SYNERGY 2022 HIGHLIGHTS

We would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who attended Synergy – The Retreat Show 2022 and share a few highlights from the experience... 

Talks

We heard insights from leading wellness practitioners regarding hot topics, ranging from layers of design for transformational journeys within the retreat industry and the future of wellness travel, to the role of plant-based medicine and eastern practice in the western world, alongside many other fascinating panel discussions.

Workshops

We learned about topics such as: how technology can empower wellness travel brands (Jen Fein); the art of creating self-love through music (Jacelyn Holmes); what happens when mind and movement come together (Dr Hanna Poikonen); how the archetypes of Olympian gods and heroes can help us understand the 5 personality types (Marina Efraimoglou); and the transformational benefits of salt therapy (Leo Tonkin), to name just a few!

Classes

From yoga and meditation to sound baths and breathwork, together we celebrated the power in movement and gracefulness in strength, while cultivating a collective feeling of self-awareness and authentic expression.

Some of Our Key Takeaways

We have learned that when it comes to delivering meaningful experiences, there are many key factors to take into consideration. From the moment a client connects with us and enquires to attend a retreat (or any wellness experience), we really need to dig deep into the 'whys'. This is to get a deeper understanding of what they need and are really looking for, before connecting them to the right location and experience.

Only in creating a safe space can we allow space for transformation. On a retreat, it's important to evaluate each individual and their personal journey to best cater for their needs.

Designing an experience involves shaping this through many components, because as we learned in the Layers of Design talk, designing for a wellness brand has many facets: from the design of a space, to breathing and living the brand you represent, to sharing it with others, to designing the journey itself. This awareness is key to guide each passenger to their own personal location to fulfil their needs and own transformation.

We should look at what we can offer our clients and be more inclusive with our offerings, finding the most sustainable and responsible ways to approach the retreat business industry. We discovered many ways to do this: from choosing conscious destinations, to guiding participants in shopping locally, and supporting local communities in a variety of ways, to simply adding a % to the price of an experience that can be donated to a local cause. We are all able to make a difference with each individual action that we bring into our travel, so let’s do it!

The variety of participants brought such inspiration to the variety of experiences that we can deliver, blending our skills and backgrounds to inspire the design of more inclusive and out-of-the-box experiences for people.

There is a lot out there and we need to be very conscious and informed when picking what to share. We have learnt about Ayahuasca and Plant Medicine – how do we look at this in a more responsible way? And how, as facilitators, we must undergo a long and in-depth path in order to reach the space where you can deliver such an experience. We explored how the self and ego need to be removed in order to not pollute the journey that each individual is undergoing and guide it purely.

The importance of respecting any practice and its origins is a very important factor too. How might we as practitioners and carriers of long traditional and ancient practices respect and honour their lineage? Studying and going back to the source and its masters is a key factor in this. We need to honour those disciplines and make sure we keep the essence of each practice to its purest form.

We have so many fantastic practices that we can share with the world that can significantly help people to heal. It is therefore our duty as an industry to deliver this in the most informed and authentic way. The future of wellness travel is bright, but there is still a lot of work required from the industry side. This is to ensure that we can implement wellness in its purest form and make wellness more available to the broader public, so it is not only identified as being a luxury. We are able to do this if we come together as an industry and learn from each other, so we can walk away feeling empowered and ready to make this change.

Thank you to all the 2022 Synergy participants who came together, finding their vulnerability, and in turn their strengths, through 3 days of talks and practices. There is an enormous amount of personal growth that is now already translating into so many wonderful experiences being designed for people to experience in the coming year.

Until the next Synergy.

Some Insightful Quotes from Synergy – The Retreat Show 2022: 

“I would like to see the “Consumer” removed and bring back “People and Guests” because this journey is really about the human relationships, and we have such an incredible opportunity and we have experienced this over and over again. It is when we treat people where they are at, and really greet them where they are at, and we invite them on this journey, that they really accept and willingly dive into this journey, and we have this experience over and over again, that our guests come back, again and again, because we really treat them as human beings.

And the other thing that is very important is that we do share our vision with our team members, because is our team members that deliver our vision for us, and treat our team members with the same love and respect that we do to our guests.”

John Stewart

“One thing to think about is that sustainability is another main topic that the world should focus on, and how does that relate to wellness, well actually it means that you don’t have to think of travelling to some exotic countries to get your dose of wellness, it is actually on your doorstep. There are domestic and regional wellness operators that are providing a good service. I see that booming and I see that expanding, and they are going to be more relevant and more and more practical.”

Andrew Gibson

“I think that there are two ways that we kind of touch upon. One is, I think there is a need for a level of education. The problem is that the travel advisors actually have difficulty advising because they don’t understand wellness. Maybe none of you have that, and you say “Oh I know wellness”, but we do see this and we at Six Senses, see this, that they are not able to advise correctly – on where to go, what to experience, how to do it and what to choose when they book. So, I think that is something, we have got to get the level of education up.

The second thing I think that we need to do, is that we have got to walk our talk; and John was just touching on it, all our staff, our employees, we need actually to take care of them, before we take care of our guests. Because nowadays we are seeing a shift where the guests actually know when we are not treating the team as good as they are supposed to be treated in order to deliver what they are supposed to be delivering. I think there is both education and there is also an integrity, of actually making sure that the food that you share with your employees is good food, that they are able to access all the wellness that your guests are able to access. So, I think those two are very crucial in order to go forward with wellness and propel wellness”

Anna Bjurstam

“I feel that the health and wellness industry and the shift that we actually need in the world is to take the emphasis off the mere entertainment of our clients and focus more on the wellbeing of the local people and the places we travel to, because I see that there is no point in wellness if we travel to places that suffer. And I think this emphasis, this shift, should be reverted a bit.

That is one of the reflections that I have been having. And another one is that I feel that a lot of our personal transformation happens if we are vulnerable, and I am a big advocate for vulnerability. And I would like to encourage our industry to promote that. And give vulnerability its normal and original space, which is the space of strength, because I feel being vulnerable is a big, big strength, and I wish us all to acknowledge it more and allow ourselves to be vulnerable, because that is when we really transform and transform the lives of others too.”

Mona Lewicka

“Does anybody know what the actual definition of the word sustainable is and means? Just three words, the definition of the word sustainable means 'Keeping The Balance'. There comes the question in terms of sustainability, keeping the balance between what? Destruction and Restoration.

And the idea is to find that point of Yin and Yang in what you are doing. So, the first question that you should ask yourself, whether you are designing a space, a place a product or an experience, is where am I on this little barometer of destruction and restoration? And the idea is to bring yourself as close to the midpoint as possible. So the first question that you ask yourself is: how healthy is the space that I am in, and it doesn’t matter if is an urban habitat or sitting in a space like this (outdoor)”.

When we are looking at an environment, it is not just a natural environment, is your personal, family, organizational and natural environment, that you are talking about enhancing. So, the first point, the first question that you want to ask yourself is: where am I on this barometer of destruction and restoration and what do I need to do to reach this point of Yin and Yang? That is your starting point.”

Motti Essakow

“I work for people who work with ayahuasca, but what I have observed, and I think that's often the place where we fall short. Is that as you say, you know, ayahuasca can expose something in people that is very intimate. It's something that is held very deep inside and it's not something people usually share and it's not something people usually go into. So, you can, if you can imagine, a very sort of fragile place.

Now. The question is how can you hold that? In your hands and not stain it with your own hands. This is sort of a good metaphor for it. Right. This is what's happening. Something very fragile and very delicate is being exposed, and somebody is in charge of actually holding that. And it's important that in the holding they don't break it. They don't stain it, they don't, right?

So, you know, to continue with the metaphor, the way you do it, of course, is with hygiene. Your hands have to be very clean and you have to be very careful. With what you're holding, it's like holding something extremely delicate, like butterflies’ wings, you know, you have to be very, very careful.

That is this work? It's actually the work of the people who hold space, how to be clean in themselves. And this is a very general person, you know sort of use of the word clean to make sure that as they handle all of these. They don't. They don’t disturb it, touch it, stain project over it, their own beliefs, their own, everything. Because this is what happens. They themselves are in process.

I believe they have to have gone through this in themselves before they can do this to other people because otherwise their half-finished process would interfere with the beginning processes of all the other people that are participating on this thing, this is again something that in indigenous cultures is, it's common sense. And this is the reason why in some cultures, you know, people are apprentices until their teacher dies. They spend 20 / 25 years just sort of picking up the cups and just sort of being there as a support. That's it. They're going through their own process and it's taking them 20 years to get to that place.

Now, I think this is when we go back to the problems and the dangers and what you said about the lack of humility. This is something that one I think encounters around this is this lack of humility that makes it look easy. ”

Jeronimo Mazarrasa