting them to be someone they are not. We are in their business. We must stay in our business’.

The secret to happiness, he says, is to see the benefit in any given situation – even if that situation seems bad at the time. It was a great session for me – I cried, I laughed, I felt calm after, and best of all, I had a positive way of dealing with things to take home with me. I would thoroughly recommend it if you have even the tiniest issue that’s bugging you, whatever life situation you are in.

Warm, gently and funny: Steve Harvey, life coach and wellness manager at Six Senses Zighy Bay

I have a late lunch of (tough) chicken kebabs with a salad about 4 pm, reschedule the kayaking session I had booked for later in the week and instead go for the beach walk I’ve been hankering after since I arrived. Half of Zighy Bay is taken up by a real Omani village, with new houses built by the resort’s owner and a mosque. It feels deserted, and I meet no one on my lovely walk to the harbour and back. I collect shells again for my daughter – one huge white affair, another a brilliant buddha-orange colour. After, I cycle back to the spa for a lengthy sweat in the herbal steam room, which all guests have access to whenever they want. Again, like every time I visit the spa, I hardly see a soul.

What a great day. I feel renewed. I go for dinner alone to feel a sense of others, but the service is slow and I get bored and am glad to get back to my villa. I have another hot milk, read a little on my day bed, and fall asleep feeling so very grateful that I have the opportunity for this utter peace’.

Soon, day four. Six Senses Zighy Bay offer 3, 5 and 7 night wellbeing breaks dedicated to adventure, fitness, detoxing or slow living. You can book one or ask Six Senses a direct question here: [contact-form]

© Queen of Retreats

The Queen of Retreats’s bed in villa 56 at Six Senses Zighy Bay, Oman

‘I awake about 10 am Zighy Bay time (5am UK time) to a slant of sun coming onto my huge bed and the delicious feeling that I don’t have to get up for work, my baby or anything else. The resort sets its clocks an hour ahead of everyone else in the United Arab Emirates so that their treasured guests can see the sunrise without waking up too early – how thoughtful.

I make myself some ginger tea, read a little, do a little yoga and make it to breakfast five minutes before they finish serving (at 11 am). There’s a pretty good buffet laid out for guests – an awful lot of pastries, but also sushi, nuts, seeds and extremely delicious home made mango smoothies. I order a cheese and asparagus omelette, and a cheese omelette emerges. No asparagus I ask the waiter? No asparagus.

While I eat the weather turns outside and becomes a very windy, very cloudy grey day. How shocking! As I watch in awe at the massively high waves building far out at sea, my butler emerges to tell me it’s too windy to make it safe for me to paraglide today. Paragliding was the sexiest sounding thing on the Sense of Adventure menu, but I don’t mind, I still have days left, I can wait.

Instead I bring one of my spa appointments forward (easily done) and cycle to the spa for a hot and fragrant 20 minute herbal steam followed by a very relaxing deep tissue massage – it’s a lot more relaxing than deep, but the Thai masseuse does my feet and head brilliantly and I soon drift off again – how deeply indulgent.

Just to make sure I am really and truly relaxed, I’m then taken to the female relaxation area, which has five wide loungers draped in clean, unbleached, cream towelling. It turns out to also be a thoroughfare for staff going back and forth, though they’re quiet and calm and it doesn’t feel like a problem. I sip more ginger tea, munch a few cashew nuts, and flick through one of the hardback books on offer, Water Light Time by David Doubilet, which contains underwater photographs of pretty but creepy sea life forms and landscapes.

I’ve noticed lately how I do everything as if I’m on a deadline, as if the next thing is just round the corner and I am on a time limit, so I try to force myself just to sit still and ponder the pictures slowly. This works for about five minutes, then I feel a desperate sense of boredom and venture out again.

A treatment room at Six Senses Zighy Bay

The tide is too high to take the beach walk I fancied, so I wander into the resort’s bazaar instead, which like so many resorts around the world is vastly over-priced and not particularly interesting (with two exceptions in my travels so far – Como Shambhala Estate in Bali and Ananda in the Himalayas in India both had gorgeous and original bits and pieces when I visited). That said, I do buy some cute little hand-woven flags for my daughter and a pretty beaded hair slide for myself, and admire some gorgeous paintings by artist Yalda Jafari.

Restless to see more of Oman than just the insides of a luxurious resort, I wander to the Life centre and book a cycle ride to the local town of Dibba with Alex, a sensible, friendly guide from Colchester who, as part of Absolute Adventures, helps look after Zighy Bay’s activities. A mountain bike ride is included as part of my package.

One of the houses at Dibba

We drive the twenty minutes to town, then cycle fast on lovely flat roads past a massive date plantation, a couple of mosques and a strangely sedate Portuguese fort. On the empty-looking streets with large houses there are no women and children to be seen – they are usually inside their homes and courtyards during the day, Alex tells me.

At the fish market, men are resting over their nets and a bunch of guys are standing together in long robes talking on their mobile phones and bargaining over a pile of giant tuna.

At the fish market at Dibba

The most intriguing sight for me, however, is the mass grave of those who fell at the Battle of Ridda (in 633 AD), the last battle of the Muslim conquest of Arabia. Hundreds of rocks stick up out of the ground with no markings. The only way relatives know who is buried there, Alex tells me, is because they pass down the knowledge from family to family.

Everything everywhere feels barren and bare, and I realise what that empty, dry feeling is – the lack of grass. There really is no inch of grass anywhere to be seen across the town, and when it rains here, Alex says, it is such a big event that all the locals drive to a look out point to watch the rivers fill up.

I love the bike ride, and on return to the resort feel unconcerned that I’ve missed a group meditation. The day is still grey, so to cheer myself up I share dinner at the Spice Bazaar with a couple my age I have met (slow service, tasty mezzes, salads a bit oily). We chat till pretty late, then it’s off to bed – I order a hot milk to help get me in the mood and sleep straight through till 8am the following day.’

Soon, day three. Six Senses Zighy Bay offer 3, 5 and 7 night wellbeing breaks dedicated to adventure, fitness, detoxing or slow living. You can book one or ask Six Senses a direct question here: [contact-form]

© Queen of Retreats