Camp Replenish 🏕️ // Week 1

A mini creative retreat where you can get a break (and a grip!) from the constant pressure to perform, impress, optimize, and automate yourself.

Welcome to Camp Replenish! A mini creative retreat where you can get a break (and a grip!) from the constant pressure to perform, impress, optimize, and automate yourself.

Being a human has become absolutely exhausting with everyone yapping your ear off about how you could be doing more, better, faster. Not to mention all the mental labor we shoulder and the constant bracing against uncertainty (!!!!).

Here’s what you can expect:

This is for anyone who has ever wished for an “off switch” for their brain… or to go on Airplane Mode :)

An exit lane from feeling like your worth is entirely tied to your productivity and output.

Over the next four weeks I’ll send you a weekly creative practice that will help restore your capacity for awe, beauty, creativity, connection, curiosity, play, and all the wonderfully human things that tend to get squeezed out when life starts feeling like an endless performance (review).

You’ll get so absorbed in noticing, making, wandering, coloring, writing, collecting, or daydreaming that your brain will finally stop operating like you have sixteen browser tabs open at once.

AND you’ll experience something magical that happens when you stop trying to optimize yourself every minute of the day: The world — and you — feel more expansive. You make space for delight to find you. You hear your own thoughts instead of everyone else's. You become more curious than critical.

In the spirit of summer, the first mini creative retreat is themed Camp Replenish.

(which is hilarious because I am the real life version of that TT that basically says, “If you’re thinking about asking me to go camping… don’t.” 😂)

Which is why if this camp was happening IRL, we’d be checking into the Four Seasons Resort, Whistler. I saw someone post about it on IG and was like I need to go to there.

You are here 📍

Imagine, for a moment, that we’re in Whistler. We're stretched out on a dock beside a glittering lake, towering Douglas firs in the background. The wood beneath us is warm from the afternoon sun. We’ve packed a picnic (snacks are V important!), and every now and then you hear a big splash! as someone cannonballs into the lake. We reach for a few supplies to savor this glorious moment…

(the scene! we’ll be using this as the inspo/reference photo for everything below)

Here’s what you’ll need (IRL):

• A notebook or piece of paper

• Pen or pencil

• A marker in the color of your choice

Time: 15 minutes

Before we start, make a note in your notebook about how you’re feeling right now. How are you coming to this space today? Scattered? Restless? Excited? Overwhelmed? Underwhelmed? Tired but wired? Write it down.

Now, let’s get to the good stuff.

Continuous Line Drawing:

Don’t let the name scare you!! This isn’t about being an arteest.

(Trust me, I can barely draw stick figures!)

It’s about how the creative process of drawing interrupts — and takes us out of — the constant loop of rumination, worrying about the future, comparison, replaying the past, and wondering what other people think about us.

If you’re not familiar with continuous line drawing, the concept is basically to draw something from one continuous line without lifting up your pen. No need to draw this entire photo! You can focus on the trees, the ripples in the lake, or the guy jumping in. Whatever calls you! We’ll do this for two minutes. Remember — don’t lift up your pen!

…

Did you notice what happened? For two minutes, your brain had one simple job: pay attention. There's not a lot of room left for your brain to wander into tomorrow’s meeting or ruminate on last week’s awkward conversation when you're following the curve of a mountain range with your pen.

Non-dominant hand drawing:

Next, we’re going to switch and draw with our non-dominant hand. We’re making our brain werk today, ha! Again, no pressure to draw the ENTIRE scene. Notice what grabs your attention and start there. Draw for two minutes.

…

Pause and take a look at what you’ve “drawn” — I say that loosely, LOL 😂 No critiques or grading allowed here. Again, just take a minute to notice that maybe you have some more space in your head or maybe your breathing is a little deeper or slower.

Now take it all in!

Now we’re going to grab our maker and draw the entire scene.

You might be thinking — “But Alison, I want to use all the colors of the rainbow to capture this epic beauty! 🌈🤩”

I get that! But this creative retreat is all about reducing the mental load. Once we make the entire box of markers available to us, we start making DECISIONS. And second guessing. And trying to “get it right.” And suddenly we feel that pesky PRESSURE again. That is… not replenishing. So one color it is!

Draw for ten minutes.

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Alright campers, how are you feeling now??? Relaxed? Refreshed? Calm? Like the embodiment of an exhale? Energized? Write it down and compare it to how you came here today. Maybe there’s not a dramatic shift — that’s okay too!

Let me know in the comments!