The Italian Retreat dream becomes a reality

DARE TO DREAM.

Like most dreams, they exist in those quiet spaces of your mind, whispering to you for a while before you dare to voice them out loud or write them into existence, before you actually start believing they could come true.

As is the case with EVOLVERE [Evolve in Italian in case you were wondering if there was a typo].

A path covered in greenery leading to an old wooden door in a stone building

FOR ME: They were…visions of springtime meandering through an Italian flower field, creating abundant scapes on ancient 16th century stone tables under bonsai-like ‘old lady’ plane trees. Meaningful conversations and unexpected deep connections with like minds, sharing dreamy afternoon sunsets with spritz in hands, feeling safe enough to vulnerably share souls’ desires and what holds us back from realising them.

Learning how to capture beauty with the tap of your phone camera, being brave to step in front of said camera - show up for ourselves & for our business, laughter, early morning foraging missions along mossy pathways and enchanted forests, surprise excursions to luxe historic villas & ogle over the incredible gardens filled with history, drama & romance of the iconic Lake Como.

Finally exploring the hidden pathways with rustic doors that have stories to tell, feeling a part of blissful family focused life & the incredible, simple and nurturing food … of Italia.

Yes, that’s a big [& very detailed] dream to bring into a reality that was honestly all of this & so much more. But how, you may be wondering, why Italy & why Crotto Del Misto - Lezzeno, Lake Como?

Roses blooming in a planterbox on a balcony overlooking Lake Como

Why Italy?

Friendship & previous visits to this quieter area of Lake Como is where we fell in love with Crotto Del Misto. A multi generational family-run & owned ‘resort’ where my beautiful friend Maddy Gray [an Australian yoga & meditation teacher] married her sweetheart Enzo. It was years ago that I first said the dream out loud to Maddy, never really believing I could make it happen. Her words stayed with me then as they did when I was in that pre-advertise panic mode, hoping people would book (worrying that they wouldn’t), ‘It’s already happened’, she said. ‘If not this year, then next year, time is irrelevant. You’ve dreamed this up for a reason, it’s your soul’s desire, so trust that it’s already happened.’

A little woo-woo, yep you bet! But that’s often how mine & Maddy’s conversations go, and it was confirmation to me then that she needed to be a part of it.

As did my other beautiful friend Honey Atkinson - of course this dream had to be visually documented in a way that was sensitive to the overall feel & experience I wanted to create. The phone call went something like ‘are you friggen kidding me? I said at the start of the year how much I wanted to travel with my photography & go to Italy but totally dismissed the idea thinking how could that even happen and here you are asking me to come & film + run a workshop in Lake Como? OMG!!!’

The missing piece of my puzzle was where could I source the flowers, was there even a farm close by, one that would welcome a bunch of Aussie flower lovers to pick & play? Then voila, a scroll through IG & a fellow designer is at an Italian flower farm running a workshop, and that farm was Olga’s Flower Farm.

A DM, a get-to-know-you email, a dreamy list of flowers that will be in bloom in May & there I was happy dancing! Last piece of the puzzle locked in.

But would they come?

Maddy’s words swam in my head. I was doing it anyway with full body trust that the right ladies would know this was for them, and they did. Two weeks after a ‘soft launch’ to a waitlist via an excited video of me sharing the dream it was booked out!

Could this be really happening? Yes, it surely was & I honestly couldn’t believe it.

Nadine smiling at the camera with a big bunch of white flowers in the foreground

So now, how?

People have said to me how brave I was to offer an experience like this, at a time like this when economic times are hard, when the world can be uncertain. Brave to believe the dream could be real, yes, but it’s during these times that I feel many of us are desperate for an intentional disconnect from the pace and the worries, to gift themselves a ‘once in a lifetime’ treasured & transformative experience.

LIFE IS SO SHORT.

How can we not take a leap of faith & ‘just do it’ and book it?

Now I had those 10 beautiful ladies trusting me enough to travel half way across the world, how was I going to bring ALL of these tiny & important details to life?

Planning, planning, planning & trust again that any issues that would arise along the way - which of course they did - were all meant to be [who knows what’s good or bad is something I live by daily].

So if you’ve made it this far, thank you for taking the time to read the back story. For me this is always the most important part to truly give you an appreciation of the end [my husband doesn’t always agree as his eyes glaze over with those little details that I love, hehe].

So if you’ve taken anything away from this pre retreat dialogue I hope it’s daring to dream the dream, then when the internal whispers turn into spoken-out-loud words you be brave & plan the thing, DO THE THING. Your soul has already desired it to be true after all, nature / the universe / god is just waiting for you to show up.