THE ROUGHEST RETREAT WEEK OF MY LIFE
Appearances can be deceiving, especially if you look on social media. A life leading retreats can look like getting to be on permanent summer vacation. People having a blast in really cool locations surrounded by plush nature with huge smiles on their faces. We tell this story on our social media and through emails. We point out the highlights of which there are many.
This week however a dreamy week in paradise turned into me in a hotel room by myself in Colombia on the phone at 4am with a veterinarian who I didn’t know telling me there was a chance my dog was going to die.
I said “yes” to a retreat in Colombia several months back after meeting the leaders at a yoga festival in San Diego. They were both kind and outgoing and seemed curious and supportive towards me and my retreats. When they told me about this retreat in Colombia they had planned and asked for help there was a LOT of work to do. They had put a deposit on the venue and had only three months left to sell this it. With no one signed up and without a clear plan of what was being offered this was going to take a big effort.
I came in full steam and brought all of my knowledge and resources to the table. I helped us get clear on the offering and who this retreat would benefit. I began sharing the retreat with my community and set up marketing and sales plans. We decided on the name “reset and rejuvenation in Colombia” and began working with our fourth facilitator, a yoga teacher from Colombia.
I was slated to teach breathwork, yoga, meditation and lead a cold plunge. The conversations started to evolve with more clarity and we began getting our first sign ups! We agreed on a schedule and trade of services, I knew given the financial situation of this retreat and how soon it was coming up, I likely wouldn’t make much if any money but I expressed that I was excited to support them and just not willing to lose money. I said we should have contracts in place on how that would look and the folks who were leading agreed.
A few weeks later I found out the Colombian yoga teacher was backing out of the retreat due to personal reasons. This was pretty shocking, since if you saw his life on instagram you would have thought, “this guy has it all going on!” He is one of the fittest people I have ever seen with a beautiful yoga practice and it looked like he lived in paradise. Recently he had documented a trip to Italy with his stunning girlfriend where (it appeared) like they had an amazing time exploring, eating, swimming and practicing yoga.
I really didn’t hear much other than he was out and not soon after I was told they had found a new yoga teacher to replace him. I had mentioned I could take on the yoga portion of the retreat but they really wanted this person to join. The first interactions I had with the new teacher were fine although I could tell she was a much bigger personality than the teacher we were working with before. She joined our group chat while in Las Vegas where she was excited because a playboy model who was partying in the same hotel had just posted her to her instagram stories. In the movies they call this “foreshadowing.” I also started seeing her post about our “Clarity in Colombia” retreat which was a title and branding we had never talked about before and the first I was hearing about calling the retreat by this name.
By the time we were set to depart I had recruited a couple folks from my network and helped infuse a good amount of money into the retreat. The two facilitators I started this journey with had purchased my flights and we were all flying out together from San Diego to Colombia, however we had never created those contracts I proposed so who was paying for what after that was a total mystery.
Our first stay was in a hostel in Cartagena, overpriced for what it was and literally in the middle of the city. My college frat house under the JFK flight path was quieter than this place. Upon check out I realized the room hadn’t been paid for so I was on the hook for the bill. The next few nights we would dine out and those costs were not covered either. Colombia is a very inexpensive country by western standards however this was the first in a series of events that veered away from the agreements that were in place.
The night before the retreat we all sat down to discuss the outline for the week and to my surprise the itinerary was completely changed. The new teacher was slated to lead five workshops, I was slated to lead three, one of which was labeled “optional” on the schedule. I was also asked if I would give some time during one of my workshops so another teacher could lead the meditation portion. Clearly this retreat was taking on an entirely new look, it felt like the train was leaving the station and I was running to grab on. This was a far departure from where we had been when I was asked to be a leader a few months back and literally helped create the program almost from scratch.
I did my best to advocate for myself while not wanting to create dissonance the night before the retreat. My intention from the start was to support the couple leading this retreat as it was their vision and the first time they were leading a retreat. As the week unfolded what was discussed and envisioned was simply not what transpired.
We were changing the schedule on the fly, workshops were literally being discussed right before they happened and in total I ended up teaching for 90 minutes. One of my workshops was completely cut because others ran late. I led one hour long breathwork, the only full class I was able to teach the entire week. The second breathwork I was set to lead for 90 minutes was cut to a 20 minute meditation. When I got up to lead the cold plunge I was signaled to wrap it up after five minutes (the leaders literally started tapping their watches from the back) and had no opportunity to explain any of the science of what we were doing.
The whole tenor and direction of the retreat had completely changed. It went from something envisioned as a “biohacking” experience of wellness education to a lot of what I would call fortune cookie knowledge. There was a lot of pontification and sharing of sexy quotes from poems or other teachers and lacked a depth and connection that I pride my retreats on.
People were put on the spot to share intimate things about themselves and the workshops ended up being clunky, uncomfortable and disjointed. I went from a very front-facing part of the retreat to an afterthought. Basically it felt like I was good enough to help them pull this retreat out of the dumpster and help sell it but not good enough to help lead it when the lights came on.
The yoga teacher brought on late ended up stepping into the limelight and leading workshops that I did not resonate with and frankly were awkward for some of the participants. On a whole, more time was spent putting the retreat on social media than was actually spent planning the workshops for it. There was no integration plan for after the retreat so I offered some resources in our group chat to which I was vilified for by the leadership group. There were however tons of instagram posts on what an amazing experience everyone had and how they are planning another retreat for May (yes this May, yes in just three months).
Before I make this into a victim's tale, let me be clear, I 100% did not do my due diligence on any of the people I agreed to do this retreat with and failed to make sure proper agreements were in place. I failed to speak up when agreements were being broken. My desire to help and my excitement at the opportunity to travel to a new place and have a fun adventure superseded my desire to ask the hard questions and have the hard conversations. I have a very good relationship with my intuition, and, at times my excitement and my desire to help make me a poor decision maker. It’s a lesson the universe has given me ample opportunities to learn going back to when I left a job for a lesser paying job that excited me, just to have a horrendous boss who fired me after 14 months.
On the positive side, the participants seemed to have a good experience overall. The venue was beautiful, the food incredible and they got to experience great yoga, snorkeling, a ceremony with an indigenous tribe and a ton of laughs. I remained relatively neutral on what had transpired. On the one hand, I did not get to lead the retreat I had envisioned and had now paid out of pocket to be there. On the other hand, I got to take a really cool trip and meet some fantastic people who had a great time. I also always look at challenging situations as an opportunity to learn. In this case, the lack of agreements and my inability to speak up sooner was what landed me where I was. When something is challenging I always think of that Taylor Swift song, “hey, it’s me, I’m the problem it’s me” and it makes me laugh. We are ALWAYS creating our reality. We must take as much credit for the hard stuff as the fun stuff.
I decided to part ways with the leadership team and go on my own solo adventure. It was nice to explore the city of Barranquilla on my own as they were preparing for their Carnival celebrations. The second night I was there I got a call from the lady caring for my dog. “Something is wrong with Lola.” She had moved Lola without my knowledge to a farm she was working at in Ojai California. I was 3,000 miles away, Lola was 100 miles from her home and her vet and I felt as helpless as someone can feel. Once again agreements weren’t honored and I was trying to balance remaining calm and focused while wanting to get really angry.
I stayed up all night getting small nuggets of information from the vet. When Lola arrived at the doctor she was turning purple and her temperature was 93 degrees. They asked me if they could give her CPR and resuscitate her if needed. My heart sank and mentally I prepared myself that she might not make it.
Lola made it through the night and they prepared to move her to another facility where they could run more tests to try and determine the problem. Minutes felt like hours, I didn’t eat and couldn’t sleep for 36 hours. I went to the airport and stood on line trying to find an earlier flight back to California. I speak very little Spanish and this airport had computers from the 1990’s so needless to say it wasn’t exactly smooth sailing.
I eventually was able to get out of Colombia and back to the US. By the time I landed in Miami Lola was finally stable. I’ve never felt so guilty, knowing she was in a cage scared and helpless in an unknown place and I could do nothing to help except say “yes” every time they told me they were going to charge my credit card. All total the vet bills were almost $10,000, this had turned into quite an expensive trip and learning experience!
It’s not clear whether she would or wouldn’t have gotten sick if she was at home and I’m not sure it even matters. I told the lady caring for her it was.not OK that she left without telling me, and, I was grateful she acted when she did and was able to get Lola the help she needed. She felt terrible and there was no need to add to her suffering but it was also important to address that agreements were broken. An opportunity for us both to learn. On the one hand you could look at this whole experience as a disaster. It would be easy to feel sorry for myself, to place blame and to judge. I made a massive time, energy and money investment in this experience, I invited my community to be a part of it and it would be easy to say I got nothing in return.
One of my favorite books is called The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz where he talks about the power in not taking anything personally. When people harm us they mostly do so acting for themselves, it’s quite rare that someone actually intends to do harm to us. I don’t believe any pain I felt this last week was intended, except from the universe. I believe strongly that we are here to learn so we can grow and evolve. Challenge is a part of this journey and should be embraced. The faster we can return to empathy, love and joy, the better we become at attracting more of that into our lives.
The vision and clarity I have around my purpose gets stronger as I connect with people and places that feel like a full “heck yes.” The trick is not to get sidetracked when something LOOKS like a good idea. Look past who someone is on Instagram. I call this the shiny red ball syndrome. This is where meditation comes in handy. I always tell people the only real truth, the only real teaching I advocate is to have a relationship with yourself and know how you want to feel. This gives you a homeostasis, a North Star to follow and to know when things/people/places/foods/jobs are a fit and when they are not.
This week gave me an opportunity to reframe that relationship with myself. To find even more clarity of how I want to move through the world and how important it can be to say “no.” The goal is to get to a place where I can look at all my relationships and be proud that not all of them will be easy but they will all be perfect for what I need to be my best. By living in this way I can be an example to those that come to my retreats, I can lead from a place of experience.
There’s a flaw in manifestation where people think they can conjure up their ideal life, write it in a journal, put it on social media or slap it on a vision board and it will come to life. The step that’s missing is becoming the person who feels worthy to receive the life they love to lead. Of all the human emotions, authenticity carries the highest vibration (proven by science!) and we attract that which we are, not that which we want to be.
Yes, I quoted Taylor Swift in this blog, don’t @ me.