Awaken to Your Divinity – An Interview with Lauren Dickinson

Join us for an enlightening conversation with Lauren Dickinson as she shares how retreats can help us awaken to our own divinity.

Growing up with the Radha Soami faith, Lauren was learning practices such vegetarianism and daily meditation, setting a strong foundation for her spiritual development. In our time together, not only does she share about her personal awakenings, but Lauren offers anecdotes and valuable insights about planning and leading life-changing retreats. Her focus on creativity and safe, sacred spaces provides a blueprint for those looking to blend spiritual awakening with personal and professional growth. (Interview has been edited for readability.)

We always like to begin by just hearing a little bit about your story of awakening. How did you awaken to these concepts of mindfulness, spirituality, and personal growth?

Lauren Dickinson: I feel like my journey is a little bit unique that I don’t have a singular starting point. I was raised in a very spiritual family, in a very Eastern spiritual faith, and so I grew up vegetarian because of our spirituality. My parents didn’t drink because of our spirituality. My dad meditated every day for three hours. I was around it, and I always was a very inquisitive child. “Dad what about this part of the universe?” “Dad, what about this part of the universe?” Actually has a really unique connection to my origin story of my company but, really, just always having questions growing up and being in an environment where I could get those answered. My awareness into more of the mindfulness that this was actually a thing that people are taught and you could do, that came more into my early twenties when that started to develop and becoming more aware of, yes, I had a unique upbringing, but also, there’s a place for this in the world.

You skipped right over the fact that you said your dad meditated three hours a day.

Lauren Dickinson: Absolutely every day. I remember being able to tell when he was meditating every day. I would be able to like feel something in the field, or I would be able – I think I told somebody else that I was speaking to about it. I could feel like a gold sparkle in the air, and I couldn’t see it. It was like this inner knowing. Oh, dad must be meditating right now, and he did it consistently every single morning because that was part of the – our spiritual practice, his. I think it gave me a lot of influence in the fact that he was such a steady spiritual person.

There’s all different kinds of spirituality. Some of it’s way out there and some of it’s woo-woo, whatever. This was a very grounded thing because it was just something – a daily practice that he did every single day, and he never missed, not that I could ever recall. If he didn’t do it, he was always making sure – well, not that I know that he didn’t do it, but I don’t think that he ever skipped a day. I’m sure that if he did he would make up for it that night or something like that, but just every morning, that was just our routine, yeah.

Did you feel the pressure to do that as well either explicitly or implicitly?

Lauren Dickinson: The specific spiritual faith I don’t think taught or had you teach your kids how to do it. I think that there’s some value in that that kids may not know – I mean, mindfulness meditation is one thing, but this specific type of meditation was more like you – there’s a certain process to it about going inside. It was never talked about that we had to do that, but I know that there was probably some expectation that as we grew older we would make the same choices, adhere to the same spiritual faith because we were raised in it. Like I said, we were vegetarian. I’ve never veered from that, but there was never – it was more just the way it was, not ever an expectation that we had to adopt that. I think my dad always expected that we all would. I’m one of six kids, and I think that was just the way that we were all going to, for the most part, continue forward with, yeah. My mom didn’t meditate quite as much, and she was part of the same spiritual faith as well. That maybe was part of the balance that we were never told, oh, you have to do this. By a certain age, you’re doing this. It was just the way it was.

Dad was hardcore. Mom was slacking off.

Lauren: Mom was raising six kids, so that was her out on that part of it.

What spiritual faith were you raise in?

Lauren Dickinson: It’s out of India. It’s called Radha Soami science, so it’s the science of the soul. It’s a system of – essentially, at the most practical core of it, it’s a system of meditation that teaches you how to go inside, reconnect with God, source, everything on the inside versus a lot of spiritual faiths go into idolatry and guruism. There is a teacher involved, but it’s more just going inside, teaching you the methods of going through the different dimensions, in layman’s – yeah, there’s a lot to it, but that’s essentially just a meditation system.

At what point did you feel like you wanted to go beyond a personal practice to begin helping other people in this way? When did that shift take place?

Lauren Dickinson: That actually was a little bit later. My early 20s, I became aware of it and became aware that, yes, I was different. Yes, I’d had this unique background that I would lend towards having that as a purpose if I ever wanted to. It didn’t really fully sink in until I was living in Sedona, actually. I think I had – what was I, 30, 31, when I’d been – I’d been working in the chiropractic field for a while already, wellness centers, and had that, okay, there’s a thing for this. I guess that leads into, yeah, the early 20s. I started moving into wellness businesses.

For me, personally, knowing my part in it was when I was in Sedona. I was managing a vitamin store at the time and was this nutritionist and all this stuff, and I was talking to one of my really good friends in the store, Cynthia Richmond. I love her dearly. She’s passed now, but she was one of my really dear friends in Sedona. She was so good at just helping people just find their thing or find their – she was a little bit of a coach herself, but I remember telling her, I was like, “I don’t know what to do with my life. I can do this. I can do that. I just feel called for something bigger.” She’s like, “What about a spiritual life coach? You would be really good at that.”

That was a pivotal thing that I started to go down that path of learning, and how can I personally support people? I grew up in such a universal love, universal spirituality that it was the way of life for me, but then it came more growing up, realizing that not everyone has that, not everyone is that or has had that exposure to that. Bringing it into my purpose and my life was very pivotal because, oh, maybe that’s part of my purpose, that I can help other people be exposed to these things that I take for granted or that I’m just used to having around me.

How did that unfold? Did you enroll in a particular program of study?

Lauren Dickinson: That was the first time I’d ever really considered life coaching in a mentorship model. I had studied a lot of different healing art modalities by that point, so I did go to – it was an online course at the World Coach Institute. I started their program there, and I started seeing private clients, just getting some guinea pigs and testing out my presence. I remember towards the end of it, right before I certified – I will be fully transparent. I’m not certified in a life coaching modality, but I got close. As I was, again, still searching for other healing arts, modalities that I wanted to learn, I was introduced to a modality called Alphabiotics, which was being taught in Dallas. All of a sudden, that was my big, oh, that’s my one modality because I’ve always been searching for one, and now I know that there’s many that can help.

I dropped everything that I was doing in Sedona and moved out to Dallas. I dropped my coaching for a little while. It did come back when I moved out here to Mount Shasta, but my shtick, my journey through life has always been trying to find the right modality to help other people. Then bringing in the life coaching was that added missing piece that I’m now starting to really – not even starting, but last few years, I’ve started to really implement and bring into my business and my own life purpose.

Rhythm of Life – by Lauren Dickinson

Before we get into your work with Orion Retreats, I want to hear about your life as a fine artist. Were you super creative as a kid, or is that something newer as an adult?

Lauren: I love sharing this part of my journey because it’s part of the healing aspect of everything too. I was creative as a child. I drew a lot. I think I imagined, if a child knew about their creativity, they’d be sketching all the time and doing all this stuff and creating. I didn’t quite have that. I was very much in the spiritual world and out in nature all the time, outside playing.

Early high school, I started taking a few drawing classes. I was like, oh, and somebody else recognized it first. I was just sketch. She’s like, “Oh, you’re good at that.” I’m like, “Oh, wow. Thank you,” like that little external validation bump that I got.

Then, by about junior year in high school, I was done with all my requirements. I’d taken all the AP. I’d been challenging myself intellectually, academically. I got bored, and I didn’t have anything else to do. I had all these classes I still needed to take, so I got into photography, art, all the art classes I could do, pottery. I really just like took to it. I looked forward to it every day. I was a little bit of that rebellious teenager in that I just – I wasn’t a cheerleader. I wasn’t a sports person. I played basketball a little bit. It just became my thing, and I got like really just wrapped up in it.

By the time I was a senior in high school, I was just creating all the time. Then somebody came to our school, a guidance counselor from a college, Northwest College of Art, and basically, he’s like – talked to us about having a career in art. I’m like you can have a career in this? You can actually do this and have it a thing? Even up until that point, I’d always been looking for my purpose, and so I did go to art school. In my early 20s I had some family trauma. My father passed away, and that interrupted my creative process in general, just pure trauma on a physiological basis or principle. I moved away from creativity for a long time and got into the healing arts.

Get Over Your Ego – by Lauren Dickinson

I talk about this a lot in some of the other podcasts that I’ve been on in interviews that the process of going through the healing arts and trying to find the one thing that’s going to help everybody else ended up helping me, help me to balance my brain and heal on such a nervous system level through all kinds of – I was in a hiking accident, father passed away. My brother ended up passing away later in life, but it ended up healing so much that my creativity ended up coming back. In school, they always taught a lot of form, and I got my creativity squashed out that way. Then, when I left school, it’s like, well, I don’t have nothing else to do because I’m not doing technical stuff, but when the healing came back, this whole world of abstract art just opened up. I had no idea even abstract was a thing up until that point, and I just started by putting down a bunch of color. I think I was trying to do an elephant, once I picked up the palette knife again, and when I started putting all these palette strokes down, all these textures started coming out. I’m like, well, let’s just follow this for a little while and then turned into an international art career. I’ve been represented by different shows, a gallery in Dallas for a little while.

It’s really a testament to how the human spirit – we are created to create. We are co-creators of our own reality, and if you take charge of your life in a certain way that – even if you don’t know the end goal or the end destination, if you just trust the journey, it brings such – this beautiful full circle experience back to you. That’s how art came back, and now I’m incorporating it into my business and into my offerings and teach people to – even if it’s not art, we are creators, and we’re meant to create. Whatever that means for you, I like to help people tap into that.

What inspired you to start Orion Retreats?

Lauren Dickinson: I think I’m doing this halfway because I want to travel so much. I didn’t have a chance to with so many – such a big family. It would have been ungodly expensive, I’m sure, but I’ve always wanted to. I’ve always dreamt about all the places that I want to go to. In my personal life, I always like to do road trips. I always like to check things out. In my adult life, I did more than I did as a kid, but the real call to it was the retreat experience.

In 2015, when I had moved to Dallas to learn this new modality that I was totally into, I – once I graduated, I started having these ideas of creating containers where we could take practitioners of this modality, take guests or clients of this and just create these – I didn’t know retreats was really a thing then. I think I was just in my own little world, so I don’t know all these words that start to come up like retreats but create these containers around the world where maybe there – I had visions of having a training center in this one area because I wanted to teach this and then having experience so people just come, like a week’s long worth of healing arts work because then I had my other modalities too. Again, I didn’t know the word retreat was a thing, but when I moved to Mount Shasta here, in 2020, I started working for a retreat center that was here, got to learn the back end of some things. When we parted ways, I was like I can do this. Wait a minute. I had an idea for this. What if we created containers where people come? Yeah, you have wellness retreats. It blossomed from there, and now it’s like much bigger than that first idea.

The main part of it was taking people out of their regular patterns and their regular lives, unplug them, give them a healing experience, and then get them integration work where they can start to really make transformational work. Again, the important part was the repatterning because you have to break certain patterns in order to replace them with something new, so I knew that travel was going to be a part of that and, of course, going to all the different sacred sites of the world. I’d already been to Australia and Uluru. I lived in Sedona and Mount Shasta, these more like vortex areas, so I knew that was an important aspect of it. I bring all that into the travel piece as well.

When you started planning your first retreat, what was going through your mind? 

Lauren: The very, very, very first retreat that I did, I was a planner for somebody else, and that came about very organically. I was starting my thing. I was going to bring people to Mount Shasta or go around and do this, but I didn’t know what I didn’t know yet. I didn’t have a lot of experience in that. I remember reaching out to a friend of mine that teaches the Enneagram, and I was like, “Hey, I’m going to be doing some advertising stuff for some retreats. Do you want to – do you have any workshops or anything that you want to do?” He was like, “Yeah.” Then it turned into we’re going to run Enneagram retreats in Kansas City.

Our first one that we did, it was his, but I was there. I was co-creating it with him and was the coordinator for that. That gave me my first experience of, oh, this is really valuable. This is really cool. I got really excited, took me down the path, of course, of planning other people’s retreats, but the first one that I did, personally led, was here in Mount Shasta for the ring of fire eclipse last year. I’d had experience planning it for other people, but when you do it for yourself, it’s much different. It was so impactful for me in a way that I wasn’t expecting. We did an elemental retreat where we went to the different sacred sites around here, Mount Shasta, earth, water, air, and then, on last day, of course, was fire for the ring of fire. We went up to Crater Lake. It was just phenomenal, and I just really sank into this is what I’m supposed to be doing. This is what I have been waiting for my entire life.

I had learned enough that I was able to support myself in creating it and doing all the logistics, but then it really also anchored in I was so – I don’t want to say stressed out because it was an exciting stress. Good stress can be good but realizing all the moving parts and put it in place, and then, once you show up, you have to make sure that you detach from that planning part of it and show up fully as a facilitator. In that process, too, I realized that there’s a gap for a lot of retreat leaders where they may not know how to do the logistics, how to do all the planning stuff, or they do and they push themselves through it. By the time that they get to being a facilitator, they may not be able to disconnect, or they’re still in that planning mode where, oh, how’s this and how’s this? I found myself doing that. I had to make sure that I pulled myself back from when I was doing that during my own retreat. That’s when I really realized, okay, I want to have the – offer the support to other people that I didn’t necessarily have, that I had to learn myself, so that it closes that learning gap for them and can really catapult and launch other retreat leaders. That’s how it became me leading retreats and also supporting other people in their retreat leader journey.

What are the other surprises or learnings you’ve experienced in planning and leading retreats?

Lauren Dickinson: I think one of the main things is every – well, for one, everything that it takes to put on a retreat, like people – I keep hearing in the industry is, oh, I tried to do retreats once. I didn’t make any money, or I had to spend money, and I don’t want to do it again. It’s like, oh, there’s such a different world out there of you can be profitable doing retreats. You can sustain yourself on a – with your own sacred commerce doing this work, and it’s so needed in the world that there shouldn’t be such a separation between the finances and doing your life’s purpose. I think a lot of people can speak to that.

I think there needs to be – and through my own experience is there needs to be and where I’m trying to put myself is raising the bar a little bit on some of the professionalism in the retreat world. I’ve had a number of friends and colleagues who, for example – and I’m not trying to put any other venue or anything else down, but they had a really negative experience with a venue that they, excuse me, misrepresented the venue with their pictures online. My friend paid close to, I think, $10,000 for this retreat center. It was in shambles when we got there.

I think that you have to be very discerning in the industry, and I think that it gave me even more impetus to go out and vet these things. I guess the point I’m trying to make is that it’s so much more than just picking a place, getting your people, and going. You really have to be very, very intentional about where you go, who you choose to align with because things like that can ruin it for all your guests. This friend in particular, her guests like love her, and they’re her audience. There was no main – nothing more that came from it from that, but I can imagine that people have certain expectations of how we’re marketing as facilitators versus how the actual experience is and so, yeah, being very intentional about who you decide to partner with. Make sure all your things are vetted out.

One more thing I want to add to that too is, when you’re doing this work too and you have, say, co-facilitators or co-hosts or you’re bringing on guest facilitators, you usually have to be very intentional about that too and make sure – for one, you can meet somebody, be like, oh, you teach something wonderful. You would be a value to this. You have to go deeper than that, and I’ve also learned this the hard way because you learn really quickly about the type of people that you don’t align with. They may be a great person, have wonderful teachings. If there’s a disconnect in your alignment, it makes all the difference, and it shows up on a micro level. Then, if you continue forward with them, it shows up on a macro level. I, thankfully, had had a couple of people that I didn’t ultimately align with, and it took care of itself. It dissolved itself before we got to the retreat, so we didn’t have to worry about it. I can imagine, if that kind of discord was there at the retreat, that changes your guest experience. Just be very mindful about, yeah, who you’re working with, and make sure that don’t necessarily rely on other people to do this or hide – I guess my point is hide behind other things or other people. Be confident in what you’re here to teach, and the right people will come to you to fill your retreat.

When it comes to possible challenges that arise in working with others, would you say it’s more about personality, values, or something else?

Lauren Dickinson: It’s a little bit all the above. I think that it’s really easy to be very, very inclusive of differing values or differing perspectives, and I appreciate that in the industry and with the people that I work with. I mean, there were two different circumstances too, but the main thing for one of them was almost like a power struggle. You have to be very clear on, yeah, roles, like you said. Either we’re doing this and we’re co-creating this together, so we have mutual expectations of each other to put this on, or I’m putting this on, and I’m hiring you. I’m leading it, so you have to go with what we’re doing a little bit versus it making it your showcase type of thing. I learned real quickly how to find that balance because it is, and if you don’t have those harder conversations up front, then it does lead to some dissonance.

Then a little bit of just, yeah, who’s leading it? Who’s our real leader? Most people will rise up, but if you don’t have the proper, I don’t know, foundational expectation set or communication, it can lead to those just little things that later turn into bigger things. Yeah, it’s important.

What makes Orion Retreats different and sets you apart from other retreats?

Lauren Dickinson: For one, the content of what we teach, I really like to focus on personal growth, professional growth, yeah, spirituality and wellness, absolutely, but really focus on the transformational aspect. There are tons of transformational leaders. All of it’s in – like you said, in the playing field. I’m trying to really make differentiations. You’re going to go through a process that’s going to help you with this, this, and this, and there’s a lot of retreats out there that can get into, oh, this is like a nice, pretty vacation, somewhere nice. That’s wonderful. That’s needed for a lot of people.

What I really am trying to do is separate myself in the corner of, yeah, the personal growth and development to really give people that space for creative consciousness and, again, tap into their own sense of – one of my taglines is “awaken to your divinity” and whatever that can encompass of really going inside, going through a process, more so than doing yoga for seven days. That is a process too, and you can go inside. It’s like it’s encompassing the mind with the personal growth; the body, obviously, in doing – go around sacred sites and hiking and the different adventure things that we do and then your soul and what’s going to nourish your soul. I’m working on some conscious leadership retreats that dive into what is your soul here to express, and what is it here to do? What’s your soul purpose? All of my retreats try to encompass all aspects of that.

The professionalism part I think comes from you hear horror stories about Rythmia and other places that the – there’s not a lot of boundaries between the facilitators and the guests and that kind of stuff and really wanting to make sure that the – what people think of as retreats is not the horror stories that they hear, and it’s not the breeding ground for – you hear a lot of sexual abuse and, yeah, facilitators taking advantage of their position of power. I say this because, when I started saying, oh, I’m going to be doing retreats, a lot of people have that, oh, I heard this one thing about this one place or this one facilitator. I want to be a part of, like a lot of people, help to replace that stigma that it may have had at some point. I don’t think it does anymore, but I really want to make sure that, yeah, we’re providing a safe space for healing. If you feel like there’s any space in there that you’re not safe in that environment to really open up, then let’s address that, and I want to make sure to like stay on that side of it. You’re showing up vulnerable, and if I have any inkling that any other guest doesn’t hold that same sacred space, they’re out of there completely. I will do that same with facilitators too. Thankfully, I haven’t had to deal with a facilitator in that way, but other guests, you have to be very discerning with who you allow to bring in. Even if they’re just paying guests, you have to be very discerning.

How do you know if a person is a good fit for the retreat?

Lauren Dickinson: I think it’s very intuitive. I think it’s like your emotional intelligence has to be very present in that conversation. I listen to what people say. I listen to their mannerisms. I don’t want to say that I’m completely checking all the boxes or really scrutinizing them. I listen to what they say. I have certain questions that I ask based on the theme of the retreat and other guests who are already registered. I’m like, okay, is this going to be a thing, making sure it’s all compatible?

Then just, really, their overall attitude for life you can see in how they speak, and if they’re super negative, I think in a lot of retreats they’re not going to fit. It doesn’t mean that they don’t need the work too, but I might suggest a different tool or something else, or doing a different program or different work ahead of time before they come to a retreat like this or any retreat that they’re looking at. I guess the main part is you know, and for me, it’s a very like resonance thing. I see energy, and it’s like I feel energy. It’s like I’m also a generator in human design, so I get a very visceral yes or no when I do my kinesiology tests and when I – in the space with that. I think you just have to trust your own judgment.

What types of retreats are you offering currently?

Lauren Dickinson: I have spiritual adventure retreats that, again, I go around to sacred sites. We do spiritual work, energy work, really work – I hate to sound too too woo-woo, but we work with the land energy, the different vortex areas. That is very activating for the energy body in and of itself. That’s my thing that I do, and I have different tools. I use Enneagram. I’m just getting into human design but astrology, numerology. Numerology is my big thing, so I incorporate that into each person’s experience and really make it custom to them and then go around to these places. I am developing and have just launched some conscious leadership retreats for next year, and that’s going to involve, again, like I spoke to earlier, bringing in all these different tools to find out what is your soul here for? How can this community support you as a conscious leader, a spiritual entrepreneur, and bring your message more into the world? It’ll more mastermind level retreats.

Then how I support other people, it’s twofold. On the one hand, I am a full-service retreat planning boutique agency. It’s very boutique because I’m very selective about who I bring on and making sure that I have enough attention span for multiple people, so I only take 10 on this level that we just do full service. We’ll plan your logistics for you. We have venue partners already, but if there’s someplace that you want to go and we don’t know anybody, we’ll do the research to find the right venue, vet them out, really go through that process. I don’t want to have anyone have a bad experience with any place that we chose for them. Of course, they get to ultimately make that decision of who they go with, find the right chef, or cook, or – either in that area, or we have some on hand that we recommend and really just do the full service, like customer communication, booking, registration, take care of all of that. Then, depending on the different model that we use, we either pay you out as a facilitator, or it’s a profit share, and then it also can be very, very white label too, if you want that.

The opposite side of that coin too is that we provide a platform for our leaders to elevate their message, elevate their brand, get their teachings, their programs, their one-on-one offerings out into the world more, so on the inside of that level of our retreats is an in-house PR agency where for our high – the ones that go full service with us. There’s a lower model, lower tier that people can do more like a do it yourself, so we’ll provide the tools. We’ll provide insights, mentorship on how you do it, but that’s really your thing. Again, the higher one then is like it’s an Orion Retreat, so then you’re getting the best of all – everything that we offer, marketing, all the things. Then, coming back to that, those are the ones that get that in-house PR agency that we will represent you in a sort of way that, as we find other people in the network, we connect you with other people that want you as a guest facilitator. Let’s say we have breathwork people as a – facilitators.

If somebody comes to me as a retreat planning client or just in the network, hey, who do you know for this and this, it becomes like a referral network. Then, also, we’re going out, and we are engaging in creating a facilitator or pitch deck and a facilitator, so to speak, resume or a speaker’s resume where we’re actively going out through all of our networks, all of our media networks, and representing you and be like, hey, I recommend this person for this and really – yeah, almost like an art gallery. We’re representing you, and we’re putting you out there. We’re going to connect you with a greater audience and connect you with our podcasts and be on our podcast and really just help you to elevate your thing. Some of it can include developing your content, developing your programs. We do a lot, and I feel like we’re more than just a retreat company in that way. I like it. It’s really fulfilling a lot of purpose things for me.

I see that you have memberships. How do those work?

Lauren Dickinson: That’s relatively new. We’re just starting to launch it. My vision for it is that it, again, goes back to the power of retreats and how much I believe in the retreat process, so it allows you to pre-book a retreat or pay for a retreat over the course of a year. Then, also, on the back end, you get access to all these coaches. You get access to all these programs and evergreen or one-on-one. Each different tier of the membership includes different things, and I think that’s such a nice model because then you’re not just – I mean, I do offer financing for retreats, but then it’s not just like, oh, I’m paying off a retreat. It’s like, oh, I get to be a member of this wonderful community where I can learn stuff, have resources and tools to dive into before my retreat, after my retreat, year-round.

Then, of course, the main basic tier one is that one retreat that you come and you can get excited. I’ve got my thing planned for this year. I’ve got my self-care plan for this year, and every year you have the opportunity to do one. Then the tiers up from there. It’s like maybe you want to do two, and then maybe you want to go on a luxury retreat. It allows people to have access, again, to this back-end community and then plan out their self-care and their adventures for the year in a really conscious travel model, not just like vacations anymore. If you’re really ready to step into what your life is and what you’re here for, then these are the retreats for you to really get access to that and come. There’s different tiers, but again, the top tier one is going to be a luxury, if that’s important to you, luxury. I do do the eco-luxury, bio-architecture, choose venues that are very in tune with nature and then offer that so that they can have the highest level of support, and that includes a whole new tier of things.

I’m excited for it. I’ve gotten a lot of really good response from the community, and I think that it’s a really nice model to, again, offer people something on a consistent basis so that they know that they have that set for the year. They can make a commitment to themselves.

If people want to check out the retreats that you’re offering currently, where do they go? How do they connect with you on social media?

Lauren Dickinson: My website is www.orionretreats.com. You’ll see the membership, you’ll see current offerings. We are always adding new retreats, so I encourage you to come back often or subscribe to our email list so that you can have first access to those new retreats. My Instagram handle is @orionretreats, and we showcase a lot of our facilitators there, our new offerings of retreats, and then some content around conscious travel, conscious leadership, which is our main messaging. DM, email me at info@orionretreats.com. My other Instagram handle for my personal stuff is @shineyourdivine, so you can DM me there as well. I look forward to starting the conversation, and if this feels like a good fit, let’s just start talking. Yeah. As a facilitator too, we’re always looking for new people too, so whether it’s retreat planning or you want to be part of our inner core team, I’m open to meeting and talking to new people.

If someone is thinking about hosting a retreat, but they’re feeling overwhelmed, what would you say to that person? How would you encourage them?

Lauren Dickinson: I would say don’t give up, keep going. You’ll learn as you go. I’m here to support you, if you need that support. My team is here to support you, but really, you’ll learn by doing it. Don’t let it stop you. I think a lot of retreat leaders like, oh, I started to plan one for a while. Then it didn’t work out, so they even just stop altogether. It’s like you learn by doing it.

Even if your first one goes off and you don’t have profit, know that there’s other models for that, but also, give yourself the tools to make it more profitable next time or sell it out next time. If I can support in that, I would be more than happy to because my purpose is really intertwined with helping people find their purpose, and this is very sacred work. I think facilitators need all the support that they can get to continue to show up in this way and not get burned out from the details that I’m willing to handle for you.

Download Lauren’s free ebook on “The Neuroscience of Retreats.”