I’ve been on a wellness and healing journey for the last 8 years. I’ve been focused on healing me. It’s been a kind of trial by fire where I dive into an area seeing what sticks. I’ve tried all kinds of classes and therapies. I’ve read hundreds of books trying to understand the how, why, and what that makes up me. And after everything I’ve found a path forward to a place that is amazing, which is why I’m ready to share what has been working for me.

My Healing and Wellness Journey as an HR Leader

My wellness journey began a little over 8 years ago just before my family and I moved to Austin, Texas. Like so many other HR leaders, I battled workplace burnout as an HR leader and left a toxic job working for a large staffing firm making the move to Austin with my family. I started to rebuild Workology and my business, launching our Ace the HR Exam course focused on SHRM and HRCI certification prep courses. I began to work with a therapist and life coach.

During the pandemic I became interested in neurolinguistic programming and took a two year program studying over 400 hours on NLP. I did this on in my spare time while running Workology and offering our online training programs. I studied things like hypnosis, the power of suggestion, and using visualization to allow for habit change and healing. I realized that our thoughts and beliefs have a great power over us and started understanding how my own inner dialogue was sabotaging me and began thinking about how I showed up was impacting my friends, family, and my business.

I took a hard look at my own life and the things that were holding me back. You know those things that we resist; these patterns of behavior and people that I used as a form of protection to “keep me safe.” And through this work, I realized that when I had the most good in my life and felt at my best it was when I was doing yoga and meditation. I have been on a journey of yoga, meditation, breath, movement and self-discovery, challenging myself to do yoga and meditation every day. Eventually, this led me to some pretty amazing personal things. I have lost 75 lbs. I no longer have lower back pain. I released some negative patterns, people, and beliefs from my life. I feel so much lighter personally, physically, and emotionally. And I decided to really commit by becoming taking a certified yoga teacher training.

Now, I did not set out to become yoga teacher. Like NLP, I just really wanted to understand more of the why and science behind why we do all these things. As someone who’s been practicing yoga, I have attended thousands of yoga classes, but wanted to go deeper than what I was getting in class.

Wellness Retreat to Banish Burnout and Anxiety for HR and Recruiting

I share all this so you understand the how and the why of getting here to this moment where I decided to host a wellness retreat. As I’ve been feeling better and showing up differently, the community here at Workology has took notice. And I realized that so many of us are suffering from trauma, burnout and limiting beliefs that are holding us in HR and recruiting back from being our authentic selves.

Which is why I’m excited to share that I am hosting my first wellness retreat October 10-13, 2024 along with fellow HR practitioner, Heidi Pancake, SHRM-SCP, SPHR. We are hosting a wellness retreat just for human resources and recruiting leaders.

Heidi and I have been on parallel healing journeys and we reconnected a few months back. She, like me, wanted to help HR with her breath work and I wanted to help with my meditation and yoga for HR so we decided to team up.

Recently, I shared on the Inclusive AF podcast with Jackye Clayton and Katee Van Horn the following: “Stress is a part of life, but we have a choice on how we choose to heal or to work through the things that we’re experiencing.” This is one of the reasons I ultimately decided to host this retreat. I NEED to share how to HR leaders can create boundaries and learn how to work through all the feelings, emotions, and work garbage that we deal with even if it’s not our stuff. It’s still happening not to us, but through us.

HRetreat, a Wellness Retreat for Human Resources Professionals

Our first ever retreat together is October 10-13, 2024 in Austin, Texas called HRetreat. It’s a 4 day 3 night wellness retreat for human resources focused on gentle movement, meditation and breath work. This retreat is the first of its kind that I know of for HR leaders providing us with tools, resources, and information to overcome stress, anxiety and heal ourselves before we begin to share what we know with our friends, colleagues, peers and employees. Even better: This retreat is pre-approved for 12.0 HRCI and SHRM recertification credits and PDCs.

If you feel called to join us, you can learn more at www.HRetreat.com. We have limited spots to the retreat in order to have a small group format, but I can assure you it will change your life. Both Heidi and I are excited to share our healing journeys and the tools and resources that we used to get there all with a lens for HR.