The METREAT Recap: BTS of Planning, Volcanic Eruptions and Emergency Evacuations, and the Importance of JOY When Healing

Lisa is back from hosting her first retreat- aka, the METREAT. She brought 20+ people to Guatemala for a once in a lifetime experience– no lie! In the first hour a volcano erupted causing an emergency evacuation and “plan b” to go into effect. Just like that, her 50 page “run of show” handbook went up in flames and the direction of the METREAT was out of her control. But, somehow, it all worked out magically!  

 

Lisa spills:

• Why Lisa created the METREAT
• How to plan a retreat with absolutely no experience 
• Why the obstacles and not going the easy route made it incredibly special
• ALLLL the things that went wrong and how we chose resilience in the face of potential ruin
• Her FAVORITE most stand out parts 
• The importance of JOY when healing
• And the major life lessons she learned in just a few short days. 

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The Truthiest Life on Instagram @thetruthiestlife

Host @lisahayim

 

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Edited by Houston Tilley

Intro Jingle by Alyssa Chase aka @findyoursails

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
No ill.

Speaker 2 (00:04):
Even when times gethard and you feel you're in the
c see just how beautiful life can be. When you
saten your heart, you can finally start.

Speaker 1 (00:27):
To live your true serious life. Hello everybody, welcome back
to the Truthius Life. It's your host, Lisa Haim and
in today's episode, I'm going to be giving you a
behind the scenes into the me treat, the wellness retreat
for lack of a better word, that I hosted in Guatemala.
I'm going to be sharing everything that went into it,

(00:48):
everything that went wrong, everything that I learned, and a
lot of what transpired within this magical container that I
in no way could have seen coming at me. I
want to take a second to just say thank you
for listening to the past few episodes in May, where
I featured other people's content that has shifted and inspired
me and educated me along the way. It was really

(01:12):
a chaotic month of coming off of Soley's hospitalization, the
metre planning, and then going into my husband's fortieth birthday,
and with all of that, I did not feel like
I could give you what I promise on this podcast.
So I came up with a really great idea to
feature content that deserves more ears. If you haven't gone

(01:33):
back to listen, the last three episodes from this month
feature incredible healing modalities and just really enriching conversations with
people that have changed my own life. So thank you
for listening to that. I'm sitting down to record this
episode two weeks after returning from the metreat, and I

(01:54):
know that most people probably coming off of it, would
ride the high of views on social media and listeners
and all of that that come with getting content out quickly.
But I do not operate operate at robotic speed, and
so it has truly taken this long to even partially
digest everything that transpired and come back to my body.

(02:19):
If you followed along in social media, you may have
picked up on the fact that this was not exactly
a restorative retreat. It was not just action pack but
also semi natural disaster packed and filled with evacuation plans
and nervous system up regulation. But it was also filled
with soul enriching magic that is really hard to put

(02:44):
into words, and I think that's been the hardest part
of coming home, not having the words when people ask
how was the retreat or how was the retreat really
being able to share what transpired, not just because it
was sacred, but because I don't think there's an English
for the type of connection that we quickly cultivated and

(03:06):
this breakthrough that we all went through together. And if
that sounds absolutely wild and not tangible, I apologize. And
you know it was one of those like you had
to be their thing. But there are so many aspects
of this trip that I think are worth sharing and
lessons that I learned and clarity that I found that

(03:26):
I am going to do my best to share the
parts that pertain to me. Like I said, this was
a deeply confidential, for lack of a better word, a
lot of the things that went on for people, the
conversations that were had and the breakthroughs, the tears, the laughter.
So I will not be sharing anything participant related, but
I will be sharing things that went on for me personally.

(03:47):
So in case you're new to the entire concept of
the MET Treat, I created the MET Treat after going
on my own after becoming a mother for about a year,
I found myself deeply confused, very influenced by noise my head,
very hazy brain fog, and like, who am I and
what do I do other than mother and carry intense

(04:11):
weight on my shoulders, Like, if I'm just going to
intensely mother, can I do it with lightness and freeness.
I had none of that, and I knew that I
was in a place of I need to find myself.
So I went to look for a wellness retreat that
spoke to me, somewhere that I could quickly and easily
go to that means one flight for me, somewhere that

(04:31):
has all the healing modalities that I was after. I
wanted to do a lot of different things in a
short amount of time, and also the short amount of
time aspect, I didn't want to be gone for seven days.
And when I started to look up retreats, it was
like everything that I found was like a week long,
didn't have a lot planned on the schedule. I'd be
like yoga twice a day, lots of free time to

(04:53):
explore the places where they are, which has a purpose,
and there's a time and place for those types of retreats.
But I wasn't finding what I wanted in any of
these experiences. When I looked into like wellness sque hotels,
kind of the same thing. Not a ton of offerings
maybe you know, one movement class per day, expensive massages,

(05:15):
and again it wasn't like the brain body connection that
I was looking for, and I knew I'd be spending
like a lot of money to do these things, and
I wasn't sure I was going to get out of
it what I needed. So I ended up going to Florida,
specifically Delray Beach, which is kind of hilarious because it
is known for its strip malls. Like it's not an
incredibly I don't know the right word here, but culturally diverse,

(05:38):
enriching place typically. But I chose Delray because it's in Florida,
and Florida I do have a bunch of healing modalities
that I do call on, whether that's yoga or my
offoscial work with Craig. I tried something called watsu. I've
talked about these things before, but anyway, I chose Florida
because I could have a car there, I could go
to all these places and kind of like piece me

(05:58):
on my own meat. I also chose it because my
best friend in the entire world, who her and her
wife live in London, were there for the time being,
and I was dying to see them. We had just
gone through the pandemic, and like, these are like my
soul sisters, and they're not just like regular friends where
we drink and party and go out to dinner. Like
even if we were to drink and party and go

(06:20):
out to dinner, our conversations would be so deeply meaningful.
But I did have hesitations of going there and being
with them because I knew that I really needed my
alone time. But what I found leaving that trip was
that they actually served as perfect mirrors for me to
more clearly see myself. And they happen to be people

(06:40):
that are so space holding and such a container. But
in our couple of days together, even though I was
kind of, you know, doing my own metreat stuff and
they were doing their own, whenever we came together, I
found such clarity and answers that I was looking for
that I realized, wait, maybe, like a retreat or retreat,
there's there's power in the people that you're there with,

(07:02):
not just isolation and quiet time alone. In fact, I
will actually argue that if you are in any sort
of like difficult stage of your life, too much alone
time can be harmful. Obviously it is necessary, but I
do remember after a breakup about a decade ago, going

(07:24):
to Costa Rica alone, which I'm so proud of myself
for doing and think it's so important to travel alone
and do all those things alone. But I remember feeling
like having really hard moments alone and you kind of
get yourself into these brain caves where it's dark and
you don't know your way out, and having someone there
to pull you out can be really helpful. So that

(07:46):
was a huge shocker to me. When I came home
from the met treat, It's actually kind of fun because
I don't remember any of this, but I have a
journal that I use during the retreat, the me treat,
my own personal and afterwards. And if I look back
at everything that I said during that time and after
like I had such clarity, and as days passed, I
forgot about it. But when I revisit those pages, I'm like, Yes,

(08:09):
that's who I am, that's what I want to do,
that's my truth. And that really illuminated to me the
importance of journaling, if it wasn't already illuminated to me,
Because all of the answers are inside of us, but
they're stuck there, so how do we get them out?
But when I look back at that journal, one of

(08:30):
the things that I said, interestingly enough, was I want
to host retreats. And I read a lot in the journal,
and a lot doesn't see the light of day. But
when I saw that I wrote that, I was like, Wow,
it's really incredible that I did this, because it wasn't like, Okay,
I wrote it in my journal. Now I'm going to
come up with a plan. I actually don't even remember
how the conversation got started with Christina, who works with

(08:51):
me to help me with this podcast, who lives in Guatemala,
But somehow around November or so, we started talking about
hosting a retreat there, and next thing I knew, we
were in planning mode, and we were deep in planning mode,
and I was excited and we were pulling things together.
We advertised the metreat as an intensive introspective immersion and

(09:13):
it truly was. The quote that I put on T
shirts was evolution is easy. It's the refusal to do
so that's hard. Or evolucione, as we gave bracelets to everybody,
is easy. It's the refusal to do so is hard.
And this is a post it that I have had
written a note to self since I was pregnant, and

(09:37):
yet I need to revisit it like time and time
again because I truly do believe this. I believe that
evolving and becoming who we are next, or the version
of ourselves that we are next, or the version of
ourselves that's buried deep within, is actually easy. But it's
our refusal, our resistance, our fear to do so that's

(09:59):
been really, really hard, And that's kind of the theme
of the metreat. It is about evolution, it's about so
much more, but it's about really becoming who you already
are that is hidden and buried within. So I just
want to be super clear that, like my purpose in
creating this retreat is not about like this future version

(10:23):
of self that we are creating. It's about tapping into
who we already are, and those answers are within us,
whether we are journaling or we are just sitting in
a puddle of I don't know what to do with
my life, which you know, anybody listening at this point
probably feels a level of that. And if you don't,
good for you for being in your stage of your
era of certainty. But it really is hard to tap

(10:48):
into our truthiest selves, and I really wanted to provide
a container where we could get in touch with that truth.
Like I said, I've been sitting on this experience for
two weeks trying to digest how to explain it, and
I wish that I had a word for what transpired,

(11:09):
but truly there is not one in the English language.
I apologize to my retreaters meatreaterers who need a retreat
because it was not restorative by any means, but it
was soul enriching in the deepest level. Before I go further,
I just want to give a big thank you to
my team who totally rose to the occasion. I'm going

(11:30):
to share everything that happened, but they worked meticulously to
not only get us to safety with a plan B
which was beautiful, incredible and wowed the meat Treats, but
also found two incredible houses in Colonial Antigua that were like,
mind blowingly beautiful. And I know that the Meat Treat's
success was largely in part of this huge pivot. Taking

(11:53):
us back to the process of planning this back in January,
I did a site visit, so before I launched anything
about the metreat, I was like, I need to go
see Guatemala. I need to see these houses for myself.
I need to understand how far things are from the airport.
And it was a really important meeting to go to.
And I remember sitting down at Christina's table. I stayed

(12:13):
with her family for a night, and her family, all
her sisters and their significant others, and her dad were
at the table and they were like, who is going
to come to this retreat? Like who's coming? What type
of people? Where are they from? And I remember being like,
I have absolutely no idea, And I just want to
also share that I didn't know if anybody was going

(12:34):
to sign up, like and I know that from the
outside looking in, it's like you see me as this
social media personality with followers, so like, of course you
should sell out or whatever. But I've never done this before.
I'm taking people to Guatemala. It's an interesting experience the
way it is. It's not a hotel room, it's houses,
it's all these things. And I truly didn't know if

(12:55):
we were going to fill the spaces, and turns out
more than filled the spaces when well sort of we
had applications. Because of the nature of having houses, wanted
people to really understand what they were signing up for.
We wanted to make sure that we could provide a
safe container for anybody that was going through something, and
if they were going through something too big, you know,

(13:17):
if they weren't the right fit. I'm all about emotional
safety and making sure that I was cultivating the right
people who would be fantastic on this trip and not
endanger them in any way. But it included foreign travel
a non English speaking country, and honestly, every application was

(13:37):
incredible and I could see every single person on the metreat.
So within twenty four hours we actually closed the applications
because I didn't want to have to say no to
more people. And this wasn't a thing of yes, the
more the merrier, because we a only had two houses
and intimacy was part of this, and logistically it would
be much harder as we continued to add more people

(13:58):
from food to try to all of that. And one
thing about me is that I make everything ten times
harder for myself. It's part of my learning process. I
don't follow blueprints or easier ways to do things, although
maybe I should, but I actually think that all the
ways that I made this harder for myself and my
team actually contributed to the magic. You know, I did

(14:22):
it in a foreign country. I did it in a
non speaking English country. I did it using two houses
versus being contained in one an hour and a half
from the airport, not using a hotel, whereas a lot
of the times I see retreats being offered and they're
within hotels that regularly host retreats. So the food is

(14:42):
taken care of, the rooms are taken care of. You know,
all you have to do is basically bring the people
and one source of activity. If you're a yoga teacher,
you're teaching yoga twice a day, you know, whatever it is.
But everything else is like largely taken care of. Not
that it's ever easy, but nothing about this was it's easy.
You know. I wanted to provide airport transportation for every

(15:03):
guest so that once they paid for their ticket and
they arrived in Guatemala, like they were captured and brought
to us, and so there was so much logistics to this,
but I know that it created the container that led
to this community that I think that like if we
had hotel rooms just wouldn't be possible. It's this like

(15:26):
public space feeling during downtime that actually I think led
to this word that I don't have a word for.
And when people ask me, would you do it differently?
I rarely answered that question as a yes, and I
think that this is no exception. Yes, the planning was
infinitely harder, but I think the yield, what I got

(15:47):
out of it, what we got out of it, was
also infinitely better. So I'm going to share some of
my most favorite standout parts. I'm going to share the
things that went wrong before and during, and I'm going
to share some of the activities that we had planned
and what they ended up feeling like in my body.

(16:11):
And I'm going to share what really worked like what
I think really made this so special that it's continuing
to be something. We are still talking to each other daily,
we are still sharing breakthroughs, inspirations, asking questions, leaning on
each other, and we only spend three plus a little
bit change days together. And then I'm going to share

(16:33):
my lessons from the entire thing. Okay, so I'm going
to start by sharing my most favorite standout parts. And
I would be amiss to not give a huge round
of applause to my team's ability to pivot and pivot

(16:54):
quickly and swiftly. I will share the details of that
when we talk about the volcanic eruption and the evacuation.
The things that went wrong ended up being the things
that went right. More on that in a bit. There
was no clickiness. We were twenty four women in total,
including staff, and there was never a moment that there

(17:18):
was like a group over here and somebody isolated over there.
Every time I looked around at the different tables during meals,
without having to force anybody to sit next to each other,
it was like new group, new groups, new groups, and
I just thought that that was awesome and something that
you really don't see a lot with big groups. I
think that clickiness almost is normal in many situations simply

(17:42):
because of how personalities attract to each other. I think
that because the focus of the metriat was more about self,
each time somebody sat with somebody new, they saw a
different reflection of themselves, and whether they were consciously choosing
to mix it up each time or not, the benefit
of that was there, and I do think subconsciously there

(18:04):
was some steering into making choices where to sit each time.
I loved how the women gave each other great advice
without any hang ups or disclaimers, things like I don't
want to be mean, but like weren't said if somebody
shared something somebody was like, yo, straight up, I think
that's a bad idea. And it actually took me back

(18:26):
for a moment, because I guess there's a little bit
of like cushioning that I in the last couple of
years put into advice giving to I don't know, not
be so intense about my thoughts or feelings, but the
truth is I do have really good instincts. I do
have thoughts and feelings and advice for people, and the
cushioning doesn't usually actually do anything. But when I saw

(18:49):
one woman give this advice to another about somebody her
dating situation, I was like, wow, like it is beautiful
to see a friendship that straight up. It's not bossy
like don't do this, but it was more like the
person who was giving the advice was acting as the
higher self to the person that needed it, and the

(19:11):
receptivity of the person who needed it. I think really
showcased that beautiful interaction because she wasn't like you don't
know me, you know, she was like, Wow, Okay, I
see what you're saying now, And that was just one
of those moments that was just awesome for me. The
joy that was included in this retreat. There was a
lot of crying, and there was a lot of hard moments.

(19:35):
There's not a person in the world, but of course
on this retreat that hasn't gone through something huge in
their life, and working through that with stillness is inevitably
going to happen. I knew that it would, and I
expected tears, but what I did not expect was the joy.

(19:56):
We had so much fun and we connected with our
like inner little girls that are just playful and silly,
and there's there's probably a better word for joy when
it's like oozing out of you and it's contagious and
you allow it to be that Like, that's what we experienced.

(20:18):
I'll share a little tidbet about that as we move
along into this as well. And then there was insane
honesty in the processing of experiences and our internal experiences.
After either meditation, somadic breathwork, yoga, we often came together
to debrief and again I can't share the contents of

(20:39):
things that were shared, but it was like nobody was
holding back and Nobody was like, oh, I know, this
is weird, but it was just like, straight up, this
is where my mind went during this, And of course
the rest of us were like, oh my god, me do.
But we would have never said it if it wasn't
for that one person to be a thought leader and
open the conversation. And I thought that that was awesome

(20:59):
because so often we have thought, feelings, emotions that are
actually very primal and normal, but they are not societally
normal or appreciated, so we contain them and we bury
them and we try not to have them. There's a
lot of shame associated with having urges, for lack of
a better word, and having one person kind of open

(21:21):
the door and be like, this is what I was feeling. Really,
I think allowed all of us to not just crack
up because we've never heard somebody say that before, but
it also allowed us to lean into our own sense
of self. All right, now, I'm going to move into
things that went wrong. Leading up to this retreat, it
seemed like everything was just starting to fall apart. I

(21:45):
really wanted to capture this experience in a way that
felt organic, but at the same time I knew having
a photographer videographer, content creator, somebody outside of the group
would disrupt the container or that I was trying to create.
It's a really fine line of creating a safe place

(22:06):
and then also capturing it in my day to day life.
I struggle with that all of the time because I
could showcase so much of the things that I do,
but if I had my camera out to do it,
it changes how I'm doing it and my thought process,
and it doesn't allow me to fully tap in. So
I knew that having like a content creator and treating

(22:29):
this like an event just didn't feel right to me.
But I also really wanted to capture the experience, give
these women photos of themselves, you know, the documentation helps
you to relive it. And I also knew that I
would want to share parts of it on social and
have it for myself as well. But I didn't want
to be on my phone the entire time, so I

(22:51):
was just on the hunt for who is the perfect
person to help me create this. So I put on
my Instagram story like do I know anybody that you
know takes but also like really would want to come
on the retreat and all the meat treat And I
remember getting one response from my friend Tana, who's like,
I think this is me question mark. And the second

(23:12):
I saw Tana respond, I was like, oh my god.
Of course Tana is a friend of mine from social media.
She was on Outweigh, the podcast I host with Amy,
talking about her experience with body image and being a YouTuber.
And I absolutely love Tana, And the second she said that,
I was like, yes, it's you. So we got her
on board, we got her flight, and the idea was

(23:34):
that she was going to experience it, but also like
be behind the scenes capturing pictures, but being mindful of like
certain experiences. And then also I wanted her to fully
be immersed in some things and not be like quote
unquote working, So we just arranged our own schedule of
things that she would be fully immersed in so that
she would be a meat treater, but specific things that

(23:54):
I wanted to get captured. So we were like all
set to go. And then about two weeks before she
realized that her passport expired, we had already booked her
flight and everything, and at this point I was like,
oh my gosh, this is just I actually never even
got upset about it because I knew that things leading
up to the moment would fall apart, and this was

(24:16):
one of them that I didn't see coming. But okay,
worst case we don't have a content creator, not the
end of the world, lose some money, whatever. If anybody
is looking to plan a retreat the way we did it,
you know, anyway isn't a huge money maker because, like
I said, all the things that I put into it
to make it unique. So at this point this was

(24:36):
hard work, Like this was sole enriching work that I
wanted to create. It was not for the money, and
that was good because it allowed me to continue to
just like stay on track for what this was about. Anyway,
long story short, I just was like, Okay, if we
lose her, we lose her. She worked really hard to

(24:56):
go to the passport store and ended up two days
before getting a new passport. So she ended up coming,
which was great, and I kind of thought that this
was like our big thing that fell apart right before,
but you know, we got it together. About a week before.
I sent an email to the meat treaders telling them,
you know, preparing them for the trip of everything that
they would need and a packing list and everything, and

(25:19):
I also included a note about things going wrong. Bringing
twenty plus people to a country on different flights, I
knew that there would be flight delays, maybe suitcase losses,
all of that, and I wanted to prep people to
know that that's coming so that when it does, you
know they're not as bummed or afrayed or frustrated. And
I think that's actually like the magic of traveling is

(25:40):
that things go wrong, and especially in non familiar places
like you have to pivot with what is and there
isn't a lot of room for safety. You're thrown out
of the nest, and what happens next is often part
of the magic. With our team meetings, we had them
weekly leading up to the going to Guatemala, I also
said the same thing to them. We all put tremendous

(26:02):
work into them, and I just wanted them to know
that if and when something goes wrong with the plan
or anything like that, you know it's okay. It's part
of it. And I was also telling myself that too,
because so much of all of my energy went into
birthing this meatreat, so the lesson was really there for
all of us. And then forty eight hours before I

(26:26):
lost my co host, who to a family emergency back
at home, who under no circumstances could make it given
everything that was going on with her. This was a
catastrophic loss forty eight hours before. The way I set
up the metreat having two houses was I wanted a
host in each house and I was not willing to

(26:49):
not have that. I think having a point person is
just really important, kind of like a hotel concierge, somebody
that if something goes wrong in the middle of the night,
you know there's somebody leading the ship. I was in
a separate villa, so I needed somebody to fill that
spot as well. This was forty eight hours notice, and
my brain was like, oh my gosh, exploding, but also understanding,

(27:10):
you know, exactly what my friend had to go through.
But I was freaking out. I was really freaking out.
We ended up getting mary Ella, who's Christina's sister, who
I know, who ended up being absolutely incredible, and mary
Ella jumped on forty eight hours notice and filled the spot.
But with that came my first opportunity to grieve. Bringing

(27:33):
my best friend as the other co host, somebody who's
incredibly special to me, who I knew would bring a
level of introspection and mirroring to the whole group was
something that I had envisioned for so long, and not
having her there was a huge hit emotionally and also
just hard to envision, you know. With just forty eight hours,
a critical team member was replaced and that was really,

(27:57):
really really hard to deal with. And I was very
happy when mary Ella stepped in, and I'm still very thankful,
and it ended up being an even better blessing when
I get to the universe always has your back. We'll
get to that in a second. But that was like
we saw a lot of things coming and we didn't
see this, but then came the bigger, bigger, unexpected happening.

(28:27):
I am somebody that when providing a service, I am
detail oriented like crazy, and really very few other places
of my life do I become this focused. But I
truly feel when somebody has invested their whether it be
their time, their energy, or their money with me, I
have to make it impeccable and perfect and give it

(28:49):
my all. Perfect just kind of a strange word there,
but I strive to make it the best offering service possible.
And this mutual was no exception. When I showed Tracy
the yoga teacher that I brought on board for this.
The schedule, she was like, wow, this is ambitious. That
was her word, because every hour it was something else,

(29:12):
and every detail was accounted for. We had a fifty
page run of show. Keep in mind, we are not
event planners, but now we might as well be. Where
we had every single detail, ranging from a person's food
allergies to what room they were in their emergency contact
to every detail. I have it right here. Actually, it'll
just open up a random page or internal schedule or

(29:33):
outward facing schedule, emergency protocols, I mean, detailed departure times,
arrival times, who's going to clean up, who's going to
set up. All of this was just in this beautiful
spiral bound book that we created, and this was going
to be Bible. I looked at it the day before
the retreat the retreat and I was like, this is Bible.

(29:54):
Like we all know this really well, but everything we
need is in here, okay. I themed each day of
the event. So the first day I called Erupt, the
second day I called Evolve, and the third day I
called Emerge. And I created this months and months ago
to bring to life the concepts that I experienced on

(30:16):
my own metreat. I called the first day erupt because
oftentimes when we settle into stillness and we start to
do the work, there is an eruption. There is parts
of us that start to unravel, and it's not fun.
There's that collision inside of us, and there's that breaking
point and there's also that release. But it's messy and

(30:38):
it's ugly, and sometimes we don't feel well from it.
There can be headaches, there can be stomach aches, there
could be all of that, and so erupt was really
meant to signify what's going to happen. On top of that,
we were you know, had views of volcanoes, So I
thought erupt was the perfect word to describe what's going
to happen, you know, inside of us. Little did I
know that my mind is so powerful. Second day was

(30:59):
about evolve and exploring and you know, being open minded
to new things, trying new flavors of food, and really
doing a lot of curiosity and question asking. And then
the third day was about emerging. How are we going
to embody everything that we've let go of and made
room for and who we've become as we emerge back

(31:23):
into the world. So as we set forth to our
action packed day one called erupt. The volcano also decided
to erupt. Now a volcanoes erupt all of the time,
or active volcanoes, I should say, erupt all of the time. So,
you know, the day before I did see the volcano
and it was kind of like, you know, releasing some

(31:45):
of whatever goes on inside a volcano. And every fifteen
minutes ago you'd see the gases released and it was beautiful.
And when I woke up the next morning, I noticed
that it was erupting and quite bigger than I had
seen it before. But the house that we rented included
staff that are regularly at this house, and it's kind

(32:06):
of like when you're on an airplane and you're kind of,
you know, looking at the flight attendants to see are
they nervous when things are going wrong? Like they were
super chill. You know. Christina lives in Guatemala, So the
first thing I did was ask her, like, is this cool?
And she's like, yes, I think it is, but I'm gonna,
you know, check with the owners of the house. The
place that we were staying was a gated community and
start to do, you know, make sure that everything was

(32:29):
really good and cheap. Didn't have fear in her face either,
so we continued to roll through with it. As the
volcano is erupting. It was beautiful, it was energetic, it
was magnificent, and at the same time it was really, really,
really powerful. So Day one started with five by five
mindful morning method, something I lead, and then into a

(32:50):
yoga flow that I also was going to lead. I
did lead it for an hour, which again the theme
was all about the volcano erupting. I had zero idea
that it would actually be erupting behind me in the
magnitude that it was, but wow, it did. As I'm
teaching yoga, I had an hour and a half planned.
In about an hour in the volcano is erupting behind me,

(33:13):
Christina comes over to me, taps me on the shoulder,
and she goes, we need to evacuate, put them into
shavasana and come to the side. So my brain froze.
I quickly tap Tracy, the other yoga teacher, and I go,
can you lead for one second? Come to side Tracy,
and Christina tells me that out of an abundance of caution,
we do need to evacuate. That is the rules of

(33:34):
where we are staying, and it's no longer a question
but something we are going to do. I quickly walk
back over to everybody doing yoga, tell Tracy to stop,
and I tell them that, out of an abundance of caution,
we are going to evacuate. Go back to your rooms,
grab your passports and anything you need, and we're going
to hit the road. This is where mary Ella came

(33:54):
in clutch. She was the extra car that allowed for
all of us to quickly get out. And it was
in this exact moment that the light bulb went off
for me and I was like, oh, that's why my
best friend couldn't come. That catastrophe just forty eight hours
ago makes so much sense right now. Thank you Universe,

(34:15):
Thank you God. Like trust in moments that you cannot trust,
just trust because Universe is a sly guy. And I mean,
Mariella being the other car that we needed for that
safe evacuation just mind blowing. So we ended up evacuating
to a place just seven minutes away, and it was

(34:36):
somewhere that I actually visited when I came with Christina
to visit Guatemala, so I had been to this place before.
It's absolutely beautiful. It's like winery restaurant views of volcano
non erupting. Then interestingly, it was very close by, so
it was just simply where our house was situated in
relationship to the volcano is what was making it potentially dangerous.

(34:59):
So our plan was to move over there, get people fed,
and see what sort of activities we could redo their
as we evaluated the situation. As the day went on,
we could hear the volcano continuing to erupt, and we
had to make some choices. Where are we going to
sleep if we can't get back to the houses that night.

(35:20):
So during lunch my team was working and found two
incredible houses in Colonial Antigua, which is absolutely beautiful, and
as beautiful as they were, I really didn't want to
go there because I planned this all retreat at these
two houses. And you know, again, it was out of
an abundance of caution that we evacuated and if they
allowed us back in, a part of me wanted to go,

(35:42):
but a part of me also wanted to take no
chances with a volcano that I know nothing about. And ultimately,
as the day progressed, it was three o'clock, four o'clock,
we had to make some choices, and I decided that
the best call was going to be going to Colonial
Antigua for at least next twenty four hours and evaluating
in the morning. Like I said, this volcanic eruption was

(36:05):
very different than the normal where it just you know,
releases its gases and moves on. This was a true, big,
huge eruption. So we went to Colonial Antigua and we
resettled in these magnificent houses, and we went out to
dinner that night, whoever wanted to come out to dinner.
And again, like I had a chef that I brought
to the meatreat, and all that just went out the

(36:25):
window for the entire day as we ate at restaurants
and people are eating French fries and steak, and no
problem with those foods, but just to start contrast to
what I had prepared and had in mind for everything
we'd be eating at the house, and I couldn't help
but just laugh. By the time we got to dinner,
we were just giddy. It was like being with your
best friends that you hadn't seen in a while. And

(36:49):
we had the best time at dinner that night, and
it was just one of those moments that I was like, Wow,
this group is incredible. They are incredible, and they are
pivoting so well, and everything is not going exactly how
it's meant to at all, but it's exactly what we
all needed. And I think that this change of plans

(37:13):
really stripped us all of the veils of like who
we may have been pretending to be. Very quickly suddenly
we were authentically ourselves, and it expedited the process so
quickly of getting to know each other. The car ride
from you know where we were staying to Colonial Antigua alone,
like the conversations that were being had nothing was surface,

(37:36):
and so very quickly we learned the layers of each
person in a way that was so unforced. One of
the things that I was actually worried about would be
like any awkward conversations. And so each day I had
planned to put people in assigned random seating for breakfast
and give them some prompts and questions to ask each other.

(37:58):
That never happened because we never needed it. People were
constantly mixing up where to sit. They were having these
intense conversations with each other without any sort of prompting,
and it was absolutely beautiful to step back and witness,
and when we woke up the next day in Colonial Antigua,
we had gotten the amazing news that the volcano had
stopped erupting and we were safe to go back. I

(38:20):
wasn't sure if people would still want to go back,
but they were actually eager to go back, and I
felt that it was safe enough to go back. You know,
this was kind of like a once in every I
don't know, five ten years type of a situation, and
the houses were unharmed. But like I said, out of
an unabundance of caution, we did move away from the
active volcano for the time being, so we went back

(38:42):
later in the day, but we continued to piecemeal together
what we had planned. Of course, Day one got completely
wiped out, not completely wiped out again, we did the
best well we could while being in a different location
and it ended up working out beautifully. While at the
restaurant where we kind of hung out for most of
Day one, we had a beautiful sacred circle time where

(39:06):
everybody picked out conversation starters as I called them. They
were these prompts that I had prepared for people to
use during breakfast time to get to know each other
or during off time to use to journal. I have
the bag right here, so I'll just reach in and
give you an example of one. And the activity was
you reach in for the bag and you read the
question and you answer it yourself, or you take a

(39:28):
moment to journal it first. And as the question is asked,
not only is the person reading it to think about
it for themselves and share, but everybody else has their
journal in front of them and they're too to answer it.
And this was a beautiful ceremony. And at the end
of it we put these Evolucian handmade bracelets on everybody
and it was just like, actually the perfect way to

(39:49):
kick things off, although not at all part of the plan.
Actually the perfect way to kick things off is what
we started with when we got to the restaurant. Instead
of being so like heavy and healing, I was like,
they need some lightness right now, and we all went
around and shared our hidden talents. And again it was light.
It was jovial. It was a fun way to learn
about people without making it too deep or forced right away,

(40:12):
when what we needed was a little levity. Okay, anyway,
so these prompts I came up with over one hundred
prompts that were just like flowing out of me before
the retreat, and we got them laminated. And anyway, here's
one question that I just randomly pulled out of the bag.
Which relationships in your life are a source of constant
stress or triggers? How do you handle being around those people?

(40:32):
Do you have boundaries? Do you have action plans to
support you when you're in contact? And so that person
who picked that question randomly would have to answer that question,
or we gave everybody the opportunity if you don't like
the question, to do one switcheroo. Not one person did
a switcheroo. Okay, here's just another random one. When you
think about your throat throat chakra, do you imagine it

(40:54):
open or closed? Are you able to speak your truth
and express yourself? Why or why not? It's just a
beautiful opening ceremony with shares. That next day we hung
out in our beautiful home called what was it called?
We had two homes in Colonial Antigua. One was called
Kukstall and that one is meant for airbnb. So I'm

(41:16):
just bringing it up if you find yourself in Colonial
Antigua or want to go with like seventeen or eighteen people.
This house was insane, And the coolest part is that
Colonial Antique was a city, but it's not like high
rise building. It's all very old and well preserved, full
of history and beauty and breathtaking attractions. So this house

(41:37):
is just like hidden. It's just this regular blue door
and you open it up and you're in like crips
like it emptv crips, like the most amazing house with
incredible architecture, art, and it's just like the place that
you want to vacation. So the vibes were so good
and immaculate, and the house lended I think, the perfect

(41:58):
place for us to continue with as much as we could.
So we had a fire ceremony with JJ, who's Christina's cousin,
and he's this I don't know what exactly he is,
if he's technically a shaman or not, but he is awesome.
And the second we sat in this fire ceremony, he
set up this beautiful circle and gong and this whole

(42:20):
thing that I'm describing absolutely terribly right now. But the
second I sat down, I just keep in mind me
in my pajamas because I have no clothes because we evacuated.
So I'm in this ridiculous outfit I packed for this retreat,
so many cool outfits that I thought i'd take cool
pictures of, and here I am in my pajamas and
some random hat that I found. It's just kind of
a funny moment for me. But anyway, we sit in

(42:42):
JJ's circle and I just start crying. I can't even
explain it, but it was just one of those moments
where stillness finds you after so much busyness and running
around that we had did leading up to this moment,
and it just hit me. It all me. JJ spoke

(43:02):
beautifully about the actual volcanic eruption that occurred, and he
made a beautiful metaphor about how this is symbolic within
all of us. There are collisions happening within us all
the time until we do explode and erupt and we
all have that point. He spoke about Mayan culture and

(43:27):
really rooted us into the history of Guatemala respectfully, which
I really appreciated and will continue to learn and explore.
I'm very aware that the Guatemala that I showed to
these women is not necessarily the true Guatemala. The third
world country it's also very culturally enriching, and if I
were to go back there, I would hope to include

(43:48):
more elements of that. And he spoke about our relationship
to our mothers, like how our lives began in womb,
and something about it really really touched me. And you know,
it's not just about being a mother or having a mother,
it's about all of that. It's about life where it starts.
And it of course made me think about my own

(44:09):
relationship with my mother and then my own relationship with
my daughter. And it was just an incredible ceremony where
we thought about what we wanted to release, wrote it
down on paper, burned it and hit the gong, and truly,
what I wrote down on that paper it's gone. It's
burned to flames. And it was so cool to be
part of that ceremony. And it was the one kind

(44:31):
of question mark I had on my plan here because
this was Christina's cousin who she trusted. But it wasn't
something that I got to try. Everything else I specifically
tried out myself that they would experience, and this was
kind of the one thing that I had an asterisk gugs.
I didn't know JJ, but I'm so glad I trusted
Christina because I think for many of us, it was

(44:51):
a very eye opening experience. It was grounding, and it
came at the absolute perfect time. And then it was
time for somatic breath work with Druva. I got to
experience sematic breathwork when I visited with Dreuva, and it
was a interesting experience. So I knew how to prep
people for it and kind of what to expect out

(45:12):
of it. But this time I had a completely different
experience than my first time. So I just wanted to
share what somatic breathwork is and if you ever have
the opportunity to try it, something that I very much recommend.
So somatic work in general is a bottom up approach
rather than top down. It's something that I think my

(45:32):
therapist doesn't advertise herself as that, but looking back over
the years of how she's worked with me to use
my body as a better way to get in touch
with my brain, I realized that has been hugely helpful.
I've said it before on a podcast, but what always
like stood out to me when working with her is,
you know, she'd say, how does that make you feel?
And I'd say okay, and she'd be like, really, because
I see your leg bouncing up and down. And then

(45:53):
I noticed my leg bouncing up and down, and before
I knew it, I was in tears, realizing that I
was not fine or whatever we were talking talking about
had struck a chord that my body had recognized, but
my mind was denying. And so I think that was
kind of my first taste of somatics. And yoga is
such a somatic experience and has allowed me to get
in touch with my body and its wisdom. To studying

(46:15):
somatic yoga right now is also something that I'm very
passionate about. But somatic breath work. According to this beautiful
packet that Druva made for us, it is described as
the breath is the quickest way to access the nervous system.
In circumstances of high stress, the nervous system moves toward
hyper or hypoactivation states. It gets intensely activated. This is

(46:39):
where the fight flight response begins and the trauma process
gets shut down. The activation state is actually a gateway
to completing the trauma cycle. By utilizing a deep circular
breathing pattern, we activate the sympathetic side of the nervous
system and bring it towards that hyper hypoactivation state. Combining
this with neurolinguistic prompts around emotional material, the mind and

(47:02):
body are activated to release blocked energy. At various times,
therapeutic touch may be used to help release physical holding
of energy in the body. So basically we are using
breathwork to activate ourselves and then come down for it.
So it's a very intense process, and Duva does a
great job of first of all asking people if they're

(47:23):
comfortable with touch or not, and anybody who's not, you know,
wouldn't be touched by him, and also describing the range
of experiences that can happen during somatic breathwork. During my
first one, I didn't experience what I experienced the second time,
but he had mentioned that your hands might kind of
clench up, your heart might be racing, you might like

(47:44):
you're going through the trauma kind of in your mind's eye,
and there's very physical responses that may occur. That being said,
my first time, I didn't experience anything too intense that
frightened me. But during this time I did actually get
nervous and had to ask for help. But I started
to notice tingling in my hands, and I can't tell

(48:06):
you what my mind was circling on in that moment,
but I was somewhere. I entered a new dimension during it,
and my hand started tingling and tingling and tingling, and
then it started to work me up into a nervous state.
So I sat up, and we're encouraged to move during this,
so I did and just started like shaking my wrists out.
And I remember one distinct thought that I had, which was,

(48:27):
I've now worked through in therapy, and I'm not going
to share the working through part of it, but I
just wanted to share something really weird that happened to
me during that, which was I could not remember what
my daughter looked like. It's like the weirdest thing. This
is the face that I have looked at every day
for the past almost two years, the face I should

(48:48):
know best, and in my mind, I couldn't picture it
during the breath work. That's what was happening for me.
And with that was coming like shame, confusion, why is
this happening? What does that mean? You know all of that,
And then the panic was starting to come in because
my hands were doing this crazy tingling, which I didn't
experience the first time, and I just started moving my body.
I asked Drovea for a little bit of help, you know,

(49:09):
kind of let me know I was okay, and I
was working through it. And then the song changed and
the prompt changed, and the tingling was released, and my
breath just started to change and I was like free.
So there was this like intense rise and wave, and

(49:31):
then there was release on the other side. And while
everybody lied down and continued to go through their breathwork,
one woman was screaming, was crying into a pillow. Other
people were curled up into a ball. I just got
up and I started dancing. The music was moving through me.
It wasn't a choice to move. It was just like
my body was moving, and I was dancing around the room,
over people. And in that moment, I looked around and

(49:55):
I kid you, not our group, we had entered a
different dimension, Like we were no longer here on planet Earth.
We had moved, or we were on Earth, but we
were somewhere else. And I had never seen anything as
beautiful or significant in my entire life. One of the
women was pregnant on the retreat, so she did not
do it. That is caution. It's one of those things

(50:16):
you have to ask your doctor. And she said she
watched us for just a moment, like she came into
the room and she was like, whoa, they are on something.
And the coolest part is that we weren't on anything.
We were just doing breath work. And to me, somebody
who's very cautious of all things drugs and a lot
of you know, the trends right now are about taking

(50:36):
substances natural or not to you know, get in touch
with your truth. I think it's so cool that we
can get there, albeit maybe not in the same way
or maybe not as deep. I'm not sure because I've
never done anything like that, but like, breath is incredibly
powerful and as quick as we come in, we can
come out, which for somebody like me who likes to

(50:57):
know like I can come out of this at any moment,
feels like I'm much for option to me than you know,
assisted type of thing. But it was just wild for
me personally to go through an entire experience in my body,
my nervous system, and then the other side experienced such freedom,
looseness in my joined, spaciousness in my body, enjoy moving

(51:20):
through me like it was just wild. Another woman had
shared that she felt like she was in labor, like
these were experiences just because we altered our nervous system
to work through trauma, you know, and each of us
had our own uniquely different experience. But I could not

(51:40):
believe how I felt when, first of all, the song
changed and it was this song that I'm absolutely obsessed with,
and I going into the retreat was playing over and
over again goes kuda kudakuda, Okay, anyway you get it,
And the second it came on, it felt like my invitation, like, yes,
I am free, I am here. This song sees me,
this moment sees me. I am exactly where I need

(52:01):
to be, doing what I need to be doing. And
I looked around the room to see if anybody needed,
you know, support, and I provided that for those who needed,
and I felt so in my element. I can't say
enough amazing things about the Breath work is just incredible,
and Druva, who leads it, is also incredible. I'd love
to actually have him on the podcast too, because his

(52:22):
work is just absolutely beautiful and his story himself is
also really really cool. And then we headed back to
our house where we again continued to just like enter
this new dimension. We had released so much and we
were just overflowing with joy. I can't remember if it
was the second night or the third night where we

(52:43):
were Tracy was leading yoga. I think it was that
night after the breath work and everybody was just cracking up,
and you know, yoga is often so serious, and I
remember Tracy looked at me and she's like, should I continue?
And I'm like, yeah, like people are happy to be here,
moving but like laughing at the same time, being silly
but like respectful, you know, And it was just one

(53:04):
of those moments where I was like, wow, like we
all were coming to realize that healing and this work
often described on Instagram and elsewhere like is so heavy
and people get stuck with healing forever, but there is
so much joy to it. There's so much joy in
emotional processing and connection. And the fact that our retreat

(53:28):
leaned heavily into that really reignites my love of health
and wellness and these practices that are easily forgotten like
what they bring out of us. And Tracy, who I
brought it really should have been her retreat because she
is just such a beautiful person, and she led majority
of the yoga and chanting and educated us on so

(53:51):
many different topics. But she is truly the joy. She
brought so much joy into all of our lives by
being herself and also being kind of like a motherly figure.
She is older than I am, and the retreat ages
range anywhere from like forty plus to probably like mid twenties,
but regardless, like I think someone could be a motherly
figure regardless of their age, and with her she just

(54:14):
brings infinite wisdom about life and her experiences. And I
would be amiss to not include how important Tracy is
to me and on this retreat, how she showed up
as a leader and helped us get to the places
that created spaciousness in our body, which is the theme
of this metreat. And Tracy's always talking about spaciousness and

(54:36):
it's such an important word but also just such a
light And it's also kind of funny because you know,
I brought Tracy and obviously their yoga instructors in Antigua, Guatemala,
but I wanted to bring people that have been deeply
healing to me and who I think are the real
deal and that I know would be magical. And so
when I brought Tracy, I remember telling them I She's like, wow,

(54:58):
you're a real fan girl, and I was like, I
am like, this woman is magic. She has the voice
of an angel. She plays the harmonium and her voice
just radiates within you. It's just like magic. She is
truly magic. And as soon as people experienced Tracy, they
were like, Okay, I see why you brought Tracy. I
also want to share. Tracy teaches at Yogashandi nine thirty

(55:21):
am Eastern Time. I believe online and it's only fifteen
or sixteen dollars with tax. So if anybody's like, what
is the magic that you're speaking of, go check her out.
She's absolutely incredible. On that third day, we did have

(55:43):
a hike planned and it was something that prior to
the metreat. I asked people what they were excited about,
and a lot of people were like, the hike, the hike,
the hike, And all of a sudden, the hike didn't
seem like that's what everybody wanted to do. Obviously, the
plants had changed a lot in the last few days,
so we had spent a lot more time in the car,
not a lot of time in the houses, and when

(56:05):
I asked everybody if they wanted to still do the hike,
majority pretty much everybody actually said no or they didn't care.
And I was like, really, really, And I was so
attached to the hike because going in I knew that
people were so excited about it that I was not
listening to the current needs. So we ended up canceling
the hike. And again it was one of those moments
where I was like, you know, I had envisioned this

(56:28):
playing out a certain way and it wasn't being that.
And I was so eager to please what the participants
said that they wanted that I wasn't listening to their
current needs. And once I leaned in and said okay,
we're going to cancel it and reshifted activities again, you know,
it all made so much sense. We were able to
fill in the gaps with things that we didn't get

(56:49):
to do because of the plan change and volcanic eruption,
of course, and it worked out just like beautiful. It
was just flowing rather than the structure that I had
planned in this fifty page document, and it's just like amazing,
just another continual practice in non attachment and letting the
vision become what it needs to be versus what I

(57:09):
had planned and set in stone I wanted to share.
I think one of the things that I did that
worked that I didn't expect to have this type of effect.
Leading up to this retreat, we had a WhatsApp group
and we had one zoom call where everybody got on
actually and introduced themselves. And the zoom call, i'd say,

(57:32):
was nice because you got to see people's faces. But
the WhatsApp group ended up really creating a baseline of
energy and a tone. It set the tone, That's what
it did. It set the tone for walking into this.
I think that you know, there was obviously nervousness and
we talked about that in the WhatsApp group leading up

(57:52):
to this, like meeting people and the whole thing, but
the WhatsApp group really colored the conversation. And it was
interesting because I definitely had ideas of people based on
how they participated in the WhatsApp group or how they
didn't participate. You know, some people are natural talkers or texters,
some people are not, and so I had specific ideas
of how each person would be based on that, and

(58:14):
not only were they so different, by the way, than
their texting tone that I had interpreted. But everybody said
that they felt a level of comfort walking into this
because of it. And it was cool because conversation was
always flowing, but not everybody was always part of it,
and none of it again was like forced. It was
just flowing conversation. And seeing the conversation continuing to evolve

(58:39):
after the Me Treat is even more incredible because I
think it really speaks to the connections and cultivations that
we created with each other. I truly expected the Me
Treat to be more me focused than we, but it
ended up being more we focused than me. The friendship
was a critical aspect here, and for me, the biggest

(58:59):
take away of what I got out of it. I
didn't expect to fall in love with twenty plus people,
but I truly fell in love with twenty plus people.
And like I said, you know, the purpose of the
metreat was to be mirrors, but I didn't expect it
to be as glaringly obvious of a mirror for each person.

(59:20):
I shared that story earlier about one girl giving the
other one dating advice and being very straight up about it,
and witnessing in that moment I really realized how important
the we is in healing, and a lot of times
processing is a solo adventure and that makes it lonely,
and it also, like I said, puts us in this
dark hole. So the collective experience of this work was

(59:45):
absolutely necessity and I think what really lended hand to
it being such a joyful, fun experience. I also loved
that there was like not a lot of like disclaimers
or politeness, like just throughout the conversations people weren't. The
conversations were stripped down to what needed to be said,

(01:00:05):
and that was awesome without having to say don't tell anybody,
or this might be weird, but just women showing up
as their badass selves. I have never seen anything more
beautiful sexy in my life. It made me so proud
to be a woman being with these women, like they
inspire me so much. And it's funny because I led

(01:00:29):
this you know me treat and they all came to me,
found me by way of social media, and so I
was expecting. I wasn't expecting to get the return so hard,
but each of them has actually changed my life. Like
I think differently about the past, I think differently about
the present, I think differently about the future, my own capabilities,
how I show up on social media is changing as

(01:00:50):
we speak. And it was just complete surprise how much
they would inspire me. They're such badass women. You were
all all of you listening it because I didn't get
to meet you like you are such badass women. It's
incredible who you are. Thank you for being part of
my community. I also want to say that on day three,
I looked around and I saw everybody's faces, and every

(01:01:15):
face that looked back at me looked different physically than
the face that I saw reflected back at me just
two days earlier. People's skin were glowing, their eyes were whiter,
the whites of their eyes were wider. Visually, there was
just a radiance pouring out of everybody. And recently in

(01:01:35):
wellness online, I've been seeing that people are saying that
when they started meditating and doing the inner work, they
started appearing more visually beautiful, And that sounded like a
bunch of bs to me, Like, how can meditating actually
cause you to look different on the outset? I can
definitely understand the internal benefits. You feel more relaxed, you
have deeper clarity, but a physical appearance that looks different.

(01:01:57):
That is a hard sell even for me. But honestly,
when I looked around, I don't know if it was
that the faces were more relaxed or there was just
joy pouring out of them, but something changed and personally
for me. Actually, after returning from the trip, I had
two cystic pimples that I got during Solly's last hospitalization

(01:02:20):
that were obviously from stress, and they were with me
for a month leading up until this retreat, and when
I got home they finally released and cleared up. I
had a sty also from the hospitalization that I went
to a doctor for. He was like, nothing I can do,
just you know, waited out, nothing was moving. Suddenly the
sty that I was nursing completely gone. The body does

(01:02:44):
hold on to stresses, and when we release it, when
there's that internal shift, there's also a physical change. And
that's not why we do it, but it's worth kind
of bringing up because it's so fascinating how connected our
insides are to our outsides. Outsides are to our insides
when it comes to dealing with things like acne writers thighs.

(01:03:05):
I went to doctors when I believe that my root
causes were emotional to some degree, and not to say
that there isn't a time and place to treat these
things with doctors and medications, but I think you get
my point that truly, how we look on the outside
is a oftentimes a reflection of what we're holding onto
on the inside. Okay, I'm going to finish off with

(01:03:28):
the lessons that I learned. First lesson is that many,
if not all, great things begin with destruction. Ooof now
one hurts because you have to think about what is
being destroyed in your life right now. And it's possible
you don't see what's blooming because of it or being
birth because of it. But if I think back about
everything in my life, my relationship with my husband, huge

(01:03:51):
breakthroughs in myself, this retreat, like things plants, had to
be destructed in order for the birth of this to
come to be. And I just give you that to
kind of munch on in your own brain and think about,
because if you're in that phase of everything sucks right
now and everything is not going to plan and everything
is destroyed, just know that something greater is coming for you.

(01:04:13):
And I don't say that to be toxically positive. I
say it because I truly do believe that the universe
protects us, but there is constant destruction that goes along
with creation and new things, so stay alert. Next lesson
is that people are more than posted What does this mean?
So leading up to this metreat, for the last couple

(01:04:36):
of months, I've had every person's name, first name, and
last initial posted in front of me on the wall
behind my desk, with where they're from, what they do,
and maybe one other fact about them that I pulled
from their application because I was trying to get to
know them and really start to envision how this metreat
would be. Putting separated people in house with their roommates

(01:04:57):
and all of that, and you know, I expected them
to be just kind of their post its. But what
I found was that, oh my gosh, all of us
are more than our post its. We're more than our bios,
We're more than our LinkedIn pages. The depths of these
women that came are indescribable. I think that's actually been
one of the hardest parts of coming back and sharing

(01:05:18):
it with, you know, people that asked me how it was,
or Evan asking me the details. You know, I cannot
describe these women, each of them, so complex, multi dimensional
and more than a post it. Think about trying to
describe your best friend, right like, to the world, they
might have brown hair, they might do X for work,
they might you know, be really good at something that

(01:05:40):
makes them stand out. My best friend Julie, she's a gymnast,
she has dry humor, she's got brown hair, two kids,
right Like, That's how i'd describe her to you. But
underneath that iceberg, like actually in the ocean, is the
parts of Julie that's my friend since kindergarten. Like, there's
so much more to Julie than I could really ever
explain to somebody. And the same thing with each of

(01:06:03):
these women. You know, they yes, they had their age,
where they're from, what they do, if they're a mother,
if they're in a relationship, whatever that stuff about them.
But underneath, oh my gosh, is so much more. They're indescribable,
each person indescribable because they are complex, because we as
women are complex. We handle so much, we do so much,

(01:06:25):
we are so much. And I think that this is
a lesson of life. Right Like, we walk by people,
and we meet people, and we quickly categorize them into
one way or another. But beneath that is so much more.
People are so much more than we think. And I
want to thank my post it people for being so

(01:06:46):
much more and allowing me to see the parts of
you and sharing it with me. And it is because
of those depths of you that were exposed during the
metreat that I am truly different myself and looking out
into the world differently and hopefully interacting with it in
a much more understanding, compassionate way. Next lesson is that
we are grieving all of the time. We have losses

(01:07:09):
a million times a day, whether it's finishing a meal
or saying goodbye to a friend. There are little closing
moments throughout our day. But because we breeze through it,
we're on autopilot. We're not mindful, you know all of that.
We don't recognize that these are opportunities to say goodbye
and practice grieving on a small way. We will never

(01:07:30):
have this moment back right, I'm grieving this moment. I
will be grieving this moment in a moment because it
is gone. It's past. This moment is gone. And if
we practice grieving at the end of each day, at
the end of each hour, at the end of each
meal at the end of each interaction, at the end
of each time we get gas like. I know it
sounds silly, but if we are able to see that

(01:07:52):
loss is happening all the time, I do think, and
goodbyes are happening all the time. I think it allows
us to handle the big grievances. Maybe it had better
to recognize, Hey, I've done this before. This is part
of life. All beginnings have endings. But we act a
little superhuman about everything and disconnected. And it's that connection
that I think allows us to be more humble and

(01:08:13):
be more fulfilled by our interactions and also understand what
we're going through a little bit better. On that same
topic of lessons is the practice of non attachment. It's
really everywhere you know that is a Buddhist I believe, yes,
it's a Buddhist concept of non attachment, and it's in
Pima Children's book When Things Fall Apart, one of my

(01:08:35):
favorite books that I read over and over again if
you want to learn more about non attachment. But it
is about engaging in the world without fixation, without trying
to hold on too tightly, without trying to achieve specific outcomes.
Because it's our attachment to things that create so much
stress and suffering. And it's a constant practice of non

(01:08:57):
attachment because we do love things attached to things, that's
what we as humans do, and it's a beautiful thing.
But we must always also, I believe, be practicing non
attachment because things don't go wrong. We don't actually have
control over things, even if we have perceived control over things.
So I got a lot of practice in non attachment
in this retreat, and I think it was a good

(01:09:18):
reminder of the control that I have and how big
or really small I am in this giant world that
has a much bigger mind of its own. Another lesson
was about our visions. We're always envisioning things, whether it's
our future birthday party or a girl's night we're going
tonight or anything. Right, Like, we were always envisioning what's

(01:09:42):
coming next in our mind, or at least I do.
Maybe that maybe I'm a visual person if you don't
let me know, But we're always envisioning things to be.
And the truth is like our visions never become reality.
Right my wedding, right, I spent months and months envisioning
what it would be like, and then it ended up
having a life of its own that I couldn't have
possibly envisioned, no matter how much time and I went

(01:10:04):
into planning it. And you know, being in the space
and picking out the flowers, actually living in it is
a completely different animal a birthday part, you know anything,
it never actually looks like what we're going to be,
and we don't think about that when we are thinking
about the future and situations that we will be. But
for me, I think it's really important that I walk
away expecting deviation from a plan. Even if you plan

(01:10:27):
something and you spend hours and hours into it, or
it's just like what taking out the garbage is going
to look like the next morning, In reality, it's going
to always look different. So I think that it's important
that we just realize that because with that comes just
a different expectation of outcomes a different way of living.
If we say I'm still going to put all of

(01:10:49):
this into it, but I know it's going to look
different into reality, or Okay, I'm going to envision myself
going out with friends tonight, but I know that it's
going to look differently. I think it just allows us
to have a better skoll on understanding of reality and
helps us anticipate changes and deviations from the plan and
recognize that our mind might feel very powerful, like it

(01:11:11):
knows what's going on, but the universe is always shifting
and making turns that we can't actually prepare for. A
huge lesson for me is that I have an army
when I looked out into these twenty women who support
me and believe in me, and I don't know. I
know that this is, you know, more of my own
take home lesson here than something explainable. But when you

(01:11:34):
sit here at a desk and I put out this podcast,
you know I don't know who's listening. Yes, I know
there's a certain number and locations and everything, but with
a podcast and social media, there isn't a lot of
back and forth. I made the mistake, I think, a
couple of years ago, of putting my guard up on
social media. As you all know, it can be a
really demonic place where people say awful things, and although

(01:11:57):
the majority are kind messages and supportive people, one or
two evil comments have thrown me off to the point
where I put myself in a protective bubble. And with
that I armored up a little bit, and as I
said in my journal once recently that I forgot that
I said, armor is not usually protection, but instead just
serves as a barrier to connect with people. And over

(01:12:20):
the years, I as you know, life has been mostly
online for me and not a lot of in person
events and everything like that, I oftentimes feel like I'm
not making an impact or I don't have a reason
to do it. I think that podcasting is absolutely amazing,
but it is really a huge challenge for me to
feel connected because, like I said, it goes out into

(01:12:40):
the universe. You listen whenever you can. I don't normally
hear back from a majority of listeners, and it feels
like one way, you know, And I guess I do
crave that fulfillment of seeing faces and hearing you know
what works for you and what resonated or what doesn't.
And again, just walking out into the room full of
twenty people, knowing I have an of at least twenty

(01:13:00):
people that believe in me and are there truly there
to support me, or are inspired by me or something
just gives me fuel to step back out there again.
And I really really really appreciate that. On that note,
another thing that I learned is that I'm probably more
inspired by my quote unquote followers listeners than I realized.

(01:13:21):
I walked away from this retreat a different person. Two
of the women are incredibly handy. One makes our own furniture,
the other one grew up on a farm, and all
of a sudden, I'm feeling like, oh, maybe I can
lean into some of those skills, Maybe I can do
some of that. Another woman just going through a relationship
breakup very publicly, actually, who is handling it in such

(01:13:43):
a beautiful way that I've never seen done before. And
all of them have inspired me and awoken me to
my potential both within my heart and what I can
do with my actual hands. And that's something that I
think I also haven't leaned in as heavily too with
this podcast. I always say I learned something from everybody
that I have on and it's kind of the same

(01:14:05):
thing with the Meat treat. I have taken pieces of
each of them and integrated them into me. And it's
taken two weeks to even get on here and speak
about it, and I hope I made some sort of sense.
But truly, what they have given me parts of them
is so magical and sacred that it's very hard to
put into words. But my forever thinks in gratitude is

(01:14:28):
within them trusting me for this experience, and my body
and soul holds on so tightly to everything that each
person provided to make this experience. I did not create
the me treat in Guatemala. They created it. We cultivated
it together. And what blossomed is not because of any
of the work that I did, but because of how

(01:14:50):
they showed up as their authentic selves. The question is
are they their authentic selves outside of the meat treat Cocoon.
I would argue that going in maybe not, but going
out definitely A layer was stripped and there's no going
back from where we came from. And then the last

(01:15:10):
lesson that I learned, which is a little pat on
the back for self, it is that I'm a boss.
I lean away from that title or anything hierarchical related,
especially because the truth is I don't run without my team, Amaya.
You know that's the truth, And so that feels weird
to be a boss of anybody. But when I witness
what I created from my own needs, that makes me

(01:15:33):
feel a little bit like a boss. And when I
think to how I acted under a pressure and potentially
dangerous situation. I acted cool, concollected, and like a boss,
and maybe boss is the wrong word. I am a mother.
What I came out of my own metreat with was
I am a mother. And this was almost a year ago.
Now I am a mother, and what I need to
do is activate my mothering skills elsewhere of just mothering

(01:15:56):
my daughter. And that is what I hope to bring
forth in the future on this podcast, on social media,
in my home, and anywhere that I go. I'm not
really a boss. That was kind of just a funny
thing to say. But I am a mother. I know
how to nurture. I know how to get us to safety.
I know how to create environments where people can be
their authentic selves, and that is what I'm most passionate

(01:16:17):
about doing. Creating. That is what healing means to me.
So thank you for listening to this. And I know
that the big question is when's the next me treat?
And like I said, I'm still digesting this. I'm not
a machine. I wish I could be and operate like that,
but for right now, I'm still digesting what has occurred
and really letting that sink into my heart and find

(01:16:38):
a place to settle and live within me forever. This
is the recap of the Me treat twenty twenty three
in Guatemala. I'll see all of you back here next
week over at the Truthiest Life. Have a great week, everyone,