When Showing Up and Accepting Works: The Retreat with Firemen, Leaks, and Zero Panic

As a retreat leader, when the manager tells you that sparks are coming out of the ceiling and she’s calling 911… how would you feel?

Here’s the thing about my meditation practice - it’s what people always see when they’re on retreat with me.  Ceiling leaks? I don’t panic. That’s what people notice about me, and honestly, I think it’s what they learn far more than any specific technique.

What do you do when things fall apart? How do you pick yourself back up? That’s the real story. And I think that’s why people feel safe with me - because I don’t expect them to be anything other than human. Because, hello, so am I.

Let me tell you about this retreat.

I love the farmhouse at Wisdom House. That’s why I keep booking it. It’s this old New England farmhouse with serene energy - it used to be where nuns trained to become nuns. Think worn wood floors, doors at odd angles, and deep coziness. Walking in feels like a warm hug.

For this Winter Retreat, my vision was to anchor everything around the fireplace room - settling around the fire, gathering, practicing, telling stories, learning from each other. I usually include a forest bathing session because there’s a beautiful state park nearby. But the weather forecast? That kind of cold where going outside freezes your face. So I redid the entire schedule for indoor workshops, and honestly, I was happy with the new plan. I thought it would work well.

I thought I’d done everything to make this weekend a success, even with the brutal cold. Because that’s what my retreats are meant to be - a warm hug that lets people feel safe enough to reflect and transform.

And then I walked into the main room - the fireplace room - and I saw the yellow tape and the leak in the ceiling.

Oh, no.

I went into focused mode. Okay. This is the situation. I have an hour before people arrive. I need to make everything look as welcoming as possible.

I wasn’t telling myself anything to stay calm - I was just focused on the experience for my guests. I wanted them to feel warm and welcome, because I know taking this time for themselves was a big effort.

When people started arriving - of course no one was on time, everyone hit traffic, someone’s dog needed the vet - I stayed calm. All I could do was explain the situation.

And actually, this IS the practice of mindfulness. Acceptance. I couldn’t change it, so I accepted it.

The evening was calm, connected. We’d done mindful storytelling, which always brings people together because they suddenly realize: oh, me too. I think a lot of us live quite isolated, having these experiences. And when we get together and we talk about what’s really happening in our inner life, we’re like, me too. That real human connection.

And then the manager walked in. I could see on her face that something was wrong. She apologized: “It’s not safe. The farmhouse roof is sparking. I need to call 911.”

I was like, okay, well… here we are. We can’t be unsafe.

So I just said, “Okay, guys, I think maybe we should just pause on the yoga nidra. We can do it tomorrow night. How does everyone feel about tarot cards?”

And then, of course, we’re doing tarot cards as these lights are flashing in the windows. The fire trucks had arrived. And then the fireman jokes start happening, and we were just giggling.

The next day went much more smoothly. People had really relaxed. They’d connected. This group really got on. Even though people had come on their own, I kept finding different groups of people sitting by the fire chatting when we weren’t in session for something.

We stayed cozy inside and I saw that participants  just felt very calm and regulated. They were joking. There was humor. And it was so lovely - at the end of the retreat they made a WhatsApp group which is going strong and keeping them accountable to each other.

When I sent out the survey (I always do - feedback is crucial for improving my retreats), I was bracing myself. There’s a section that asks “what could we improve?” and I was definitely expecting people to mention the retreat house.

Not one person said that.

In fact, I got people saying things like, “There’s nothing to improve, it was perfect.” They said that they’d learned tools that were going to really help them in their life, that they felt calm and restored, and they thanked me for a wonderful weekend.

And I think that’s what I realized. What actually could have been such a different situation, depending on how I was, was wonderful for them. And it’s because of my mindset. It’s because of learning acceptance, especially about things that you don’t want to accept, and how transformative it is for you and for people around you.

Why Mindfulness Matters for Leaders (Especially When Things Go Wrong)

Well, we set the tone for the group. When we’re regulated, we regulate our group and we show them what it’s like to be accepting and to show up and do the best you can. You know, that it’s messy to be human. And that’s really the lesson, I think, here. It’s often the lesson that people learn, right?

It’s not necessarily what you say, it’s how you are and how you make them feel.

If this is something you want to learn - how to stay regulated when life throws chaos at you - join me. Start with my email newsletter, where you’ll get a complimentary meditation and step-by-step guidance using my pause technique.

I’d just like to end by saying something I said to my colleague: showing up, being accepting, and carrying on is often all we can do.

Never give up.