Though woman power is what we believe in 24/7, March is the special time of year where the enormous impact women have made on society is honoured. And Moms are special for all of us! This Mother’s Day French baby care brand Mustela decided to pamper a bunch of fabulous moms by taking them and their families on a wellness retreat…Richa Vij checks it out.
You cannot pour from an empty cup, they say and Mustela comes around to helping a bunch of fabulous mothers fill their cup by taking them on a wellness retreat in celebration of UAE Mother’s Day.
Amidst the umpteen tasks and roles, the life of a mother is a beautiful chaos. Torn between the never ending to-do lists and her heart, her own goals and desires often take a backseat. Celebrating mother’s day is a reminder for all mothers to put themselves first and see how you bloom. When your cup is full and your life is flourishing, as a mother you will be able to take on your role and responsibilities better.
This is the message the French brand Mustela wanted to convey to all mothers with its unique contest to take a bunch of mothers on a two-day wellness retreat. The sole purpose of this kind gesture, as I understand was to reiterate the importance of taking time to feel like yourself, doing things that you enjoy and working on self development and growth in terms of mind, body and soul.
The wellness holiday came with a schedule that involved fitness activities, coaching workshops and self healing sessions for mothers while the children were involved in various games, bouncy castles all planned carefully by the wonderful Mustela team.
A Nature Escapade
On a quiet Saturday morning, 15 mothers and their families arrived at the mesmerizing JA Lake View Hotel and were welcomed by the wonderful teams of Mustela and Beyond Wellness Group – host of luxury wellness retreat. While the kids and their dads got busy with the check-ins, the mothers were whisked away to a morning yoga session on the calm Jebel Ali beach, driven in the hotel’s buggy amidst the picturesque JA resort. The drive to the beach and back to the hotel itself was quite mesmerizing. It was as though we were being led into a serene lush green resort that seemed like an enchanting forest with small lakes, gushing waterfalls and friendly animals such as ducks and peacocks roaming around freely, greeting us at every turn. Choosing JA resorts as the destination for this wellness retreat by Mustela was a great choice. It was indeed like being in a different world altogether surrounded by greenery, the sound of flowing water, call of peacocks and birds providing music to your ears and calm beaches transporting you into a state of zen.
Yoga at the Beach
With yoga mats rolled out on the sandy beach, moms were guided by yoga teacher and healer Dalia Wellness into a blissful yoga flow. Mothers were asked to choose an intention card of their own from a stack and urged to use the quote as their belief for the practice.
Energized and centered by a beautiful yoga flow in a serene setting hearing just the sound of waves and comforting voice of our yoga teacher Dalia, we joined our families as they had checked into the rooms with gorgeous views of the pool. Kids were thrilled to have their Mustela goody bags containing baby care samples from Mustela.
The wellness retreat was well planned with a schedule handed out to all moms. Day one started post breakfast with an ice breaker session where the wonderful team from Mustela and Beyond Wellness gave them an introduction on what to expect for the next two days. The only memo from them to mums being – just leave the kids with their dads and just come and participate in these fun workshops.
Self Development Workshops for Mums
After lunch at 81 Restaurant, while the children played some games at the play area, moms attended the first workshop of the retreat – a Coaching workshop with Sophia Bakkal, life coach and co-founder of Beyond Wellness. The workshop was a talk on Emotional Mastery by Sophia which was followed by filling up a self-reflecting questionnaire in which mothers replaced the negative words they tend to use often in a day with positive words. For example, ‘shit’ can be replaced by it will be fine and ‘I’m exhausted’ can be replaced by I need to take rest. It was funny how many of us used some cuss words like shit or go to hell without realizing. I surely took away a lot of learning from this session where the focus was on changing habits, choosing higher frequency words and laughing out all the stress away with laughter therapy.
A healing meditation session was conducted by celebrity Hypnotherapist and co-founder of Beyond Wellness group – Rachel Dowes, where she explained about the sub conscious mind and how hypnotherapy can be used in healing the conditioning of the mind from a past experience such as childhood traumas.
“In sound we are born, in sound we are healed” – Mehtab Benton.
An amazing experience to free the mind was Sound Healing therapy session in which lied down with our eye masks on and listened to the singing bowls. Sound healing has been around since ancient times and sound helps shifting from lower energies like fear to positive higher vibrations. The effect of sound healing was deep, making the mind become blank and leaving me feeling as if I have woken up from a musical slumber.
Next morning began with another magical yoga session by the beach and was followed by a walking meditation where mothers set out on a stroll on the seashore listening to a calming meditation. Crystal Workshop session involved learning about the different frequencies crystals have and how they can be useful for healing chakras of our body. Crystals can help us to rebalance and heal the seven chakras our body – crown, throat, heart, solar plexus, sacral and root chakra.
The highlight of the holiday was a spa date for moms at Calm Spa while children and their daddies enjoyed in the pool. The stress release massage was a much-needed rejuvenating experience that took away all tiredness, transporting me into a state of pure bliss.
This weekend was good for the soul and such a great reminder from Mustela for mothers to make it a habit and dedicate some time for themselves, no matter how hard it sounds. Your children need a happy, relaxed mom to flourish not a drained out unhappy one.
Thank you Mustela for giving mothers an opportunity to have some me-time while still enjoying time with our families and Beyond Wellness for organizing such meaningful sessions to help mothers in taking care of their mind, body and soul. It was like them teaching mothers a new way of living by taking time for doing things we enjoyed. It was as if I was put on the right track, taught a better and positive way of living. Even though this wellness retreat is over, I am definitely going to continue on my self-love and self care journey, and take time for myself.