THE EMAIL GROWTH SHOW EPISODE 208
After four days of complete silence at a retreat in Northern NSW, I came back more grounded, clear, and connected than I’ve felt in years.
Today, we’re not talking about funnels or freebies or email strategy.
We’re talking about what happens when you stop doing altogether.
When you close the laptop.
Turn off the notifications.
And finally sit still long enough to hear your own voice again.
This isn’t a breakdown of business tactics.
It’s a reflection on what I learned during four days of complete silence – no phone, no talking, no reading or planning – and how it cracked me open in the best possible way.
So if you’ve been feeling disconnected, depleted, or like you’re holding it all together with duct tape and to-do lists… come in close.
Let’s talk about stillness.
Spaciousness.
And what it really means to lead from within.
Listen to this episode here:
TL:DR
What you’ll learn in this episode:
– 5 powerful lessons silence taught me about business, burnout, and alignment
– Why clarity doesn’t always come from doing more
– How your body holds the truth even when your brain resists it
– What I’m changing in how I run my business and how you can create your own version of spaciousness
If you’re craving space, alignment & strategy that feels like you…
Here’s how I can help:
→ Book a Business Breakthrough – I’ll review your visibility, list growth, and offers and give you a personalised plan to move forward with clarity (and peace).
→ Join The Headliner Mastermind – where we blend visibility strategy, embodiment, and real leadership growth, without adding to your burnout.
The real reason I went on a silent retreat…
I booked the retreat thinking I just needed a break – a few days without kids, voxer dings, or back-to-back calls.
But what I got? Was so much more than rest.
There was no phone. No talking. No reading. Just me, my nervous system, and the voice inside me I usually drown out with productivity, podcasts, and planning.
The first few hours were wildly uncomfortable…
But once the noise softened, clarity came through.
5 things silence cracked open for me
✅ 1. SILENCE IS CONFRONTING – BUT IT’S WHERE I FOUND CLARITY
Don’t create a new one, reposition your best-performing freebie.
I’ve always told clients that clarity comes from action. But now I also believe this:
Clarity comes from space. From not trying to fix or force anything.
Sitting barefoot in the grass, staring at Mount Warning in total stillness, I realized something profound:
I’d been thinking so much… I’d stopped feeling.
Your soul doesn’t need more strategy, it needs space to speak.
✅ 2. CREATING SPACE INSIDE MATTERS MORE THAN OUTSIDE
I thought I just needed a weekend off to catch up on work.
My laptop was packed.
My brain was planning funnel tweaks.
But the real breakthrough?
You can clear your calendar – and still be cluttered as f*ck on the inside.
What I needed wasn’t time to get more done.
It was internal spaciousness, a release of unprocessed grief, invisible pressure, and lingering stories that weren’t even mine.
✅ 3. YOUR BODY KNOWS BEFORE YOUR BRAIN EVEN CATCHES UP
This retreat wasn’t just silent, it was somatic.
There was breathwork, grounding, cold plunges, Reiki, barefoot walks… and even a 35-minute cry over a succulent (yes, really).
And here’s the thing: if your body is screaming no, even the most beautifully mapped-out strategy will fall flat. That’s why embodiment work is becoming part of how I support clients, especially inside my mastermind.
✅ 4. DOING LESS CAN MOVE YOU FORWARD FASTER
I didn’t map a funnel.
I didn’t hustle.
I didn’t “get ahead.”
I walked. I cried. I napped.
And somehow, I came home with more clarity than any planning session has ever given me.
The best ideas don’t come when you’re pushing.
They come when you’re present.
✅ 5. STILLNESS ISN’T SOMETHING YOU EARN, IT’S SOMETHING YOU DESERVE
This retreat reminded me that I don’t have to prove anything.
I don’t need to earn rest.
I don’t need to deserve silence.
I just need to listen.
And you do too.
If you’re holding it all together with duct tape and to-do lists…
If your brain has 72 tabs open and your body feels heavy…
You don’t need a four-day retreat.
You just need space.
And permission.
Ready to build from stillness, not stress?
You don’t have to burn out to course-correct.
You don’t have to wait for rock bottom to choose rest.
Your energy matters.
Your peace matters.
And your next level will require it.
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Save it for later:
Full Transcript:
Kylie Kelly [00:00:00]:
I went to this beautiful eco resort for four days, three nights, Beautiful northern New South Wales, which is one of my favourite parts of the country. There was no talking, there were no phones, no business planning, no checking the voxer from clients, minimal eye contact, no reading. Literally just me, me and my thoughts, me and my nervous system, me and that constant inner voice that I usually drown out with, let’s be honest, podcasts, slack, school drop off chaos. Like, she doesn’t normally get much time to tell me anything. And I’ll be really real with you, the first few hours was so fucking uncomfortable.
Kylie Kelly [00:00:44]:
Are you a female business owner frustrated with battling the algorithm and looking for growth strategies that don’t involve awkwardly pointing or dancing online or throwing cash at paid ads? Welcome to the Email Growth Show. I’m your host, Kylie Kelly, visibility and email marketing strategist. I grew my email list from zero to almost 10,000 subscribers in less than two years.
Kylie Kelly [00:01:04]:
And the same is possible for you too. Are you ready to build your email list and start making more money in your online business? Let’s head into today’s episode.
Kylie Kelly [00:01:17]:
Welcome back to the Email Growth Show. Now, today’s episode is a little bit different because I’m recording this post, Silent Retreat, and I wanted to share with you some thoughts that I had after spending four days in silence that really surprised me. So let’s start here. So firstly, I have to be honest with you, I booked this silent retreat because I thought I just needed a break, right? A pause, a few days of quiet, no kids crawling all over me, no voxer dings, no business ideas keeping me awake at night, right? I just wanted some space. But what I got was so much deeper than that. Now, this episode is not a list of what I did at the retreat because honestly, there wasn’t much doing. It’s all about what happened when I stopped doing, when I got still, when I let silence actually be the teacher. So if you’ve been feeling like you’re holding it all together with duct tape and to do lists, or like Your brain has 72 tabs open and you can’t hear your yourself think, this episode is for you, let’s dive into it.
Kylie Kelly [00:02:27]:
So firstly, I went to this beautiful eco resort for four days, three nights, beautiful northern New South Wales, which is one of my favourite parts of the country. There was no talking, there were no phones, no business planning, no checking the voxer from clients, minimal eye contact, no reading. Literally just me. Me and my thoughts, me and my nervous system, me and that constant inner voice that I usually Drown out with, let’s be honest, podcasts, slack school, drop off chaos, like, she doesn’t normally get much time to tell me anything, and I’ll be really real with you. The first few hours was so fucking uncomfortable. Like, I didn’t realize how addicted I am to just filling the space with noise, with ideas, with responsibilities, with work, with control. But interestingly, once that discomfort softened, what came through was something that I didn’t expect. So I want to share with you four big things that cracked open for me.
Kylie Kelly [00:03:29]:
I want you to take what resonates, leave the rest. But I hope something here speaks to your soul the way that it did mine. So the first big takeaway was that silence is confronting, but it’s also where clarity seems to live. Now, it’s funny, because I always say, even to my clients, clarity comes from action. If you’re feeling overwhelmed, if you don’t know where to start, if you don’t know what next step to take, just take an action and you’ll know whether it’s the right one or not right. Like, clarity comes from taking action. And I still believe that to a point. But this past weekend, I realized that clarity also comes from space, from pause, from not trying to fix or figure it all out.
Kylie Kelly [00:04:12]:
There was a moment that I want to share with you now. I was at the top of this, like, mountain clearing. We could see Mount Warning in. In the distance. If you don’t know where that is, if you Google it, you’ll see the view that I’m talking about was Mount Warning in the distance. There were wildflowers and trees and nature and grass and birds and all the things in this clearing. And I’d taken a towel up to sit and just be. We had some free time, and I was like, I’m just gonna sit and see.
Kylie Kelly [00:04:40]:
Sit and see was all that I was wanting to do. I took my shoes and socks off. I was barefoot in the grass, touching the earth, and nothing super profound was happening. And then all of a sudden, it kind of hit me that I’ve been thinking so much that I’d stopped feeling. My body knew exactly what I needed to let go of. The answers were always there. But my life, even just my inside life, I’d just been too loud to listen, too loud to hear them, and. And sometimes the most powerful thing you can do isn’t write a plan.
Kylie Kelly [00:05:13]:
It’s to fucking shut up long enough to hear what your soul has been trying to say for months, what you really need, what is really going on inside you, because it’s in those moments that we get clarity, that means more than anything, that’s going to take you further than any strategy, right? That’s going to actually give you what you’re missing or what you need to hear. So, yeah, silence was really confronting, but it gave me so much clarity. The second takeaway was that creating space inside is more powerful than creating space outside. I honestly thought I just needed a weekend off. And if I’m being really honest, my brain was like, in rebellion mode. I had taken my laptop, I had thought to myself, well, I’ll. I’ll dig into the meditations and to the sound healing, and I’ll do the things during the day, but at night, oh my God, I can get so much work done. Like, how exciting.
Kylie Kelly [00:06:12]:
This is where my brain went, right? It kept telling me, like, I’m an adult, you can make your own decisions. What I discovered was that it was more than that. It wasn’t just space away from the kids, away from life to work, right? To actually get shit done. That wasn’t what I needed. It was actually internal spaciousness. Because the truth, you can clear your calendar, but you can still be cluttered as fck on the inside. And I didn’t realize how much I was holding until I stopped moving. Expectations that I didn’t agree to, grief that I hadn’t fully processed, Pressure to always be on stories about what success should look like by now.
Kylie Kelly [00:06:51]:
There was a lot of personal stuff that I’m not going to go into in detail here, but there was a lot of personal stuff that I’m currently moving through. And I thought I was dealing with that when actually I stopped. I realized that the pain was still there, the heartache was still there. But I’d been filling the space with so much noise that I didn’t realize how much it was taking up, how much I was holding onto it, how much my body was holding onto it. It was all just sitting there, heavy and unseen. And the silent retreat didn’t erase it, right? It didn’t take away that pain, but it made room for me to feel it so I could actually move through some of it and to soften some of it.
Kylie Kelly [00:07:32]:
And now I feel like there’s more space internally. There’s more spaciousness inside of me. And that feels delicious. That feels like something that’s going to last a lot longer than the four days I was away. And I want to build everything in my life from that place now. I believe we go through seasons in life. There’s a season to work hard. There’s a season to hustle.
Kylie Kelly [00:07:53]:
There’s a season to pull up your boots and get shit done. Like there is. However, there’s a difference between that being a season and that being your default. And I must admit, like, that is my default. Like I’m calm, comfortable in the work, in the push, in the hustle, in the let’s get it done, in the strategy, in the perseverance and the determination. Like I’m comfortable there. But when you’re living there, when you’re filling all the space in your life with that noise, it’s exhausting. And it means that there’s no room for anything else.
Kylie Kelly [00:08:24]:
So I want to build my life with this internal spaciousness. Not from hustle, not from over efforting, but from alignment, from wholeness, from ease. I want to take more time to stop and listen to myself, to nature, to mother Earth, to what my guides are telling me, where I need to go. And I know I sound like I’m becoming Superwoman, maybe I am, but this experience changed everything for me and I’m definitely going to build my life differently going forward. The next takeaway that I had was that your body always knows, right? Like this retreat, it wasn’t just silent, obviously was, but it was also somatic, right? There was breath work, there was grounding, there was a magnesium cold plunge that nearly froze my nipples off. And I loved every second of it. There was sound healing, there was Reiki, there was barefoot walking in the grass. Like there was so much that I got to do in this time.
Kylie Kelly [00:09:18]:
And it reminded me again that the body never lies. The body remembers. Your nervous system doesn’t care about your launch schedule. Your intuition doesn’t care about your click through rate. If your body is screaming no, even if the strategy looks fucking beautiful on paper, it has to be a no. Now this is going to be something I want to integrate even deeper with my clients, especially in the mastermind. Because strategy without embodiment, it’s like building a funnel with a cracked foundation. You can’t force sustainable success.
Kylie Kelly [00:09:48]:
You have to feel safe being seen, being heard, being supported. And that all starts in your body. So this somatic part of the retreat was really powerful for me. I found myself at one point looking at a succulent crying for 35 minutes. And it sounds crazy, right? It sounds crazy. But when you quieten down one of your senses, everything else becomes more alert, you become more aware. This is something that I didn’t know my body was holding onto so much. So I’m definitely going to be thinking of ways That I can help my clients heal themselves while they’re building their business.
Kylie Kelly [00:10:25]:
And it’s interesting because I’d been called to study breathwork. I absolutely love the breathwork sessions that I’ve done. And I wanted to study, to become a facilitator. And in my head I was like, well, this is gonna be like my hobby, right? I wanna do it for me, not really for my business. When actually I think the bigger play and the bigger piece that I hadn’t seen yet was that this gets to be part of it, right? This gets to be part of the picture. I’m not just gonna be helping my clients with the business strategy, the visibility pieces, the growing the audience without social, it’s actually gonna be more than that, which I’m really excited for. And lastly, the last takeaway that I’m going to leave with you is doing less can actually move you forward faster. Now, this punched me in the fucking gut because for four days I did less than I’ve done in, I think, years.
Kylie Kelly [00:11:10]:
You know, I walked slowly, I stared at trees. I started writing a book, which, again, maybe that was my rebellious side because we weren’t meant to read, but I had the start of a book drop into me and I wrote it down, and I’m so excitedly scared about it, but I started writing a book. I cried multiple times a day. I’m record this on Tuesday. And I was traveling back yesterday, and my eyes were sore from crying and. And letting go, releasing so much emotion. I napped on purpose, right? And somehow I’ve come back with more clarity than I’ve ever had after, like, a planning session or a planning day. And it wasn’t because I mapped out a new funnel or because I worked harder.
Kylie Kelly [00:11:49]:
It was because I finally gave myself a chance to exhale, to breathe, to be. And I realized that the best ideas don’t come when you’re pushing. And again, that’s my default. So this is hard for me to admit, but they come when you’re present. And honestly, I used to hear this and think it was bullshit, right? Like, I would hear people talk about this kind of stuff and be like, yeah, well, maybe that’s okay for you because you already have, et cetera, et cetera. You already have a seven figure business. You’re already making a lot of money. You already have so much support.
Kylie Kelly [00:12:17]:
You don’t have young kids like I do. Like, I used to make excuses. I used to hear things like that and just think it was bullshit. Similarly to the whole, like, make money in your sleep. I was like, yeah, what? You can make money in your sleep when you have offers that allow you to do so. And actually doing less does actually move you forward faster. The whole slowing down to speed up actually is a thing. And more than that, slowing down to just slow down and listen and tune in.
Kylie Kelly [00:12:42]:
And now I get to build everything from this place. A place where I don’t have to prove anything. I just get to serve. I just get to build with what is in my heart, with what I want to build with what I’m called to do.
Kylie Kelly [00:12:56]:
And that’s all I have to do is follow those nudges. And so I just wanted to share that as well. Because if you are similar to me, if you are in a stage of life where you can’t leave your life, four days where you think this might be bullshit, I want to just challenge you to test it. I just want to challenge you to take a morning off, take an hour off, go and sit in nature and just stop. Don’t listen to a podcast, don’t listen to music, just be aware of the sounds around you and tune into actually what. What does your heart want? What is your soul telling you? What is in your body that you might need to let go of? And if you can even just sit with that for 60 minutes, I think you’re going to be really amazed at what comes out. So, yeah, I thought I needed a break, but what I actually needed was a return. A return to myself, to stillness, to safety in my body, to the quiet knowing that’s been there all along.
Kylie Kelly [00:13:46]:
And now that I’ve felt this, there is no way that I’m doing it anymore other way ever again. So, yeah, if you’re feeling stretched thin or disconnected from the why behind what you’re doing, I really want to offer you that you don’t need to blow up your business. You don’t need to set anything on fire. You don’t need a 10 day retreat in the jungle. You don’t even need a four day silent retreat. You just need space and permission. You need space to listen and you need permission to trust what you hear. You don’t have to wait for burnout to get quiet.
Kylie Kelly [00:14:14]:
You don’t have to earn stillness by checking off more boxes. I was always guilty of that one. You get to create space simply because you matter. Your energy matters, your peace matters. And my love, your next level is actually going to require it. So thank you for letting me share this. I know it was a bit of a different episode. It feels really vulnerable.
Kylie Kelly [00:14:34]:
I haven’t cried so that’s a win. First day in a few that I haven’t cried so far anyway. But this feels really real and if even one thing landed for you, I’m just really glad and grateful that you press play. So if you’re craving more space in in your business, more alignment in your strategy, more you in everything that you do, please reach out and I would love to hear from you and just cheer you on. Obviously I have my mastermind that is going to start to incorporate things like this because it’s the number one place where I pour in so much of myself. So any new levels that I reach, any new learnings that I learn, anything that I can do to take my clients on this journey with me and to really help them in a deeper way, that’s where I take it. So please reach out if you’re interested in more information or there is a link in the show notes. But until next time, my love, I just want you to breathe, I want you to trust yourself and I want you to give yourself the space to be before you build.
Kylie Kelly [00:15:30]:
I love you so much. Thank you so much for tuning in and I will catch you again next week. All right, bye for now. Thank you so much for tuning into.
Kylie Kelly [00:15:38]:
This episode of the Email Growth Show. I hope you found valuable insights into the next steps to you can take to grow your email list and boost your business without relying on social media or paid ads.
Kylie Kelly [00:15:50]:
If you enjoy this episode, please take a moment to rate and review the show and share it with others. Your feedback helps me reach more female entrepreneurs just like you who are ready to say goodbye to social media and leverage email marketing to grow their business and make a bigger impact.
Kylie Kelly [00:16:05]:
Thank you so much for listening and I’ll see you in the next episode.
