Why I Travel For Healing: A Magical Week in Costa Rica
What do you do when 2021 goes out with a horrendous bang and 2022 is promising no more than grim days ahead? You book a retreat to Costa Rica and shift that energy. In late December 2022, I found myself buried under a heap of pain, depressive feelings, angst, overwhelm, and fatigue. I knew the signs of a slippery mental health slope because I help people through depression, anxiety, and transitional states every day at work. But what happens when the healer needs healing? I scoured the internet in silence, not telling anyone, save my husband, about my plans to get away. I chose Costa Rica as my destination because I have always been drawn to the natural and tropical environment of South America. Next, I needed to find a retreat focused primarily on healing and relaxation. There were simply too many to count. I think Costa Rica must be the yoga capital of the world. But I wasn’t looking for yoga per se. I was searching for a mental and emotional detox. I honestly wasn’t even sure if I wanted to move my body. I felt so stagnant and low. I wanted to stay curled up in a safe ball – both figuratively and literally.
Then as my favor would have it, a nurse influencer that I follow shared that she was hosting a release workshop for an all female healing “Good Vibes” retreat. I researched the website details, scheduled calls with the hosts, and deliberated on registering for about a month. Well, I obviously attended this retreat, and the trip was more than I could have ever wished for. You can definitely have the same healing experience with any retreat to Costa Rica because the place itself is purely magical. But I’ll tell you about my trip itinerary below.
Day One: I arrived in San Jose and was shuttled to the Cariari Doubletree Hotel. The hotel was the perfect preparation for the days ahead in the jungle. Natural plants throughout the open air hotel was a wonderful way to transition into the healing oasis that awaited us at our retreat. I arrived a day early and slept here overnight in order to catch the early morning bus ride to our retreat which was four hours away.
Day two: Our estimated our hour ride to the jungle actually took six hours due to San Jose traffic! We stopped one time for snacks and restroom break. Upon our arrival to Sonora Jungle and Yoga Retreat, we were warmly greeted and escorted to lunch. We were assigned roommates to share well appointed casitas with. Each casita was adorned with beautiful caftans and fabulous goodies for body, hair care, journals, and meditation effects. I was assigned to casita #111. During my trip, I would learn about “angel numbers” and the study of numerology, similar to astrology, that numbers have real meanings, especially in duplicates. The number 111 is a powerful number in numerology. It represents a divine intervention and can be interpreted as a sign from angels that they are always looking out for you. The angel number 111 signifies inspiration, creative expression, and spiritual unity. How’s that for my first magical retreat?!
It stormed that evening very briefly, and my roommate and I spent so much time talking and bonding that we missed the candlelight relaxation experience, which we heard time and time again was the best session of the entire trip. To keep from getting in my FOMO feelings, I like to think it was a hit simply because it was the first experience of the trip.
Day three: “Manifest”. We started the day with an amazing yoga session with Coach Mel. it was the first time I had done yoga in nearly four years. I was nervous that I would not be able to keep up and quitting would only make me more depressed, but I participated anyway. I am so glad that I did, because the energy helped me get through it. And my trusting the energy I was raising my own frequency. And what I would soon realize is that we are all just matter vibrating at frequencies. And I can achieve anything if I decide to do so, but I’ve got to get on the right frequency. I had to change my energy. Later that day after breakfast, we had a “connect workshop” where our hosts taught us how to peel back some layers and allow ourselves to be vulnerable. We then went to the beach and explored the world of plant medicine. That evening, we had our “manifest dinner” at our resort and called to existence our deepest desires for our lives.
Day four: “Explore”. After dinner we traveled deeper into the jungle to the indigenous Bri Bri clan’s homestead. I forgot to mention that somewhere around 4am I began having terrible bouts of diarrhea and vomiting that did not end until right before our bus arrived at 8. I hesitated going on the journey, but our host, Silvia Ancestral assured me that the Bri Bri family would prepare a special medicine that would help my illness. At that, I figured this would be a safer bet than staying behind without pep bismol. At the Bri Bri clan’s modest home, we all drank the bitter medicine. I played around under a tree. They taught us how to make chocolate from the cocoa fruit tree. I cannot tell you how mind blowing it is to learn that what we think is chocolate is so far from the real thing. Later we took our cocoa to the glorious waterfalls and had a cocoa goddess bath. if you are wondering what that was like, it smelled just like cocoa butter (go figure) and felt like an exfoliating butter scrub. The crazy thing is, I don’t think I have needed to grease my body for at least one week since that cocoa bath. That evening, Silvia taught us about our divine feminine energy and the power within us.
Day five: “Release”. Now feeling moisturized and empowered, I attended another morning yoga session. This time was even better than the first. I had trouble balancing for downward dog, but managed to complete the exercise. After lunch, Monique Doughty, a.k.a. “Nurse Mo” arrived to facilitate our release workshop. I was especially excited because it was her Instagram post that lead me to this retreat. Her three hour workshop bursted at the seems with knowledge on self worth and strategies to practice self love. We laughed, cried, manifested our futures, and built on top of everything else we had previously experienced. I felt I was peeling back more layers, and raising my frequency even higher. After dinner we partook in a sensual devotion dance ceremony. We were encouraged to wear whatever made us feel beautiful and comfortable in our feminine skin. We danced an hour straight and again, all I could think was, why has it been so long since I have felt this free? The movements felt spiritual and raised my energy even higher. I am just a walking vibration at this point.
Day six: “Celebrate”. I woke up so early and walked around the resort grounds taking in all of nature with new eyes and ears. I heard the birds wings flapping as they took off from the cover of the trees. I saw a sloth climb a tree and eat his breakfast. I appreciated the wet grass and hard rocks under my bare feet. Then I participated in our last yoga session of the week. It was harder this time, but amazing even still. Coach Mel helped me reposition my palms for downward dog so that I could hold the pose correctly. Turns out I was putting all the pressure on my wrist instead of in my fingertips. As in life, if you put all your weight into something not meant to withstand that type of pressure, it will fall. I had to learn how to make the change. But this small adjustment made a world of a difference to my practice and now I cannot wait to try yoga again. On this day we lounged by the pool, took more photos for our social media, got one another’s contact information and just filled up on love, sisterhood, energy, and power. We went out to a fancy and fabulous restaurant called Koki Beach and toasted to the Good Vibes life. After dinner, we walked over to the beach and popped champaign in a beautiful farewell celebration.
Day seven: The howler monkeys woke us as usual and some ladies had to take the 6am bus ride back to the San Jose airport. The rest of us enjoyed our last breakfast before our shuttles arrived. We took our 4 hour ride back to the Doubletree in San Jose. We found some local food and hung out around the bar till it was time for our flights.
Prior to this trip, I was feeling as though I had fallen out of favor with God. I was failing at everything. I did not understand why things were just not going the way I was working so hard for them to be. On this retreat, I was reminded that I never lost favor, and that it was in fact my favor that lead me to this retreat. There is no luck. There are no coincidences. There is only energy, vibrations, and magical powers otherwise known as “blessings”. Do not be afraid to travel for your healing. I highly recommend Costa Rica and the Good Vibe Retreat with Good Moms Bad Choices.
- This post is not sponsored!
- Resort: https://sonoracostarica.com/
- Retreat: https://www.goodmomsbadchoices.com/retreat
- Hosts: https://www.goodmomsbadchoices.com/
- San Jose hotel: Doubletree Cariari San Jose
- Swimsuit: https://www.riotswim.com
~~~By the way, during this trip, on the eve of 2/2/22, another angel number of repeating two’s, (two being the number associated with building something bigger than yourself by working together,) I came up with the name of my blog/brand/business -> Be The Lily. It was most definitely divine inspiration and spiritual intuition. How’s that for a magical healing retreat?
