Last week my husband Bill and I had the incredible opportunity to attend Sedona Soulscape, a yoga, hiking and breathwork retreat. I’ll be writing about it for a while, because a lot happens when you travel to a place known for its vortexes, step away from work and responsibilities, and open yourself up to a new group of people and experiences.

I know what some of you are thinking. “That’s lovely for you, Karen, but I could never get away. Between work, my family and everything else on my plate, a retreat in Sedona just isn’t in the cards for me.”

I understand completely, because twenty years ago that was my life too.

That’s when I first met Natasha, the leader of Sedona Soulscape. She was teaching yoga at my gym, and I started showing up in her class. (I wish I had a photo from those days!) What I noticed almost immediately was that less than an hour, on a not exactly spotless gym floor, helped me slow down and settle my nervous system. In a life filled with three kids and a business I was working hard to build, that class gave me time to quite literally breathe.

Around the same time, I started a home breathing and meditation practice that I still rely on today. It’s a 20 minute recording on YouTube that I chose back when there weren’t nearly as many options as there are now. There are countless recordings to choose from today, and you’re welcome to find one that speaks to you, but this one has carried me through three decades of full days. After a long day at a conference, a horrendous commute, or one of those days when the copier breaks and an invoice bounces back, those twenty minutes bring me back to peace and calm. It’s proof that you don’t need anything fancy for this to work.

That trip to Sedona was an amazing gift, and I’m grateful I could go. But the lesson I keep coming back to is this: even when we don’t have the time or money to fly across the country and step away from our lives for several days, we can find a piece of that calm right where we are.

Maybe it’s a class at your local gym or community center. Maybe it’s a free recording and twenty quiet minutes at the end of the day. A retreat doesn’t have to be a destination. It can be a practice.

What’s one small way you could create a retreat in your own week?