Replenishing our reserves

Hello hello,

In September, we spent a week in the Picos de Europa in northern Spain for our annual EAW retreat - a chance to step away from our daily rhythms, reconnect in person, and dream about what’s next for our lives and work together.

We intentionally chose the Picos as our setting because of our shared love for the mountains and the types of conversations they invite. Surrounded by open skies, crisp air, and winding trails, we’re able to drop into a different way of being and thinking - one that feels difficult to access when we’re sitting in a Zoom room. The mountains and steady pace of movement invite us into more imagination and “what if” discussions - the kind that meander and unfold naturally when we stop trying to steer them.

Taking this kind of time is not always an easy decision, especially when so many of the systems we’re part of are in fight-or-flight mode. The default impulse is to hunker down, keep pushing, stay “productive”. But a core part of our work is to open new ways to think, talk, and act on the emotional landscape of our working lives.

The whole body needs to be involved in that work. Not just the mind that plans and performs, but the body that holds tension, the heart that loves, and the gut that senses when something’s off. When those layers integrate, our sense of agency in how we show up at work and the climate we co-create expands.

And for conversations of possibility, it can really help to place the body in wide-open spaces and know that our conversation can take the time it takes. We’re looking at clouds, at sunsets, at the ocean horizon - and we’re not switching to something else at the top of the hour.

Our experience brought to mind something Tomomi once wrote in her essay “Retreats as a Strategic Move—A Reframing for People Who Find It Hard to Pause”, where she points to the dictionary definition of “retreat” as:

> to withdraw or retire in the face of or from action with an enemy, either due to defeat or in order to adopt a more favorable position.

She goes on to reflect:

> Withdrawal is a vital play to replenish our reserves, to stand a better chance when we go out again. Plan to retreat before you “need” it. Is there a more favorable position that you want to adopt, that bolstering your physical-mental-spiritual reserves would help make possible?

That’s the spirit we carried into the mountains, and we came back regulated and re-energized, with new ideas and a deeper commitment to shaping more humane worlds of work.

As we enter back into our rhythms, we’re weaving those insights into what comes next - especially our shared desire to dive into more team development work.

Speaking of which, we’re looking for a few teams to pilot workshops on feedback, effective requests, and patterns of trust in the workplace. If you’re interested, send us a quick note.

As always, thank you for being part of Emotions at Work, in ways big and small.

Oriana & Tomomi