The Realization—Tracing the feeling that led me here
What are you doing? What have you done? And what are you going to do?
These are the recurring thoughts that occupy the corners of my mind on a frequent basis as a 28 year old. In all honesty, I’ve felt ungrounded for longer than I’d like to admit. Up until about four years ago, I thought I had a sense of where I was headed. I held a clearer idea of what I wanted, felt like I belonged in my life, and had done a great deal of inner work—work that led to self-discoveries, perspective shifts, and a growing sense of clarity. I was more connected with the spiritual aspects of myself; I felt like there was this momentum, and I was on the right track. But life, as it does, had other plans.
It just so happened that four years ago marked the end of a long-term relationship—one that left me disoriented and unmoored. I was young, tired, and quietly drowning in the consequences of not fully voicing what I truly needed or wanted. I remember once hearing that after a breakup, especially one that spans years, it can feel like you have no idea who you are anymore. You’ve spent so long contributing to a shared story that, once it dissolves, your own sense of self becomes a stranger. That’s exactly how it felt. It was as if I had been wrung out, left to dry, and my sense of self forgotten—bleached by the sun in all the places I’d stayed too long and unmoving. Undoubtedly a consequence of my own doing.
I had moments of grief that made me want to get rid of everything I owned and go somewhere, anywhere. I needed a change. So I returned to the one place that has always helped me remember who I am. A place I’ve returned to many times and will continue to seek solace in—Yandara Yoga Institute. I first found Yandara in 2019, when I spent 28 days completing my 300-hour Yoga Teacher Training. Often mistaken for being lifeless or barren, I found quite the opposite. To me, the Baja desert is expansive, sacred, and quietly abundant; the rawness of it stripped things down in the best way. I fell in love with more than just the training; this was the place where those previously mentioned perspective shifts and inner work truly took place. I hold those experiences and the people I met very dear to my heart and contribute a lot of what I’ve learned to my time spent at Yandara.
I returned to Yandara in 2023, four years after first arriving there in 2019, in the wake of a life I no longer felt connected to. I returned for a week-long retreat and that brief visit offered a flicker of reconnection, a sense that I was beginning to come home to myself and the realization that I had actually been caught in a constant cycle of doing more, being more, and achieving more for everyone but myself. It became clear that a week wasn’t enough. What I needed was immersion.
So I quit my job, booked a one-way ticket to Baja, and returned to Yandara—this time as a volunteer.
I spent three months living in a little four-person Coleman tent at Yandara. Each night, I fell asleep to the sound of waves in the distance; each day, I was drenched in sun, my hands busy weeding gardens, meditatively raking sand paths, welcoming new students, assisting classes, and my days off spent wandering off to discover places I hadn’t yet explored.
For the first time in a long time, I had space to simply exist. At first, that stillness felt daunting—I struggled with the urge to keep myself busy, to make the hours productive. But eventually, that space began to feel like a deep breath.
And from that breath, my creativity returned. I began creating jewelry out of the shells I found on the beach; I journaled, I meditated, and I even learned the ukulele. What I did was I gave myself permission to create without a reason. Somewhere along the way, I had absorbed the idea that everything needed a purpose. Every effort had to generate income, lead to improvement, move me forward, or unlock the next step. Always aiming to pass GO, to collect, to achieve.
This—this—is why I wanted to create this space. A place I could return to creatively, without pressure or purpose. A soft corner of the internet where expression doesn’t need a reason.
Fast forward to the present: a lot has unfolded.
After my time at Yandara, I began a new chapter working with Nectar Yoga Retreat—work that has since expanded into a marketing role with both Nectar and its sister business, Mist Thermal Sanctuary. It’s a path that has challenged me exponentially and invited me to evolve in ways I didn’t expect—especially on a professional level. I moved away from home for the first time and landed in Ucluelet, BC, for a year—working remotely, surrounded by the edge of the Pacific and exploring a new relationship.
I didn’t realize how deeply I needed a change of scenery or how much I was craving independence from the places and patterns I’d grown up in. Now, having relocated to the opposite end of Vancouver Island, in Sidney BC, I find myself once again tracing familiar patterns—overwhelm, stress, the relentless hum of urgency. Everything feels like it needs to be done now—or more accurately, yesterday. And I don’t know how to keep up. It’s heavy. It’s tiresome.
I’m craving that same sense of space, both literally and figuratively. A deep breath. A moment to pause. I want to feel the earth beneath my feet and remember who I am outside the noise. All of this is to say: I’m acknowledging the awareness of what’s unfolding, of the aspects of overwhelm and stress that need to shift in order for me to return to a sense of ease and fluidity within myself.
And so, here I am—tracing the thread that led me here.