I'm hoooommeee from Costa Rica and I have a lot to unpack. Phew. What. 👏 A. 👏 Trip. 👏

Allow me to share with you what transformations occurred for me as well as some of the amazing places I visited there. My intention is that you learn something from my experience and add a couple of cool places to your travel bucket list!

I attended a wellness retreat at the beautiful and serene Cala Luna Resort in Tamarindo, Guanacaste, Costa Rica with the incredible married duo Alex and Amy White, owners of Peak Human Performance.

If you’ve never been to Costa Rica, it’s a beautiful place to visit. 🌴 It has 5% of the world’s biodiversity - more than Europe and the United States combined. And 25% of its land is protected National Parks. Immediately when you arrive, it is easy to get drawn into the energetic magic of the land.

One very special place we visited was La Senda, a local organic farm that also houses the world’s largest labyrinth. Words will not be able to describe the energy I felt walking this path. What I will say is that we spent two hours walking the labyrinth and it felt like thirty minutes to me. Some retreat goers blacked out entirely during the walk. I got to connect so deeply to parts of myself, Source and Gaia. The land speaks to you here. And what I experienced was Oneness.

Aside from the location being absolutely perfect to connect with the earth and the ocean, to eat fresh, vibrant food, and disconnect from the tech that tends to rule our lives, the Peak Retreat was a curated safe container to explore our humanity, create a vision, and lay out in a unique step-by-step process how to turn our vision into reality.

We moved our bodies daily, participated in workshops, explored, gathered around the table to connect over meals, reflected, cried, laughed, shared our vulnerabilities and released fears and old ways of being that held us back. We will all share a special bond because of the work we got to do together. How often in life do you get the privilege and honor to really See someone - their true heart? It is a gift I will cherish forever.

Here are some of the lessons I learned while doing my deep work on this transformational journey.

Most of us live our life unconsciously. Trapped by our own fears, caught up in the doing that is our daily life - flitting around from thing to thing completely distracted and stressed out, with negative self talk ruling our inner dialogue.

My biggest lesson on this journey… keep your head up, your eyes and your heart open.

Once you become aware that you have been living unconsciously, you have a choice. Wake up or stay asleep. When you choose to be ALIVE, you are choosing to experience life to its fullest.

It's a process that includes being with your food and present with the company around you to giving up numbing behavior - scrolling, excessive TV, overconsuming food or drink for example and instead choosing to learn new tools and strategies to handle your fear, including acceptance and discernment.

All of it is a gift. Your pain. Your challenges. Your fear. Your feelings. Your body. Your life experiences. And when you choose to see it as such, you remind yourself that your life has purpose. Everything you’ve been through up to this point has been to get you somewhere.

Where is that somewhere?

When you live with your head up, eyes open, heart open - the path starts to appear in front of you. Honestly, it was there all along, but now you are finally open to seeing it.

Being awake is simply answering the call to remember your wholeness. It's embracing presence. And knowing you are worthy and you are loved.

A core fear of mine that I explored was this belief that I’m not good enough. That I have to grow and change and be someone else to be worthy of the life I want to live. What is your core fear?

And what can you do to release it?

The powerful mantra that allowed me to let go of this old story was

‘I let go of the misunderstanding that I need to be any different than I already am.’

To me, this means that there is nothing missing. I’m already whole.

And by choosing to keep my eyes open to this truth, what becomes possible for me is full acceptance of myself - I get to embrace and truly love myself, unconditionally. Because I can do this for myself, I then know how to give unconditional love to others.

The final lesson I will leave here is exploring three parts of self. Innocent child, Body & Feeling, Divine.

What I contemplated on was that within us there is a childlike part- this part doesn't hold back. It just says the first thing on its mind.

Maybe it just wants to play, maybe it judges and pouts, and whines. It includes the unconscious behaviors and patterns we developed, the role we adopted to get by in a scary, unpredictable, and challenging world in which our needs were not met in some way.

The best thing about this part is it’s all innocent.

You would never assume your three-year-old is acting out because they are maliciously trying to get at you, right? So why do we punish ourselves for our childlike thoughts, feelings, and behavior? It’s truly all innocent. And when you see that, you can let go of the judgment and have compassion for it.

You can remember how to play and experience true freedom just like our infant selves were free before any conditioning or programming.

The body is the vessel our spirit chose to reside in. It has a shape. It has physical needs. It feels things. And as a human, we also have inner experiences called emotion.

We get to experience this full spectrum of feelings that is so unique to our species. What a gift.

When you choose to honor your body as a vessel, you treat it with kindness, you meet its physical needs without abusing it and you allow feelings, whatever they may be.

It becomes necessary and a joy to take care of yourself when you fall in love with your body and acknowledge you have feelings and needs.

Lastly, Divine. It is my belief that our Essence is made of a piece of the Divine. Therefore God is within us and we are one with Source. Our spirit is eternal.

Connecting to your Divine Essence is to remember your wholeness and eternalness. It is beyond your personality which is just the conditioned egoic self that was built for your safety and survival. It is always available and present, with or without your acknowledgement. And this part of you is full of wisdom and unconditional love.

If these lessons touched your heart in any way, know that you don’t need a tropical getaway to do this work.

Though it certainly is such a blessing to make space for immersive experiences like retreats and workshops to grow into the highest expression of yourself.

There is always a way to do the work. Simply start by making the decision to start.

Set the intention to wake up to your wholeness and to live a more authentic life. Your path to healing and discovery will appear. Then you just take a step. Then another step. And another. And follow the plan all the way through.

A woman on the retreat with me shared something else that I will never forget. She reminded me that when you take from the land, it is important to give back to it. An energetic exchange of sorts to thank the land for welcoming you to it, so that we do not just take from the land but treat it with respect.

In full gratitude and to honor the Costa Rican lands, its people, Alex & Amy, and the wonderful people I got to experience this incredible journey with, I’d like to offer you, reader, a free meditation with the words I channeled during a powerful breath-work session on this trip. I hope that by listening to it, you experience your wholeness and open your heart to feel ALIVE.

Enjoy and PURA VIDA! 💚