Family Journey Retreat

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Family Journey Retreat

Unweaving what's once been weaved. Art, healing, meditation, and family travel.
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29/01/2024

Do you consider yourself to be tired or energized more often or is it an even mix?

19/01/2024

What is the best part of being a parent for you?

For me, at this current stage of my life it is seeing them find their passions and spread their light and smiles with the world. They really are often laughing and smiling and so playful.

I also really love and am thankful for the kind of love being a parent opens you up to. In giving that love and receiving it.

17/01/2024

What is the hardest part of being a parent for you?

16/01/2024

For you, what does it mean to be a good parent?

06/12/2023

This is what's on my mind.

14/11/2023

Sorry I haven't posted much recently.
I've been creating.

This space here is a place for me to create. For me to share my heart and inner musing with you all. My thoughts about parenting, healing, and life. Recently, my creativity has been elsewhere. It’s been in making art, dying clothing, and writing a long form article for a parenting magazine!

So, I wanted to share some of what I am creating. Below are pictures of my current work in progress and a behind the scenes look at the raw, unfinished, and unedited article I am writing for a parenting magazine about family travel.

What is a family vacation for?

Is it to rest on a beach next to the ocean?

Is it to not have to think about cooking or cleaning?

Is it to see the world?

Is it to create memories, like in Disneyworld…

Or maybe

It’s to find space to love yourself, your partner and your kids in ways your normal life doesn’t allow for.

Now, go with me with this for a second.

When we are in the grind of our day to day life we have places to be and things to do. So, we demand a lot. A lot of ourselves, our partners if we have one, and our children.

I’m guilty of this as well! Pick that up, fix this, do that, go here, ah not that! Commands and demands. How often do you just find yourself going to your head thinking, “what just happened? But it’s not your fault, well not entirely. Society, has helped us create a world where there is never enough time to do what needs to get done.

And even less time to give the love that we so deeply want to. Because that love that you feel for your family and even yourself is what fuels you. It’s what makes some vacations so addicting. Everything is just done for you, so there is room for love.

What if there was a way to travel that helped you find that room to love intentionally? That the occurrence of this euphoric feeling was not just a happy accident, but thoughtfully planned and curated, with also some beautiful happenstance.

That is the new kind of family travel that I’m talking about. Love on tap. Corny, maybe, but so much better than whatever else you’re going to tap into.

So, let’s bring this back down to earth again. Often the real reason we love vacation is because it opens ups space for the love we don’t feel on a regular basis! Our oxytocin, the love, chemical is ramping up, accompanied with dopamine (the social media drug of choice), mixed in with some Seretonin and endorphins. All that good stuff.

So, how do we craft a family vacation to help us feel all those awesome drugs?

First, it can’t be promised. To tap into that love you desire requires the right setting and mindset. That’s why I believe intentional vacation require some pre-travel work. Like working with a travel coach who can help you think through some questions such as:

What do you want your family to get from the trip?

What would help you enjoy it the most?

What would get in the way of the trip being enjoyable?

What lessons or experiences would you like to bring home with you?

Some of those questions come with baggage. So we need to work on clearing that out of the way for the next step to really work. This pre-trip work isn’t necessary, but it helps us create more room for that love we crave.

The most important take away is from the first step is knowing what we desire. Because if you desire to rest and you either believe that is impossible for you to or you don’t create a trip that let’s you rest you will be consciously or subconsciously miserable. So, figure out what you want.

Step two is planning the trip so you can get make what you desire happen and so the trip is not just catered to your partner, kids, family, etc… Also, a reminder, the thing you desire usually links back to self or relational love, but it’s good to know what outer things get you there.

So, if you have kids joining you and you can’t stand that they always complain they are bored or that they are on their phone or whatever it is. Make sure you account for that.

*** Side note. Yes, this new way of planning a family trip sounds like a lot of work. However, there are people who help create these trips, like me, or you can find ways to enjoy this process. Often when you are planning a family trip that you know you will finally love it makes the process more enjoyable.

Three more things.

1. I hope you have found or find ways to creatively share all of you with the world.
2. I still love creating and family retreats, so if you are interested reach out by commenting below or sending a dm.
3, I am leading a retreat for couples with my amazing couples coaches Ana Del Castillo and Ken Blackman. Reach out by dm or comment below you are interested in learning more.

08/11/2023

I mean all of our beliefs and actions!

Are we truly parenting to serve our children and family or just our ego and ourselves?

Are our actions in our partnership to make it stronger or just for us to get the most out of it?

Are our beliefs about the world for the healing and betterment of all or is it mostly about how we get ours?

Black and white don’t do well for our nervous systems or the collective. So there is an in between grey on all of these questions.

And there also is mostly a winner take all in our actions. Is it the collective or is it just for you?

Ponder this as we go out into the world and raise our children and engage in relationships. Because when the collective wins we all have a better .

08/11/2023

Knowing how to regulate your nervous system and having a meditation and spiritual practice are essential in these times. When it feels like the world is falling apart your children can feel it too. What tools and resources and faith do you have to be with the pain? And how can you fully experience joy?? It starts with the nervous system.

07/11/2023

My nervous system has been hijacked for moments by the divisiveness of the conflict. And it’s caused me to be less patient, short tempered and yell at my kids (something I don’t often do).

all of that is ok at times because we are human. And it’s our job to notice when we are and then have the tools to .

Like deep breaths with longer out breaths then in-breaths.

Walks, dancing, making art, intentional naps, journaling, running. Whatever it is. It’s our job to heal ourselves and have regulated nervous systems as often as we can for ourselves, partner and our kids.

05/11/2023

“Othering” people makes them not human.

That then allows us to say and do things that we couldn’t imagine to those others.

And sometime we “other” our children and our partners.

“Othering” my sound like
“They never understand me.”
“They grew up with money (example) so they don’t get it”
“They are just 5. It doesn’t matter.
“Their family is Muslim. They don’t get me and my partner always sides with them.”

These are just a few examples. But when we let differences such as age, race, religion, money, etc… see someone’s in our life as different then we other them.

And then we can defend all the reasons we were mean or rude or even hateful to them.

Instead the need is to love ourselves, our children and our partners for our differences. This act helps us be more loving people and respect the people of the world more. Our family can be a gateway to that healing.

02/11/2023

So frustrated and confused right now. I speak from a place of immense privilege. I am a white male and live in a town with an abundance of wealth.

I am trying to understand what that privilege immensely skews how I and the people around me see the world.

And I can say that wealth can be an immense shackle. It puts you in a box where life and schedules consume you. You can’t take time off for the fear of losing what you’ve made. The climb becomes the goal.

And time, the greatest source of wealth is as scarce as those in poverty. (Possibly a bold and incorrect statement.)

Like how does that happen. How do we let abundance become another way of keeping us contained and holding us back from a life of freedom?

Maybe it comes back to the idea that the binaries are where the most intense pain exists. And or this is the ways of toxic late stage capitalism!

01/11/2023

Hot take for parents. Our children’s ability to change their damaging behavioral patterns is a product of our capacity to heal ourselves.

As parents we are responsible for our nervous system, our behaviors, and our reactions to our children’s behaviors. So, what they do is quite often a reflection of us. Therefore it requires us to do just as much work on ourselves to stop us from being an enabler of their toxic behaviors.

By working on ourselves our children will have more success healing and changing their behaviors.

31/10/2023

I desire financial security for my family in the sense of not having to even think about money

I desire to travel the world and bring people along with me

I desire a sauna and cold plunge spa set up in my backyard

I desire to donate money to all people and projects I’m inspired to

All of these require money as a source of energy just as a fire requires wood and oxygen.

So money is not the goal. It is not the fruit that the hard work bares.

The fruit is our ego. 🤯🤯🤯

Our egos attachment to our status or self worth based on the numbers in our bank account.

So, when we can allow ourselves to see money as the energetic fuel of our desires we realize that it not need be our focus. The collection of money then becomes a task, like gathering wood.

30/10/2023

I was just on the Sugar Coated Podcast. Such an awesome episode that helped me better explain what Family Retreats are about, the emotional and mental burden of mothers, and how growth happens through friction.

Give it a listen : )

https://www.sheleadspodcasts.com/show/sugar-coated/staying-intentional-to-prevent-burnout-with-evan-freed/

30/10/2023

As parents it is our role to be the one's who help direct our children, create order, and keep our lives tidy and clean.

EQUALLY our role is to show our children that life is playful, joyful, and full of love.

These are to massive paradoxical roles to hold. So it requires us to navigate what the ground between them looks like.

How do you try to create order while also being playful your children? And yes, this goes for children of all ages!

30/10/2023

Join Ana Del Castillo Ken Blackman and I on Nov 9th for a free talk on . The focus of the talk is how to make your relationship feel partnered instead of transactional. Because when you can be partnered in your approach the tit for tat mindset disappears and you feel like a loving connected team again.

To sign up use this link - https://www.familyjourney.co/relationshiptalk110923

27/10/2023

When we are in a cycle of feeling emotions that are overwhelming here are a few things we do.

1. The second we wake up we check to see if the intensity has passed.
2. We try to understand why we’re feeling this way because if we do maybe we can fix it.
3. We numb out on our phones or tv or food or whatever often.
4. We get pulled into a self-hate or what’s wrong with me shame cycle. (This is due to societies obsession with pathologizing everything.)

However, there are much more helpful and loving ways to approach the intensity of our feelings.

1. Just sit with the feelings in your body. Literally sit and feel them without trying to figure out what they are
2. Draw your feelings. See if you can give them a shape a color, even ask your feelings if they have a name. You can put this all on paper and see that you’re feelings are in fact not you. They have an entire separate existence and you can communicate with them. You are not a victim of them.
3. Learn grounding techniques. When our feelings get overwhelming we need to help calm our nervous system down. Deep breathes with a longer timed exhale are so great. Cold showers really help. Hugging yourself. Coloring and drawing like mentioned above! There are so many so learn what that really helps you.

As we learn to heal we will shift between helpful and unhelpful ways of coping with our intense emotions. Be kind to yourself when possible through the process of it all ❤️.

You’ve got this!

26/10/2023

Next time you’re feeling emotionally overwhelmed go and feel your feet. Wiggle your toes feel your feet on the ground.

We tend to carry so much of our tension in stress in our upper body. So feeing our feet helps us ground and calm the nervous system.

21/10/2023

With all that is going on in the world I turned to making art. Art as a way to work through it and to express it.

Inspired by David Harshada Wagner.

20/10/2023

Today was the end of a retreat I led for an amazing couple. Every time I end a retreat I am blown away by what I and they come away from our time together.

The theme this time was, how do we use big moments in our life as a catapult for change. When my mother died that moment became a fork in my life. I took the path and have been intentionally evolving ever since.

This couples moments was about using marriage and putting out the energy of commitment out into the universe. So, how do we use that energy to commit to ourselves and each other? What would our life look like if we committed more to what we desires. What do we even desire.

Big life moments don’t come often. So being intentional about what we can use from them can life to big shifts and catalyzing the energy that we’ve already put out into the world.

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https://www.cohart.com/u/evanfreed, http://familyjourney.co/

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Videos

Often the person who plays the masculine role in the relationship turns their partner into their mother. The same goes for the fem role turning their partner into their father. Listen to this one with Ana Del Castillo and Ken Blackman. #relationships #healing

Join Ken Blackman Ana Del Castillo and me for a retreat for couples. Click the link below to learn more! https://www.familyjourney.co/intentional-vacation-for-partners

You are doing incredible #healingjourney

My daughter was having a meltdown yesterday and we were fairly grounded at first and then we all spiraled. It happens and we’re humans. But these are some great tips from @chazzlewis #consciousparenting

Truth and your authentic self is the way to a right relationship. #couplesgoals #couplescounseling

Don’t #gaslight yourself

#consciousparenting

Parenting has so many rules to follow. I say f the rules. Heal yourself and then learn how to unlesrn those rules. You can then reapond from a place of authenticity, love, and intuition. #consciousparenting