Carrie (00:00)
This is the Bigger Life Adventures podcast where we remind you that yoga is now in every moment. We’re having conversations about yoga, travel, entrepreneurship, relationships, and who knows what else we’re gonna get into. Hey, my name’s Zach and this is Carrie and we host yoga and adventure retreats all over the world. And we’re also part of a global community of people who are healing and also those who are healed.
and we’d just like to talk about what’s going on in our lives and the world around us. Yeah, we’ve been hosting our own yoga retreats. I’m the yoga teacher, Zach is the chef for the past like over seven years, going on eight now. And so we’re assuming with this first episode of coming back that most of you already know us, but hello to any new people out there. Welcome. We hope you’re down to get to know us a little bit with this.
conversation we’re going to have today. Yeah, think what’s special about us is that a lot of people do retreats as like a part-time job or just because like a hobby, but we’ve actually been doing this for a long time. We’ve hosted probably around 100 retreats at this point. And yeah, it’s just, it’s our passion and you know, we don’t, we don’t sacrifice our own values in order to make money or at least we hope not. That’s like really important to me.
⁓ That’s why we always do plant-based food and carriage yoga is very… How would you describe it? Trauma-informed, I feel like was the word you’re going for. Yeah, plant-based food, trauma-informed yoga, alcohol-free. We’re both in long-term recovery and I’m sure we’ll get into that a little bit later on some other episodes about what that looks like and how it’s evolved, but…
I’m coming up on 10 years sober from alcohol and Zach is coming up on seven like tomorrow. So yeah, congratulations. Thank you. We’re gonna have cake. Yes. I’m always down for cake. But yeah, we’re just getting into the new year here. 2026. Took you a minute. Yeah. I mean, we’ve been on retreat, so I pop out of retreat and I’m still in 2025 in my brain.
Well, we’re taking it back anyway. this theme today is just to do kind of a late, but better late than never recap of 2025. And since we’re midway through January already, I’m sure we’ll include what’s already happened. And I think this is actually still good timing because according to lunar calendars, like Chinese astrology and other Asian calendars that use that system, like
The new year doesn’t actually begin until like the full moon in February. So I remember seeing a lot of stuff at the end of 2025 about how it was like the end of the year of the snake and we were going into the year of the fire horse, according to these systems. However, that actually doesn’t happen until next month. So we’re still snaking it up. We’re still shedding. Yeah. I mean, the lunar system makes much more sense.
I think it was changed for capitalism or something at some point. I’m sure it was. Anyway, just one more logistical note before we get into it. We have decided while bringing back this podcast that we’re doing it scrappy. We’re doing it just off the cuff. We’re not going to edit a ton. We’re not going to make it more work than necessary. So thank you all in advance for just being along for the ride and being down to engage in these conversations.
I would like to set a goal. I’m saying it now, so hopefully people will hold me accountable. I would like to just do one a month in 2026. I would just like to be consistent, do one a month, and see how it goes, and see how it feels at the end of the year. Well, if we can just talk and not have to have me sit there for hours editing out our lip smacks and awkward pauses and all the other weird things I say when I’m trying to say something else.
This will be more real. We’re gonna embrace the awkward. Oh Yeah, it’s only way Yeah, so any other awkward people out there were with you, so Let’s get into it we are gonna take it back to like one year ago 2025 and We had a crazy travel year. I actually added it up for for my own fun
And I think we slept in what, like 86 different beds last year? 68. Okay, 68. That’s still a lot. Six, seven. No, don’t even. Don’t do that. I don’t get it. So we slept in about 68 different beds last year. Do you want to start it off by just going back in your mind to like last January and where we were geographically, how we were doing, what was going on?
mentally in our yoga practice and business and all that. Yeah, we’re kind of starting at our, yeah, ended it where we started or started where we ended. They’re the same, I guess. Here in Guatemala, where we are now, last year, it’s kind of hard for me to remember who I was then. I feel like I’m always
evolving and it’s really easy for me to tell you what’s happening right in this moment but you know it’s putting myself into other it’s complicated. However
I last year we were doing some yoga teacher trainings. were traveling a lot like normal. And at the start of the year, we were getting ready to go into our first ⁓ plant medicine retreat that we were hosting. So that was a huge, I think, of up level for us.
I’m just kind of doing something that’s like a little bit controversial, but also something we really believe in. so that really, ⁓ I think that’s how we kind of started the year was with that retreat. it maybe started on like the fourth or something. So right after new years and, that went really well. It was really, I felt really inspired from that. So I think that whole thing started off the year in a very.
inspired place. That’s just kind of what I remember. Yeah, I agree. It was like Zach said, it was our first retreat we hosted in Guatemala and first retreat with plant medicine and we just themed it on plant medicine for recovery. So we did have a lot of people who are in recovery on all different paths. Some coming from like
12 step world, some coming from just like getting sober on their own or being sober curious, some coming from like a background of PTSD or just wanting to like feel better and live better, you know, like who doesn’t want that? So I would say it did go super well. It obviously wasn’t perfect, you know, none of our retreats are. I have no delusions about that. We definitely learned a lot.
We definitely grew a lot. We just really, really appreciate our teachers here in Guatemala who we just finished our second annual plant medicine retreat with. And I would say a majority of the group had like a transformative experience and many of them still talk about it to this day and many of them even came back this year. So that was super cool.
And after that, we were able to stay in Guatemala for another like six weeks or something for quite a while. And we just rented an Airbnb and we lived in San Marcos on Lake Atitlan, which is a very like hippie, yogi hub in the world. And it has all the like pros and cons that come with being that kind of place. And they say that it’s a place that
Karma moves fast and I was really feeling that both last year and this year, like a lot of stuff just happens when we’re there, it seems like. Yeah, a of highs and lows. You’ll experience like your biggest happiness and then you’ll just be like very upset or sad or angry in the same day. And just moving through things, I think.
stuff that would have happened eventually, it’s just, no, this is the size, might as well do it now. Yeah. So yeah, we were just like kind of living there doing a lot of meditating, a lot of yoga, writing a lot, creating a lot of content for our business and just, it was really nice. I think sometimes when you’re in Guatemala, Guatemala can be a kind of a lot or it’s…
You know, can be a little challenging sometimes with just the level of, what am I trying to say? It’s poor. Like lack of hot water. There’s lack of hot water sometimes. You you don’t always get the creature comforts in the perfect way that you’re imagining. Sometimes things take longer, you know, don’t go exactly how you want to go. eventually, you know, some days you can let go of things and everything.
go with the flow and some days you’re like, I’m too American and uptight for this place. Yeah. So like tummy troubles and bumpy dirt roads and inconveniences like that come with being in a developing country anywhere. And it’s, it’s pretty like, it’s something that we’re used to since we have lived in some different countries and we have gotten to travel a lot, but
When you’re there for a long time, there are definitely days where you’re just like over it. But in general, it was just a pretty potent time, I would say. And we were also in communication with, at the time, our business partners, preparing for this like major life change that we had set up, which was to move to Costa Rica in 2025 to run yoga teacher trainings and culinary trainings full time.
with the yoga school that I did my 300 hour training with several, many years ago now. And so we were all excited about that. We were like, yeah, we’re doing like lot of bigger life adventures this year and a lot of these teacher trainings as like assistants in order to prepare to run them, like be in charge of them fully ourselves in the future. And we were getting this contract set up.
with the yoga school, Lakshmi Rising, so a bit of foreshadowing there. So we were all excited about fully moving our lives down to Central America. And so that was kind of like January, February into March, just to speed it up a little bit. That was a lot of what we were working on while we were at the lake in Guatemala was setting up, making business plans, making contracts.
We’re trying to find investors because we’re trying to run the yoga school, but we’re also trying to buy a property so we wouldn’t have to rent. Renting is a lot for groups that size and just the length of time that we’re doing the trainings. So we’re hoping to find someplace to buy and we were taking investors for that. So we were looking for investors and making different deals with different investors trying to…
Talked to different properties. While we were also trying to buy something, we were also looking at several places to rent as like backup or like rent it until we were able to buy it. So there were just so many moving pieces going on and we were just waiting for it to all fall into place in one spot or another. We had many, many options going there. Yeah, it was like big.
entrepreneurship upleveling time. It was, cause this has been our dream for many years is to like have a retreat center in Central America. And we were just feeling that dream getting so, so close and we were just, yeah, pretty excited. we went to Costa Rica, right? Well, I was going to say like, I, right before Costa Rica, my grandfather passed at 97.
And so that was like sad, but also a relief, you know, for him to be at peace. And so I went back to Ohio for the first time in many years for the funeral. And I was the one to fly the farthest to get there, obviously from Guatemala and got to spend time with my brother and his wife and my adorable niece, who now has another sibling. And so that was like really special.
And you know, somewhat sad, but like he was 97, so it was time. So then, yeah, so you went from Guatemala to Ohio to Costa Rica, right? Yeah. And then I went from Guatemala to Costa Rica and met you there. And then, yeah, we were still working on this big yoga plan. So we had a retreat coming up and then we were also we started a business in Costa Rica just to have the framework ready for whenever.
When we did get the investor money, could get the bank account created and get it dropped into the account, which would then sort out all our visas. Yeah, more big moves. During all this time, the main purpose of going there was to do two of our own retreats and then one teacher training with Lakshmi Rising. So we did a lot in Costa Rica last year. Which we did. We did all of those things.
What is your favorite thing about being in Costa Rica after now that we’ve been going there for so many years?
The quality of the nature in Costa Rica is incredible and the quality of the produce is really good as well. I think those two things are my favorite parts. You’re surrounded by just like a lot of prana, a lot of goodness around you.
Also in Costa Rica, know, the people are really easy to get along with and there’s just like some good community there still. It’s like not quite so hard as Guatemala to just be there and just, know, the water is cleaner in Costa Rica and you know, don’t have to, you don’t get sick as much as you do in Guatemala and things like that.
But negatives are, it’s a little bit more expensive. You don’t get as much for your money. The food is not as exciting when you eat out. Yeah, the local cuisine is not as interesting. It’s still really good and I feel really good when I eat it. It doesn’t have the big chili flavors in Mexico or all the flavors mixed in Thailand where you get every flavor in one bite.
It’s more simple, which I still like a lot.
I would say one of my favorite parts of Costa Rica after going there so many times over the last five years is just the connections that we’ve made and getting to be with our friends down there and the people we work with. It just feels like coming home in a way. Yes, it’s work, but I’m always really excited to like…
see Keith who like owns the retreat center and see Selena who’s like our sous chef and a really good friend now and see ⁓ like Mason and Rafi and who do like tree climbing and it’s yeah I I think part of it is aging for me and part of it is just real that there’s a different thrill you get from going back to the same places over and over that is like
satisfying in a different way compared to going to new places? Yeah, I agree. There’s always a little bit of stress going to new places because you’re like, don’t know what my favorite restaurant is. I don’t have friends here. I don’t know where to get the products that I like or I don’t know where the best coconut guy is. Just going back to places, there’s something satisfying about.
You know, I can fly for half a day, land somewhere, just like, you know, run into somebody that knows my name. Yeah. That sounds like the Cheers Bar, where everybody knows your name. Yeah. There’s something, there’s a reason everybody goes to the Cheers Bar. Yeah, true. feel at home there. Yeah. And I just, I have felt like really accepted by Costa Rica. I don’t feel like it’s a foreign land anymore. It’s, it feels more like…
a place that I could spend a lot more time in. Well, especially where we’re hosting our retreats in Monteverde in the cloud forest. It’s such a multicultural community. There’s so many expats. There’s so many like people that live there seasonally who also travel. There’s so many cool scientists like studying the nature and
You know, the standard of living for local people is definitely much higher than it is in like, Guatemala. So you don’t feel that like super big gap between tourists and locals that I do here. And I know that that’s kind of like…
part of travel and part of the global economy that needs to be addressed. But when we’re in Costa Rica, it kind of just feels like everything’s a little bit more equitable. I mean, we try to always, when we’re traveling, give our money to sustainable businesses and locally owned places. But it’s like, you can have a different connection.
with friends in Costa Rica, because most of them have also traveled and they’re also climbers and they’re also doing similar hobbies as us in their free time. Whereas in some other countries, local people are unfortunately just struggling for survival. Yeah, when you’re focused on just getting that net money for tortillas or whatever, a couple pesos, it’s hard to connect. It’s harder to connect.
Yeah. Anyway, so being in the cloud forest, being in Costa Rica is always just like happy for me. And all our guests had a good time. then we left a bunch of stuff there. Yeah. Well, we went right into the teacher training. So we met some really cool people doing our like
second or third round of co-teaching and sous-cheffing. Wasn’t that before or after? No, it was after. It was after? Yeah. Okay, yeah, sorry. Continue. Yeah, so I was like the second yoga teacher trainer and Zach was the sous-chef for three weeks with Lakshmi Rising and that one was not…
quite as like, perfectly aligned feeling as I hoped it would be. Dun dun dun, foreshadowing.
What would you say about that time? Yeah, I mean, I love being in the yoga teacher training bubble. Me too. Because I like retreats because you really get to know people and you get to spend a lot of time with people. But I think sometimes after a week of retreat, there’s still more that are farther we could go. Where on a yoga teacher training, you have three weeks or more to spend with people. And I think you can…
You can push through things and you come upon different challenges. If you don’t like somebody on a four day retreat, you probably aren’t going to fix that. You probably do better just letting them do their thing, you do your thing, you go your separate way. You’re on a 20 day retreat, you probably should figure out your differences because it’s going to be really annoying to see that person at breakfast every single day and think bad thoughts about them every time you see them.
Yeah, and in class for like 10 hours a day. So it’s definitely worth it to, you know, bury the hatchet if you have an issue with somebody and just try to like work through it. So I that’s a cool part about the yoga teacher training. It’s like it’s longer retreat. You can go deeper. Yeah. Personally, I love like working with the group dynamics on retreats and teacher trainings and that’s…
One thing I’ve realized in my teaching career is that I just thrive more teaching groups as opposed to privates, one-on-ones, because I think it’s a fun challenge, making sure everyone is getting something out of it, even though people come from different levels and different backgrounds and might never ever be friends in the outside world. Usually people end up…
being at least friends by the end. Yeah. So anyhow, we ended up putting a deposit down on ⁓ the place where we do retreats, our own retreats. We made a deal with Keith, the owner, to run the yoga teacher trainings there, at least until we were able to find our own property. Yup. And he was very kind about it and ⁓ gave us a really good price. So that was all set there. And then we left some stuff and then headed back.
States. Yeah. Yeah, we left a bunch of stuff at our friend’s house thinking we’re moving here in November. Yay. It’s not goodbye. It’s see you later. We went back to the States. April was like Catalina Island yoga backpacking retreats. Always a good time. I think we did two. Yeah.
Next year we’re doing three. Two is hard. Three is going to be real hard. You agreed to it. So I got to work some way. One of this is a side note, but one of the things one of the themes perhaps we’re coming to once we finish this recap is like learning more about neurodivergence and our brain differences. And one of the things that I’ve had to learn with that is that
Zach isn’t as accurate at predicting his future capacity as I am. I don’t mean that in an insulting way. I think it’s just a brain difference. So yeah, there are quite a few times where he’ll be like, yeah, I can do that in the future. And then it happens and you’re really tired. I just don’t know what I’m going to want to do in the future.
I know what I want to do this second, but I can’t even tell you what I want to do tomorrow. Well, yoga is now. Yoga is now ahorita. Anyway, Catalina got back from Catalina and getting back to our property in Arizona where we used to host retreats. We are not doing that anymore. I’m sure most of you probably remember we got shut down by the county. So we got back there for not too much time, but.
There is a house to be built and there’s always like lots of maintenance work to be done and we still live in our van, which kind of, I’ll admit it, is becoming a struggle for me after many years of living in a small space. And so was kind of like, I don’t know, like I love my friends. I love the nature in Northern Arizona, but.
Last year, I was really just struggling with the feeling of like, this is not where I want to be. Yeah. And I think even, yeah, like now I would say that we don’t live in our van. Yeah. Because like you’re saying, we stayed in six or seven different places last year. And yeah, towards the end of the year, we were able to get more house sitting jobs.
things which is a lot nicer and like it’s just like the van was more meant to be a temporary thing and turned into like a long-term thing. It’s just hard because we can’t really rent a place because we have a property and like we’re gone for you know most of the year and doesn’t so it’s it made sense for a while to just keep sleeping in the van when we’re in Arizona but
Now it’s just getting old and we’re too old for that. It’s just like, I want to have fun in the van when we go travel. Like sleeping in the van when you’re out by a mountain is amazing, but doing it every day and it’s not so nice, especially when it’s cold. Yeah. So I think it was cold. Actually, I definitely remember it was cold. It was like snowing on my birthday in May. Things were not feeling great.
And then we got fired. Yeah. So Lashney Rising, they decided that they were going to go different direction. Just only doing their retreats in Europe. Teacher training. That’s what I mean. And all that was very confusing. you know, I wasn’t necessarily surprised when I heard it.
or even necessarily sad because I had, we had seen some red flags and we were kind of just hoping to maybe ignore them or, know, looking back, seems kind of amateur hour on our part just to look past so many red flags. But the opportunity was really good and we were just, we had the chance to, you know, do a lot of teaching. Yeah, which
You know, it’s like, what else can you ask for? Yeah. Even if it’s not the perfect situation, you still like, wow, I’m cooking beautiful food in beautiful places. And you know, you have like lots of really cool people surrounding you all the time who are, you know, learning something from you. So, yeah. Yeah, I was definitely.
letting the red flag slide and looking on the bright side because I was so excited to live in Costa Rica and our deal had been that Zach and I were gonna run the trainings and run the kitchen and that our the owners, our partners were gonna do all the marketing and sales and I was so stoked to be able to teach yoga and not sell it.
because that is the most stressful, frustrating, and time consuming part of our business for me. also, selling things doesn’t always feel aligned with yoga in general. No, I mean. It’s something obviously we have to do in this day and age. You can’t really give away things for free. However, it doesn’t always feel good, at least for me to continually ask people for money.
That’s like a future episode, I’m sure. Yoga and capitalism. Yeah, it’s complicated. Very complicated. would call that episode, It’s Complicated. Yeah, I know. So anyway, we got Dropped Like a Bad Habit by Lakshmi Rising on my birthday via text message. It was the day before your birthday. Oh, well, it was close. And it was also snowing and I was also sick and…
It was a rough one. Yeah. And then we flew to New York. So we didn’t exactly have lots of processing time. As we usually don’t. That’s like one thing I’m noticing in our lives. People ask me like, are you excited to go to the next thing? And like, well, I wish I could just process the last thing for a couple more days. However, that’s not too much to complain about. Their lives are really good. So yeah.
We were able to just kind of like keep going because we had to get to Portugal. We had more things, more trips planned, more retreat scheduled people showing up. So we have to show up ourselves. It keeps us going. Honestly, it was good for us looking back because if we would have just been home, I would have just been like wallowing in self-pity. Yeah. And because we were headed to Europe, it was just…
It was a distraction, but it was like a helpful distraction. And also, I just want to say that we’re going to be real in these podcasts. And so the realness is that yes, we have like such a dream life. We get to travel so much and like so many people are jealous of that. know. And also the realness is that like it’s really freaking hard. And sometimes I just want to like live in a house and have a steady paycheck and like feel
more secure about my future. So both can be true at the same time. Yeah, there is sometimes when I’m going to an amazing place where I am like, I don’t not sure I want to leave at this moment. I don’t really enjoy the actual traveling part of travel. I like when I get there. Yeah.
Carrie (29:36)
So to close up the kind of lock-smeet-rising saga I mean, I think we could do a whole podcast about that, but I don’t necessarily want to be a shit talker Sometimes I want to be my higher self doesn’t want to My looking back on it now, I think that if we were to go into that role it would have taken us maybe you know Five years to come up to the level
of the teachers of that school. I think that we have an opportunity to more quickly leapfrog our teachers. That sounds very competitive though. Not in a competitive way, but just up-leveling. I want to always be moving forward. I think that every teacher has a maximum of
the amount that they can show you, like there’s a point. I remember my piano teacher when I was like 14 or something, she was like, I don’t think I can teach you anything else, you know everything that I know, man, you need to find a new teacher. And that was very sad. I didn’t wanna leave, because it was fine, it was easy. That’s like very humble and mature of her or him to say that. Yeah, I mean, she wanted me to learn more and she didn’t have anything else to show me, so she cut me loose. Yeah. Which was…
was good and I think that we could have kept in that role of following our teachers for many, many years and probably, maybe never leapfrog them, but in a situation like this, I think we have an opportunity to grow faster. Not in a competitive way, just… You’re right, because there have been so many positive things already to come out of that.
rejection, like the cheesy saying rejection is redirection or protection, you know, like I, I’m seeing that more and more now. Like I was so upset and I was like, I felt so betrayed and just like wounded from that and fearful because all our like financial future was tied up in that. However, right after it happened, when I started sharing with people, the amount of support we received,
was incredible. The amount of people that reached out to us saying like, that’s not actually what we saw as right for you guys. Like you guys are doing like bigger things and like you need to keep doing your own thing instead of being involved with other people. Like just the amount of like affirmation we received from students of both like ours and theirs was really, really incredible. And
Yeah, I’ve finished writing my own teacher training curriculum now. I definitely would not have done that if we were teaching for this other school.
Yeah, I mean, think sometimes, you know, you can be very good by following somebody who’s great, but sometimes you have to go out on your own to actually be great by yourself. Yeah, so it’s also like very indicative of the phase that Zach is still in according to Vedic astrology that I just recently finished, but
It still feels like it’s lingering a bit, which is the Saturn phase. And the Saturn phase is all about things you want getting delayed. So not denied, but delayed. So it was just another delay and we have to choose how to cope with it, which, you know, getting back to the timeline was running off to Europe for the summer. Often delays happen to protect you. Yep.
And we can’t pretend to know why anything happens in this life. It’s all divine. Yeah, seriously. So we try to now, we try to go with the punches. Go with the flow. Follow the breadcrumbs. Any other metaphors are similar. Anyhow, we went to New York for a couple days, saw some friends and then we flew from there to Portugal for our first retreats hosting in Europe.
Yay! European premiere. European premiere. And I’ll tell you what, we loved Portugal. my gosh. Portugal was maybe the highlight of my year. I’m not sure. That’s saying something since you don’t like to pick favorites. I just, I don’t know. There was a few times during the year that I felt very, good. Portugal was just, I loved the food there.
the quality of the ingredients also and it’s like the culture and the history and the people and just the beaches there are maybe the best beaches that exist. The trails like running these awesome cliffside trails along the ocean. my gosh, it was dreamy. And then yeah, just abundant like espresso and gelato and like these pastries. my gosh. Yeah, we had some
We have some friends there, shout out Julie and Andy, who showed us their favorite spots and it was so nice. We always get to our retreat destinations early. I’m never gonna compromise on that. I’m the kind of teacher who, even when I’m teaching a studio class, I need to be there 20 minutes early to feel grounded and prepared. So when it comes to a retreat, I need to be there at least five days early.
Especially in a place that we don’t know as well like this region of Portugal we hadn’t traveled to before so I don’t want to take people to a place that we don’t understand so even if we do like schedule everything and we’re still gonna get there early and like know something before you arrive and feel more like more like a guide more like we can actually tell you something about it that you couldn’t just get on your own just by showing up. Yeah so
two retreats in the Algarve at this cool place called Rural Escapes, which has glamping tents and an outdoor kitchen and some other cool off-grid accommodations. And it reminded everyone so much of Grand Canyon Eco-Retreat, just Portugal style. This place is probably the quietest place that we’ve ever hosted a retreat. Like I didn’t hear… ⁓
a sound outside the property. like a couple of times like a plane would go over and one time I heard a dog barking like miles in the distance. But the peacefulness out there was really amazing. I had a good time. Anyway, we hosted the two retreats and yeah, I cooked some really good food. And yeah, I think those retreats went really well.
We haven’t scheduled them again yet just because it’s kind of hard to go to Europe every year. So we might wait until 2027 to do that again. Especially from the West Coast. Like if we lived on the East Coast, I’m sure we would be going every year. But we have so many destinations now that we’d like to repeat. So Portugal 2027, I think we can make it happen. Yeah, it’s so lovely. And I want to see more of Europe too.
Yeah, which we did after the retreats. We were able to go to Switzerland and France. And then before the retreat, we went to Amsterdam. So we were able to see a couple more things. in France, we went to the Alps, which we hadn’t ever done. Hygiene Alps. that was really amazing just for us to spend a little week after the retreats to kind of decompress and see something new for ourselves, which was not like too hard or too far, know, just something easy and fun.
that we both enjoyed and I had a lot of fun there in France. Yeah, same. Hiking was amazing in the Alps. So now the whole Tour de Mont Blanc and Mont Blanc Summit are definitely on our list, I would say. Yeah, I would like to do the Mont Blanc Summit as a Mountaineering goal. I think it’s something to build up to from the things we’ve done already. Yeah. Maybe after Mount Rainier. Yes.
But in the idea of time we can move along. Europe was great, you know, we learned a lot there. And then getting back to the States was house building season. And I’ll just speak for myself. I’m sure you know this was my lowest time of 2025 for sure. Just like bursting that bubble of denial that we kind of
we’re living in in Europe, we went back home and realized like, we’re not really like sustaining ourselves financially. And we just lost our yoga school partnership and we have a half built house and all of that plus like some relationship issues that maybe we’ll get into a little bit. We’re just like weighing on me so heavy and also like
the stress of the United States is real. just the stress of like trying to figure out health insurance. And I remember like when I first went back to our like Safeway and bought groceries after being in Europe, the cost was just like times five, you know, compared to Portugal, it seemed like. it’s like, yeah, just.
having to like drive so far. have a long commute to get to our friends and to get to where I teach and it’s like so many things even though we live in a beautiful place that I was just definitely letting the stress and negativity pile up. I think when you when you stay in the United States and you don’t leave it’s harder to see the gradual change over time but when you leave for several months at a time and come back every time we come back I noticed a
decrease in quality of living. Yeah. And I mean, part of that is on us because we could give up this dream and just get nine to fives and slightly increase our quality of living in the United States. But then I feel like we wouldn’t be helping people and we wouldn’t be true to ourselves and we wouldn’t be like getting to travel so much obviously. So it’s not
sacrifice I’m willing to make it’s just a thing I’m willing to complain about a lot I guess. I mean sometimes I fantasize about getting a career job and settling down but then after about 10 minutes we’re like you. Yeah. Not gonna happen nothing against you if that’s what you do it’s just not our lives well what we do is we wander around the world.
looking for meaning in things. Yeah.
But anyway, so house building. that was like all on you. And you know, I do have work in the United States. Like I manage a yoga program in the juvenile detention center. So I can go back to that, to teaching a lot of that myself when I’m home and I can always sub other classes and I can always kind of like figure some stuff out to keep myself occupied. I was also ultra training, which was…
a highlight. Honestly, when I’m training for a race, just, my mental health is helped a lot by that. So I was doing a lot of working out, a lot of training and a lot of resenting living in a van. And how was your house building phase? yeah, most of the time it’s pretty fine. I fell through the floor a couple of times and landed on things that hurt. So there was a couple of days I was
had some pains. But I don’t always mind construction. I get really strong, I feel fit. I think I get kind of lonely because I do a lot of the work by myself. I walk towards living, just self-isolation I think is what I do when I get sad or something.
And, or, or if I’m not doing perfectly, when really I do better, think with a lot of community around me and always like ways to be of service. So it’s, it’s kind of hard for me to stay on task, especially with a big project. Like I’ll definitely, I have days when I, you know, or weeks when every, I get a lot done. but then I’ll have days and weeks when it’s just like really hard to get things done.
And that’s still, I’m just still learning about myself and how I work and like, I don’t know if we’ll ever figure it out this time around, but. Next lifetime. Next time will be better. But. Well, do you want to? I don’t know. Share anything else about that? Like this, this whole like neurodivergence thing that kind of like came to a head this summer, this past summer in some ways, like what, what have you learned? Like, what are you like?
opening up to accept, you know? I just, yeah, just like I’ve always kind of known that my brain worked a little different than everyone else’s, but actually trying to put a label on what that actually is and just mostly not that I want to like be medicated or something, but I just want to find, you know, and practice more tools to help me along my path.
I think we do a whole nother podcast on this. This is already getting long. Yeah. this 2025 was the year of actually trying kind of realizing like, you probably do have ADHD. It’s probably pretty bad. And it’s, you’ve probably had it your whole life. And, and, know, it’s like, and you probably could be doing things better than how you’re doing them.
And you know, I’m realizing it’s probably affected the people around me in both positive and negative ways. And yeah, I think that’s more for later. Yeah, we can come back to that. I can make a list. But so yeah, working on the house, I got all the foundation done and the floor in and like the walls and the rafters and the roof covered. And I kind of got up to that point and
We were building up to Burning Man, which is a thing we do most years. Driving up to Nevada to have this big thing in the desert. We have our own camp now of 20-some people, so it’s also a lot. But I really enjoy it because I don’t know. I don’t know why enjoy it, but I do. It’s entertaining for me.
So that’s more my thing and I keep track of that and organize it and plan it and find all the people to come. It’s fun and it’s kind of my thing every year. Carrie likes it too, but she could take it or leave it sometimes. Yeah, and I just appreciate having the roles reversed. Like, I organize and plan and market all the retreats and then
Burning Man, deal is that I just show up and Zach organizes it. Which I really appreciate because that’s my job so it wouldn’t be fun for me if I had to do my job for fun. I don’t know if that makes sense. It’s just a boundary. We’re all allowed to have boundaries. I have boundary that I don’t spend hundreds of hours organizing our Burning Man camp.
but I’ll help when I’m there.
Yeah, and that’s great. That’s great. I’m just like in charge of all these weird people and they come to me all the time asking what to do and I tell them and it’s pretty fun. Yeah, not a cult for life. No, so if you want to come to Burning Man in the alcohol-free camp, let us know and we’ll talk about it. Burning Man was really hard and the weather was terrible and you know…
I still loved it and we’ll go back again next year. But right after, we had to get back after Bernie Manwick. Sometimes we do some traveling, but this time we had to get back because we had our Colorado retreat starting right after around in the San Juan, Silverton, Southwest Colorado. We kind of threw this on the schedule. think after we got fired, we threw it on the last minute because we needed to make some money, do something during our, open times.
And people booked it, which was great. And we also just love going to that part of the country. We kind of schedule our retreats around places we like to go anyway, and we’re not going to like schedule a retreat.
I don’t want to tell anybody their home sucks. Sorry. I just said it. But yeah, we love, we love the San Juans and that retreat is just pretty chill and smaller group and it went really well and we, yeah, we had great people. mean, I think we’ll end up doing another Colorado in 2026, maybe at a different location and like a similar kind of mountain town. Yeah.
the sensor closer to the airport or something. It’s kind of hard to get out there in Silverstone. Well, all of our places are hard to get to. That’s like one of our unofficial criteria is that it has to be hard to get to. They’re all a pilgrimage because the best places are never close to the airport. No, like Edward Abbey said, if you want to see anything, you got to get out the car. Yeah. Walk and then crawl. Walk and then crawl. And then maybe you’ll see something. Maybe. Probably not.
yeah. Anyhow, after that, we came back home, you know, and organized all the Burning Man stuff for next year. We were able to leave a lot up there. But then also, I worked on the house for another month or so ⁓ before heading off to Asia for more trips and adventures. Yeah, so we had booked a couple months for just ourselves in India.
couple weeks. Before, I’m getting there, before our Thailand retreat, it’s like if we’re flying all the way to Asia, I’m always gonna like add a new country, you know? My silly goal that I know doesn’t matter in the grand scheme is to keep my country count ahead of my age. so… We were planning on being in India for months you’re saying? Yeah. Oh yeah, that’s right. Because, um… Oh, now it would have been hard. I know, anytime.
Anytime we’re flying to Asia, I’m like gonna add on a new country. And I felt, we felt like it was long overdue to go to India. So originally we were gonna go for like six weeks. And then because of getting fired, we switched it to a shorter trip to have more time at home to work on the house. And we, yeah, because before we got fired, we were gonna like sell our property and all this stuff. So major life changes. Now we need to build this house to put it on Airbnb and make.
the green stuff. Anyway, so we went to India for a couple weeks before Thailand and one thing that was truly special about that, other than our first time in India, was that after my grandfather’s funeral, his friend and former colleague gave me a journal that he had written from his world religion study tour of India back in 1971.
So I had this journal from my late grandfather and had read through it and we were going to some of the same places. So that was cool.
Yeah, I’m just watching you rub the bottom of your feet with your dirty feet. Sorry. And I’m thinking about India and the dirty feet India and I’m like, that’s gross. Use some hand sanitizer. I think I just have a little trauma. Sorry. Yeah, so like we said, rejection is redirection.
I’m kind of glad that we only were in India for a couple weeks because it was intense. Yeah, I think, you know, sometimes you’re in India and you’re like, I need to leave this place right now. yeah. Way, way, way more so than like Guatemala. Like everyone says India is like the PhD of traveling or it’s like the most intense. And I was would always kind of shrug my shoulders at that. Like, yeah, whatever. Like I’ve lived in East Africa. Like we’ve been to a lot of places, but they’re not lying.
Yeah, those first couple days in Delhi were really challenging. Just getting used to the how everything worked and the the insanity of everything. I’m kind of glad we did Delhi first because it made everything else seem like a little bit easier, better. Yeah, we spent a couple days in Delhi, then we went on over to Varanasi where they have
all of the, it’s the most holy city for Hindus. And just, and then after that we went to Rishikesh, which is the kind of yoga capital of the world. And yeah, the highs and lows in India are incredible. I don’t think I’ve ever learned as much about just humanity in two weeks of my time. Just the amount of.
Like the diversity of the things that you see on a daily basis is just, it’s unbelievable. Like, you really do feel like the spirit comes and guides you around and shows you things. Sometimes somebody, it would be like, okay, you have to come over here and see this temple. And you’re like, why? And then you do, and you feel something. Yeah, it was, it was extreme, everything extreme. You’re on the street and it’s like crowded, dirty, loud, polluted.
everything and you’re like, I can’t handle this anymore. And then you step into a temple and it’s like clean, peaceful, spiritual, calm. It’s just like so, so wild. And yeah, we got to ⁓ sit with some sadhus. We got to take some yoga classes. We got to do some kirtan, do some hiking to sacred sites.
Yeah, watching like bodies get burned and what’s, what I think the highlight is for me is just how excited and willing people there were to show us things. Like if you, if you go to India, you know, I would just say to trust, you know, like obviously keep your wits about you.
I was very glad to be with Zach. I was glad to not be a solo female because there are unfortunately issues with that. But when we were like wandering around the galleys, the alleys in Varanasi or like, you know, wandering outside temples, if someone on the street would just come up to us and start talking to us and ask if he could show us something, we would just say yes. And it was always really cool. Yeah.
I mean, people will ask you for a couple dollars at the end, maybe. Sometimes they did, sometimes they didn’t. But like the worst thing that happens is you give somebody that needs it a couple dollars and they share something about their life. It’s really interesting. Yeah, that’s not even, that’s not worse to me. That’s just like well worth it. Yeah, exactly. Because you’re gonna see and understand way better if you…
are willing to like take those spontaneous guides and just go with it.
yeah, I mean we could talk about India for a while. It definitely changed me. Yeah, I’m a different person because of being there. In a good way. I think that there I was finally able to like let go of the disappointment of the whole partnership falling apart. I think that just being surrounded by this like
spiritual like vibe of people just being happy in the midst of chaos. It like gave me this ability to be more resilient and hopeful despite our chaotic lives.
I’m not even describing it well, but something like that. Yeah, I mean, I’ll be reflecting on it for a while. And, you know, like there’s times when you’re there and you’re like, I hate this country. I hate this place. And people drive me nuts. The smell, they’re terrible, you know. But then there’s times when you’re like, these are the most caring people I’ve ever met. like, like they’re just I feel like they’re
more connected to reality, a way. Just because, like, the veil is thinner, it’s like, death could happen at any moment, like, you know, like a cow walks in front of your car and you’re dead.
Yeah. You know, and you just have, sometimes you’re just driving a million miles an hour, weaving through traffic with some taxi driver and you’re like, with no seatbelt. Okay. A lot of letting go. Let little guy meet home. Yeah. So that set us up really well for our return to Thailand, which we’ve been back to every couple years.
for the last few and just going back to this like very peaceful, easy, friendly Buddhist country was so nice and like so lovely. I just love Thailand so much and I feel like just the Buddhist spirituality there was also very healing for me to get back into.
I think, yeah, the last time we were in Thailand or in Chiang Mai in 2023, I had felt like Chiang Mai was gotten too big, too busy, too many tourists, too dirty. Those are my opinions in 2023. But after going to India and then coming back to Thailand, I felt like Chiang Mai was quiet, clean, peaceful. It is. And I had a really good time in Chiang Mai.
And I don’t know, like my perspective changed and it helped me to enjoy something more. So I just really had fun there this time. And yeah, the retreat went really, really well and smooth. The people were great. And I just, I really, I like showing people around there. I don’t have to cook on the Thailand retreat, so I’m more like a tour guide.
I know a lot about Thailand, the culture, the politics, the history, and so I just kind of talked for a long time about things and it’s fun. We spent not quite a year there, but back in 2017 we were there for eight months or something. That’s where Bigger Life Adventures was born in Thailand. I also loved that retreat. I felt like the group was so good. Everyone was so friendly.
and supportive of each other. They just did a really good job traveling. They’re good travelers and they were very respectful with the culture and the people and like I just was really happy with how it Yeah, I felt like my teaching was pretty on point. feel like, you know, I don’t know if anyone else necessarily can tell the difference probably, but I can tell the difference. Like I can feel it when I’m teaching from a place of like really embodying.
what I’m teaching as opposed to, you know, as a yoga teacher, I have those days where I gotta show up and teach a class even though I’m not feeling it at all. Even though I feel down or anxious or like really bummed about the world. And on the Thailand retreat, was just, I felt like there are times where I feel like
I’m able to channel this wisdom that’s coming from something beyond myself. And those are my favorite times when I’m teaching because it’s not, to my credit, it’s just because I’ve been able to do my own practice and be connected that I’m able to channel that wisdom. And it feels really good, honestly.
So yeah, we’re going back to Thailand, but not until 2027. That one’s already half full. People want to go there, so if you want to get on that one, hop on soon. You don’t have to advertise it too much because it usually fills up. Yeah, Thailand’s amazing. Can’t recommend it enough. Even though it’s popular, it’s popular for many good reasons. Yeah, it’s like it’s really easy to travel there, but also everything there is very different.
So yeah, top notch place. Always will love Thailand. We got some new tattoos there. Went to the monks again with the tattoos. I got a cat. Cat tattoo. became a cat lady. Oh my gosh, I still can’t believe that. were a dog lady, now you’re a cat lady. No, I’m still a dog person. That’s not gonna change. It’s just that now…
I love both. Yeah, but they come find you now. I know. It’s weird. It’s really weird. I can’t fully explain it. It’s partly because of one of our guests in Thailand was such a cat lady. And then I started, I don’t know. I don’t know what happened. They started coming to me and then I went to get the tattoo and he starts drawing a cat and I’m like, my gosh. And then it’s continued. They’re following me everywhere.
We were cat sitting in December after we got home. Like here in Guatemala in our Airbnb, this cat would come over every day to just sit on my lap. Like, I can’t believe I’m saying this. I have transformed. The cats are teaching me. Yeah, learn from your teachers. Yeah, we came home from Thailand.
I don’t think we did anything fun on the way home, no, not this time. Sometimes we make a stop off in another Asian country to do a layover or something, but this time we had to get back because we were low on money and so I found a few, you know, a bunch of side jobs and I went to work really hard at the end of November and into December. And we did tons of house sitting and pet sitting. Yep, just to not live in a van. And I started searching for side jobs also.
So that’s good. And we had fun with friends and did some outdoor activities and did some dinner parties like dinner club with sound healing things, which are really cool. I hope to do some more of. And yeah, just I did a lot of different jobs and it felt good to make some money and you know, the house is in a place where I could.
kind of just leave it covered and kind of forget about it for a couple months while we just kind of just did some maintenance on our finances and tried to not kill ourselves. That sounds dark. like kill ourselves by doing too much, working too hard. yeah, that brings us to 2026. We spent the Christmas in Arizona.
After that we flew back to Guatemala. And here we are. Here we are. We just finished our second plant medicine for recovery retreat at Lake Atitlan with the forest path. Third one is already scheduled for next January. is. It went really well. weren’t sure honestly if we were going to keep doing this every year, but just for me, like it feels like a kind of
necessary maintenance on my own brain. And so I would like to come here even if we weren’t doing a retreat. So we might as well just do the retreat. I just enjoy being at that place.
I come out of it feeling better and I think most people on the retreat do as well. Yeah. was another really, really good group. Completely different than last year’s experience but also really amazing. Yeah, shout out to that whole group because it’s a big deal to trust us to take you and do something like that. It’s big deal to receive the medicine for your first time.
It’s all of it’s a big deal and you know, everyone just like navigated everything with such grace. There were some like tummy bugs going around and there are so many steps at this place. Like just to get up all those steps, like anytime you want to go to your room, like requires some fitness and it’s beautiful. It’s so worth it. Just my goal was to like
swim in the lake every single day and I did. Did you? Yep. Nice. And it’s incredible and the music and the ceremonies are just incredible and every time I go through it I just have more gratitude and curiosity about like what all exists out there in this world beyond our perception.
beyond our everyday perception.
strange, strange world we live in. How do you want to wrap it up? How do you think we feel right now compared to one year ago? What’s changed? What’s the same? That’s a good question. I think I feel similarly grateful and excited. And what has changed is that
I have done so much letting go of expectations because last year I had a plan for how the year was gonna go and a lot of that plan did not happen. And so I’m trying to like only plan what’s necessary this year and just see what happens. How about you?
I don’t know, it’s… It’s been not that long, but also long.
so much happens in a year. Especially a year of our lives. Yeah.
So plans that are necessary but could change for 2026 are that we’re going to do less retreats, we’re going to be home more, we’re going to work some more side jobs in order to help ourselves finish the house, and then we’re going to reassess after that. Yep, once the house gets done, then we can make a new
plan for the next big thing. The house has been just taking up like our big plan energy for a long time and it’ll all be worth it. know it. ⁓ but it’ll be nice to kind of think about new large creative projects. Yes. ⁓ and I’m going to get my teacher training plan done and offered out to the world. So
Bigger Life Adventures first 200 hour teacher training is coming in the future. I’ll just say in the future because usually when I give a date, it doesn’t actually happen that way. How many countries do think we’ll go to this year? Less. Less, but I’m okay with that because we are putting our heads down, getting some stuff done in order to clear space for what’s next. Yep. I’d like to go to Mexico this year.
and
in Peru. All right. We’ll see about that. We’ll see about that. But, um, yeah, that’s probably enough for now. I would say so. Thanks for listening. If you’re still with us, you made it to the end. That was a lot to recap. And next month we’ll do a completely different topic. Yeah, I’d say if you’re
You know, if you’re traveling like us, good for you. You don’t have to be traveling a lot to have fun in life. But I’d say if you’re sitting at home feeling stuck, I’d say…
walk out the front door and see what happens. Go touch some moss or some snow. Yeah, put your feet on the grass. Go run around naked in the forest.
These are things I like to do. Yeah. Or plan a trip if you can. Plant a tree. Yeah. All good things. Is there a word of wisdom? Apply for a scholarship for a retreat if that’s the only way you can get on one. Yeah. We want it to be accessible for everyone, so just tell us why you can’t pay for it and we’ll try to find a way for you to get there. Yeah. All right. I’d say we should just wrap it up. What’s our closing? I don’t know.
since we’re in Guatemala. that’s so nerdy. Alright, let’s just say adios or ciao.
Okay. Ciao!
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