My Sabbatical Story: Why I Started Solaris

At some point, I realized I was running on autopilot, just trying to keep up.

I had stopped asking myself the most important question: How am I? Not "How's my project tracker looking?" or "Did I hit my KPIs?" but genuinely, how was I doing as an actual human being with, you know, feelings and a body that occasionally needed things like food and sleep?

For more than a decade in tech, I lived by an unspoken code. My grandfather used to say, "If you're on time, you're late." He meant it as a lesson in being prepared and respectful. I took that wisdom and somehow merged it with Silicon Valley's greatest hit: "If you're not available 24/7, someone else will be."

So there I was, juggling impossible deadlines, taking calls at 2 AM because someone in another time zone needed an answer right now, and genuinely believing that constant motion was the only way to prove I mattered. I thought a weekend getaway or an extra hour of sleep would fix the bone-deep exhaustion. It never did.

The Breaking Point

Then came the plot twist I hadn't seen coming: a company restructuring that eliminated my role.

In one surreal moment, I faced a choice: immediately start hunting for the next position, or do something I had literally never done in my adult life: actually stop.

It felt terrifying. What kind of ambitious person just pauses? But in the silence that followed, I finally saw the truth of how exhausted I really was.

Burnout Up Close

Here's the thing about burnout: it's your entire operating system crashing. Your brain gets foggy, your body starts staging a quiet rebellion, and your spirit? Completely checked out.

The cruelest part is that you often don't realize how depleted you are until you finally stop moving.

I thought I was holding it all together with duct tape and determination. Then my bloodwork came back: iron at 19, ferritin at 6, vitamin D at 12. My doctor looked at the results and basically said, "How are you even standing?" It was a chemical receipt for a decade of running on empty, which explained why life felt like swimming through peanut butter with no shore in sight.

When I finally slowed down, I realized how disconnected I'd become from myself. From my body, my emotions, and any vision of life that didn't revolve around the next deadline. I had become a very efficient productivity machine that occasionally needed coffee and conference calls.

An Imperfect Sabbatical (Because I'm an Imperfect Human)

I'll be honest: I had no idea what I was doing. I overplanned some parts, completely winged others, and learned most of it by trial and error (heavy on the error).

I traveled to Scottsdale, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Sedona, Maui, Joshua Tree. Places that practically forced me to slow down. But the real work happened in the quiet moments: therapy sessions where I ugly-cried, yoga classes where I discovered muscles I'd been ignoring, and long walks where I wasn't optimizing anything at all.

Slowly, I started to untangle who I was from what I produced.

But here's what nobody tells you about taking a break: the guilt is real.

Even lying on a beautiful beach, doing exactly what my depleted body needed, a voice in my head kept whispering: Is this just laziness? What about your résumé gap? Shouldn't you be learning a new skill or networking or literally anything productive right now?

That's when it hit me. Hustle culture had set up camp in my brain and refused to pay rent.

Rest was about dismantling the deeply embedded belief that my worth as a human was determined by my output as a worker. (Turns out those are not the same thing. Who knew?)

It took time to sit with those uncomfortable questions and ask better ones:

What if my value isn't defined by how much I produce?

What if having space to think and breathe is actually what creates clarity and strength?

What if coming back renewed is more powerful than never stopping at all?

What I Actually Learned

In Scottsdale, I learned that sometimes falling apart is the only way healing can begin. That real rest looks like system shutdown, not a spa day.

In Nicaragua, I remembered how to breathe. How to notice when I was shrinking myself to make others comfortable. How a sloth and a stubborn horse could teach me about unapologetic rest.

In Costa Rica, I learned to laugh at the gap between my Pinterest expectations and reality. That sometimes your body knows what you need better than your plans do.

In Sedona, I started trusting myself again. Making small decisions based on what felt right rather than what looked right. Extending my stay because my body said "not yet."

In Maui, I gave myself permission to want things again. To seek joy instead of just avoiding pain. To imagine work that didn't require sacrificing myself.

In Joshua Tree, it all came together. I found clarity about what I wanted to build next. I was ready to go home and create something meaningful.

Why Solaris Global Pathways Exists

When I finally felt ready to re-enter the professional world, I was clear: about my boundaries, about what I wanted, and about what I would never sacrifice again.

And I realized: I can't be the only one feeling this way.

We live in a culture where burnout has somehow become a status symbol, proof you're ambitious, proof you're committed. But real courage? That's asking whether your current path actually aligns with your values, or if you're just really good at ignoring the warning signs.

Taking a sabbatical challenged everything I'd been taught about career success. But staying on that hamster wheel, slowly eroding myself piece by piece, would have been far riskier.

That's why I created Solaris Global Pathways. Stepping away shouldn't require a crisis or a corporate restructuring. Renewal shouldn't be something you only get to experience after you've completely fallen apart.

A New Way Forward

Your energy matters. Your well-being matters. And if you've been pushing so hard for so long that you can't remember what it feels like to be connected to yourself and your purpose, maybe it's time to pause and find out.

The world will keep spinning while you take care of yourself. And when you return to your career, aligned with what actually matters to you, you'll show up from a place of strength.

That's what Solaris Global Pathways is here for: to help you make that choice possible.

Because you deserve more than just making it through. You deserve to actually thrive.

The Desert as a Teacher: Lessons from Joshua Tree

Joshua Tree is all stillness and sky. The desert doesn't rush to meet you. It just stands there, vast and quiet and a little prickly, daring you to slow down, too.

Driving in, I felt the shift immediately. The suburbs melted away, mountains rose like sleeping giants, and suddenly the horizon looked infinite. With each mile, my shoulders dropped, my breath deepened, and that stubborn knot between my shoulder blades started to loosen. By the time the first Joshua tree appeared (crooked limbs reaching skyward like a tipsy yogi attempting Warrior I), I was already softer.

Quick side note from my rental car agent (because apparently I look like someone who needs botanical facts): "They're not actually trees. They're yucca plants. Mormon settlers named them after the biblical Joshua, arms raised in prayer. They're endangered now. Climate change."

Nothing like a little botany mixed with existential dread to start the day.

Desert Rhythms (and Golf Course Confessions)

I stayed at a spa-style hotel about 40 minutes from the park. The spa? Never used it. But I did discover that the golf course made an excellent morning walking path. Round and round I'd go, slow and steady, like meditation but with better landscaping and confused golfers.

On day three, one of them stopped me.

"You don't golf?"

"Not today," I said, implying I might tomorrow. (I absolutely would not.)

He nodded approvingly. "Smart. This is retirement torture."

We both laughed, and just like that, something in me cracked open. Humor under the desert sun. Connection with a complete stranger. I hadn't realized how much I needed those small, human moments.

The Desert's Beauty and Bite

Every day I chose a different trail: Barker Dam (turns out there was no water), Hidden Valley (nature's abstract sculpture garden), and the Cholla Cactus Garden, home to "teddy bear" cacti, which is the cruelest nickname ever because they will absolutely stab you if you get too close.

"That's the desert for you," a woman next to me said, watching me eye the chollas suspiciously. "Everything here wants to poke you, bite you, or dehydrate you. But look how it glows."

And she was right. That became the paradox I fell in love with: the desert was both ruthless and radiant. Harsh and holy. It demanded respect and offered perspective in return.

The Small Things That Save You

I became obsessed with tiny details: a brittlebush blooming impossibly out of stone, quartz glittering in the sun, a lizard doing push-ups on a rock like my very enthusiastic personal trainer. (Yes, I whispered encouragement. Yes, he kept going. We were in it together.)

At night, the stars completely stole the show. Joshua Tree is a designated Dark Sky Park, which means the Milky Way puts on a full performance. I stood there with my neck craned, laughing out loud at the sheer audacity of it all. How had I gone so long without looking up?

That's when it clicked: I'd been living so horizontally (screens, deadlines, endless to-do lists) that I'd forgotten to live vertically. To look up. To remember awe exists.

Writing, Releasing, and Getting Brutally Honest

Evenings were for writing letters I'd never send. Letters to old jobs, old friends, old versions of myself who tried so hard. Some pages I filled completely. Some I barely started before the tears came. Most ended up in the fire pit, curling into ash under the desert stars.

The desert taught me that letting go doesn't always need a big ceremony. Sometimes you just need honesty, heat, and a safe place to burn it all down.

I realized I was grieving the version of myself who believed she had to prove her worth through overwork, overgiving, over-functioning. The desert helped me say goodbye to her. And more importantly, it helped me forgive her, too.

What the Desert Taught Me (And What Clarity Actually Feels Like)

By the end of my time in Joshua Tree, I felt clear.

Clear about what I wanted to build next. Clear about the kind of life I was ready to create. Clear that I could hold both ambition and ease, that choosing success and sanity could happen in the same breath.

The months of traveling had done their work: I'd learned to breathe again in Nicaragua, to laugh at my expectations in Costa Rica, to trust myself in Sedona, to want things again in Maui. And here, in this stark and beautiful desert, it all finally came together.

I knew I wanted to help other people find this path. People who recognized the signs early, before hitting rock bottom. People who deserved to step away while they still had energy left to redirect. Rest as prevention rather than emergency intervention.

Presence lives in pause and motion. Whether I was walking the golf course, hiking rocky trails, or wobbling through Warrior II in my hotel room, being in my body reminded me I was still here, still capable of finding joy in small movements and simple things.

Letting go makes space for what's next. Those letters were about releasing what no longer served me so I could build something new. Something aligned with who I'd become.

Awe reconnects you to what matters. The desert reminded me to look up, at stars, at mountains, at the endless sky above. When you remember how vast the world is, your problems find their proper place in the bigger picture.

Lighter, Not Empty

On my last morning, I watched the sunrise and noticed a tiny Joshua tree seedling pushing up through solid rock. Fragile, patient, stubbornly alive.

The desert doesn't demand transformation. It just shows you how to endure and adapt, how to grow where you're planted—even when the conditions are less than ideal.

I left integrated. More whole. Ready.

Ready to go home. Ready to build something meaningful. Ready to help others find their way to this kind of clarity while they still had the energy to redirect their lives.

And if the desert can glow while simultaneously trying to poke and parch everything in its path, maybe that's the whole point: you can be both tender and resilient, both soft and strong, both resting and becoming.

That's what I wanted to bring back. That's what became Solaris.

Light Enough to Drift: Maui and the Rhythm of Ease

Maui greeted me differently than anywhere else I'd been. The island came with air so soft it felt like it had its own language: slow down, you're here now.

From the moment I stepped off the plane, the island wrapped me in salt, flowers, and something I can only describe as "sweet serenity with a side of humidity." My curls immediately declared independence, and I decided to stop fighting them. If Maui could show up unhurried and unapologetic, so could I.

A Stay with Simple Luxuries

I'd chosen a small wellness resort tucked into the trees: intentional, thoughtful, and refreshingly unpretentious. No neon "spa day packages," no hotel key cards that never work on the first try. Just an old-fashioned key, soaps scented with plumeria, and a bed that practically begged me to test out its nap-worthiness. (It passed with honors.)

Each morning began with papaya, tea, and silence. Papaya so bright it deserved its own Instagram filter. Tea that tasted like an exhale. And silence that felt rich, full of birdsong, rustling palms, and the occasional "is that my stomach or the geckos?"

Road to Hana (A Love Story with Curves)

Like many travelers, I decided to drive the famous Road to Hana. They tell you it's about the journey, not the destination, which is true, unless your stomach disagrees. Imagine breathtaking waterfalls, lush forests, and about 6,000 curves (give or take). By the end, I had one hand on the wheel and the other on my ginger chews, alternating between awe and "please let this curve be the last one."

And yet I'd do it again. Because some beauty is worth being a little carsick for.

Food That Grounded and Expanded

If Maui had handed me a welcome kit, it would have contained poke, taro, and saimin. Each meal tasted like someone's family recipe, seasoned with stories.

One small café in Paia became my unofficial second home. After a few visits, the staff began greeting me with the subtle nod of café royalty. Same order, right? There's no greater sense of belonging than a place that knows your breakfast before you ask.

The Practice of Joy (Not Just Healing)

By this point in my sabbatical, I'd learned a lot about rest, about trusting myself, about letting go. But Maui brought something new: permission to want things again. To desire experiences, to seek out joy instead of just avoiding pain.

I joined yoga sessions in a yurt because I wanted to. I journaled on a wooden deck beneath the trees because it felt good. I even joined a candlelit writing circle where the prompt was "write about where you feel most yourself."

What came out surprised me: I was craving balance. A rhythm where drive and stillness could coexist, where ambition didn't have to cancel out ease. Where wanting things (career, purpose, success) didn't automatically mean sacrificing myself to get them.

For the first time in months, I caught myself thinking about work without dread. What work could look like if I built it differently. What if I could bring this lightness back with me? What if rest was a way of moving through your whole life, not just something you did on sabbatical?

Small Joys, Big Shifts

The magic lived in the grand moments (the rainbows, the waterfalls, the sunsets that looked like the sky was showing off) and also in the small rituals: morning smoothies, barefoot walks, picking out seashells like they were treasure.

I even bought a cheap ukulele. Did I master it? Not even close. But there was something joyful about fumbling through three chords, laughing at myself, and realizing that trying was enough. That I could be a beginner at something just for fun, with no goal except the pleasure of doing it.

Leaving Lighter

By the end, my body felt different. Looser, more at home in itself. The knot that had lived between my shoulder blades for years had softened. My thoughts moved less like a rushing river and more like clouds drifting across an open sky.

On my last evening, I found myself sitting in the garden, whispering, "I'll miss this place." I bought small gifts: local honey, handmade soap, a tiny turtle carving that reminded me of the ones I'd watched in the surf.

The next morning, I packed my suitcase and realized how little of it I'd actually needed. Two sundresses, a swimsuit, and bare feet had been plenty.

As the plane lifted off, I pressed my forehead to the window and thought about what came next. Not with anxiety, but with genuine curiosity. I was ready to go home, ready for whatever I was going to build next.

Maui had left me lighter because it reminded me how to carry life differently: with rhythm, with rest, with the understanding that joy and ambition could actually live in the same body.

Tuning Forks, Bowing Deer, and the Art of Doing Nothing at Enchantment Resort

Sedona was where I finally stopped trying so hard to heal myself and just let it happen naturally. Which, as it turns out, involved a lot more tuning forks and philosophical debates about crystals than I'd expected.

I'd been traveling for a few months at this point, bouncing between countries and experiences, still carrying this subtle pressure to have some kind of breakthrough. You know that feeling when you're on a sabbatical and people keep asking "How was your trip? Did you find yourself?" and you're like, "Well, I found a really good breakfast burrito place, does that count?"

But Sedona was different. From the moment I stepped out of my rental car, the red rocks basically said, "Hey, you can stop performing your healing now. We've got this."

When the Universe Sends You a Welcoming Committee

My first night, I couldn't sleep. Not from anxiety, but from pure wonder. The stars were so bright I thought someone had accidentally left the cosmic high beams on. I wandered outside in my hotel robe around 2 AM to stargaze and nearly jumped out of my skin when a voice said, "If you're looking for the Big Dipper, it's over there."

There was this older gentleman, also in a robe, casually pointing at constellations like he was giving directions to the grocery store.

"First night?" he asked.

"That obvious?"

"Twenty years of coming here, and I still can't sleep the first night. Too much beauty. Your neck's going to hurt tomorrow from all the looking up, but it's worth it."

He was right. My neck did hurt. But I also downloaded a stargazing app and spent the next few nights learning constellation names like I was cramming for the world's most pleasant exam.

The Deer That Changed My Perspective on Everything

The real magic started when I stopped trying to make magic happen. I was just sitting on my patio one afternoon, drinking tea and feeling slightly guilty about how little I was accomplishing, when a deer walked right up to me.

This deer looked me straight in the eye and did what I can only describe as a slow, deliberate bow. Like I'd just been knighted by the desert wildlife council.

I sat there blinking, wondering if I should bow back or if there was proper deer etiquette I was missing. In the end, I just said "Thank you" out loud, which felt appropriately ridiculous and somehow exactly right.

That's when it clicked: I didn't need to earn these moments. They were just happening because I was finally still enough to notice them.

My Introduction to Sedona's Spiritual Side Economy

Sedona has this wonderful way of making the mystical feel completely normal. I overheard a conversation at a coffee shop between two women having the most intense debate about crystal care I've ever witnessed.

"Selenite cannot be cleansed in moonlight," one insisted with the passion of someone defending their doctoral thesis.

"But moonlight is precisely what selenite needs!" the other countered, clutching her rose quartz water bottle.

The debate escalated (as much as any conversation can escalate when both parties pause for centering breaths), until finally the first woman said, "You know what? We might both be right. Different selenite, different needs."

"Exactly. Like people."

I almost applauded. It was the most gracious resolution to a spiritual disagreement I'd ever seen.

The Tuning Fork Incident

Speaking of Sedona's spiritual side, I had my own encounter with the woo-woo when a woman at a scenic overlook casually pulled out a tuning fork and started harmonizing with the breeze. Not as part of any ceremony, just vibing with nature on a Tuesday afternoon.

She caught me staring and asked if I wanted to try. Before I could politely decline, I was holding this surprisingly heavy tuning fork, tapping it against my palm like she instructed.

"Now hold it near the rocks," she said. "Feel how the vibration changes."

I felt completely ridiculous, the kind of tourist I usually roll my eyes at. But when I held that humming fork near the red stone, something did shift. Maybe it was acoustics. Maybe it was the thin desert air affecting my brain. Maybe it was just suggestion. But the vibration seemed to expand, to have a conversation with the rock.

"The rocks are singing back," she said, eyes closed in what appeared to be genuine bliss. "They're always singing. We just forget to listen."

I thanked her and seriously considered buying my own tuning fork before deciding that downloading a tuning fork app would be more my speed. Millennial compromise.

The Wardrobe Rebellion I Didn't Plan

Looking back through my photos from this trip, I realized I'd unconsciously packed only bright colors: hot pink, teal, magenta. This was a complete departure from my recent all-black everything phase.

One day, while wearing particularly vibrant pink shorts, I heard a guy whisper something to his girlfriend that was clearly about my outfit choice. Her response, loud enough for me to hear, was perfect: "Let her live."

And honestly, "Let her live" could have been the motto for my entire Sedona experience.

What Actually Shifted (Beyond My Color Palette)

The real change felt like butter left out on a warm counter. I became more pliable, less rigid.

I stopped checking my phone constantly. I ate meals without multitasking. I took naps without feeling guilty. I wrote in my journal to clear space in my head, not to mine for insights.

One morning, I hiked to this overlook spot and set up my little camping chair with grand plans to journal something profound. I wrote exactly three words: "I am here." Then I just sat for an hour, watching shadows move across the valley. It was the most satisfying writing session I'd had in years.

The Antelope Canyon Reality Check

I did make it to Antelope Canyon, which had been on my mental bucket list for years. The drive from Sedona was about three hours through landscapes that kept changing like someone was flipping through a nature photography book.

The canyon itself was every bit as stunning as those screensaver photos suggest, but what stayed with me was something my Navajo guide Thomas said: "Those light beams coming through? We call them 'the fingers of the Creator,' showing you the way."

I was standing inside something holy, feeling small and significant at the same time. On the drive back, I stopped at a roadside stand for Navajo fry bread, and the woman working there asked where I'd been.

"Antelope Canyon," I said, still feeling slightly dazed.

"That place has a way of rearranging things inside you, doesn't it?"

The fry bread was perfectly crispy and messy, and I ate it sitting on my rental car hood, watching the sunset and thinking about how paying attention might be its own form of prayer.

What I Actually Learned (That You Can't Get from Instagram)

Sedona taught me something I hadn't expected: that I could trust myself again.

For months, I'd been following other people's advice about how to heal, what to do, where to go. I read the articles, followed the wellness influencers, tried to manufacture the "right" kind of transformation. But in Sedona, something shifted. I extended my stay twice, because my body said "not yet" and for the first time in years, I listened.

I said yes to the tuning fork woman even though it seemed ridiculous. I wore bright pink because it felt right. I wrote three words in my journal and called it done. These were small decisions, but they were my decisions, made without consulting the productivity playbook or waiting for external validation.

The deer bowing was just a moment that happened because I was finally present enough to receive it. And maybe that's the real lesson: healing is about slowly rebuilding trust in your own instincts, in your own timing, in your own strange and specific way of moving through the world.

I'd spent so long optimizing and performing that I'd forgotten how to simply be, to make choices based on what felt alive rather than what looked right. Sedona gave me that back, one small decision at a time.

For Anyone Considering Their Own Sabbatical

If you're thinking about taking extended time off, here's what I wish someone had told me: You won't figure everything out. You won't come back "fixed" with a perfect plan for your life.

But you might remember that you can trust yourself. That your instincts still work. That you're allowed to change your mind, extend your stay, wear different colors, or spend an hour doing absolutely nothing because it feels right.

Sometimes transformation is the gradual remembering that you know yourself better than any article, any expert, any well-meaning friend ever could.

And sometimes, if you're quiet enough and present enough, a deer might stop by to remind you that you're exactly where you need to be.

Sometimes Your Body Knows Better Than Your Pinterest Board: Lessons from the Nicoya Peninsula

I had it all planned out. Costa Rica was going to be my comeback story: you know, the kind where you post photos of yourself doing sunrise yoga on the beach with captions like "Found my flow 🧘‍♀️✨ #PuraVida #Blessed."

My Pinterest board was basically adventure fantasy on steroids. Women zip-lining through emerald canopies, swimming under secret waterfalls, all looking like they'd unlocked the meaning of life and had really good Wi-Fi while doing it.

Reality? I spent most of the trip looking like a plague victim who could barely make it from the bed to the bathroom.

When Your Body Decides to Vacation Differently

I should have seen it coming. Even before I left Nicaragua, I had that scratchy throat thing happening: you know, when your body starts sending those "we need to talk" signals that you pretend are just allergies.

By the time I got to my beachfront hotel (birthday splurge, because I'm worth it, right?), I was full-on sick. Like, the kind of sick where breathing feels like work and you start questioning every life choice that led you to this moment.

The hotel manager greeted me with a fresh coconut and this huge smile. "Pura vida! Welcome to paradise!"

I tried to smile back, but a coughing fit that sounded like a dying seal killed that vibe pretty quickly. His face went from "welcome to paradise" to "oh honey, you need help."

"Perhaps señorita would like to rest first?" he said gently. "The ocean will still be here tomorrow."

Translation: "Please don't die in our lobby."

Happy Birthday to... Me?

My birthday was day two, and I rallied just enough to drag myself to the gift shop to buy the strongest cold medicine they had. I clutched that bottle like it was the holy grail, convinced I could medicate my way back to my Pinterest fantasy.

That night, I forced myself to go to dinner because damn it, it was my birthday and I was going to sit at a table like a functioning human. I ate fish stew while the sun set over the ocean, completely alone. No one knew it was my birthday. I didn't tell anyone. There was no cake, no singing, just me and my congestion having a quiet celebration.

Very glamorous. Very "living my best life."

Day three? My body doubled down on the rebellion. I woke up with a fever AND my period decided to crash the party two days early, because apparently my uterus has a sense of humor.

I was officially the saddest woman in paradise.

When the Storm Cleared (Inside and Out)

That night, a thunderstorm rolled in. One of those tropical storms that feels like the sky is having its own breakdown. The rain pounded the roof, lightning lit up the ocean, and I dragged myself out to the hammock on my patio because lying in bed felt too much like giving up entirely.

I wrapped myself in a blanket and just existed there. Swaying slightly. Watching the storm move across the water. No phone, no thoughts about what I should be doing, just me and the weather having a moment.

At some point, the fever fog lifted just enough for me to notice a night heron perched on the railing. This bird was completely unbothered by the storm, just standing there in the rain like it had all the time in the world. We stared at each other for what felt like forever.

"You look how I feel," I told it.

The heron didn't move. Just kept standing there, waiting out the storm.

Something about that shifted in me. Not everything requires a response. Not everything needs to be fixed or optimized or turned into a lesson. Sometimes you just stand in the rain until it passes.

What Paradise Actually Taught Me

By day four, my fever broke and I could finally venture onto the beach. I didn't zip-line or find hidden waterfalls. I laid in the sand like a beached whale and watched horses trot by.

A little kid was building a sandcastle nearby, completely absorbed in getting the towers just right. Watching her made me realize I hadn't been that focused on anything in months, except maybe my to-do list and whether I was optimizing my life correctly.

Some woman selling bracelets stopped by my chair. "The horses always find their way back," she said, watching me watch them.

I bought a blue bracelet with shells. She tied it around my wrist and said, "For finding your way home."

I didn't know if she meant the hotel or something deeper, but either way, it felt right.

The Unglamorous Truth About Healing

I never posted those Pinterest-perfect photos. My Instagram from that week was basically crickets. No sunrise yoga, no waterfall selfies, no profound captions about finding myself.

What I did find was this: sometimes your body knows what you need better than your Pinterest board does. Sometimes rest looks like being horizontal for three days straight. Sometimes paradise is just a place where you're allowed to be sick without anyone expecting you to be productive about it.

And sometimes the universe teaches you through a stubborn heron that the storm will pass, whether you do anything about it or not.

Would I go back? Absolutely. But next time I'm leaving the Pinterest board at home and packing better cold medicine.

Because sometimes paradise is about learning that you don't have to earn your right to rest, even when your body forces the lesson on you.

The San Juan del Sur Retreat That Reminded Me How to Breathe Again

By the time I got off the plane in Nicaragua, I was already second-guessing everything. The twelve-hour layover in Miami had been brutal: those awful fluorescent airport lights and the constant hum of air conditioning in some sketchy hotel room. I felt completely drained and honestly started wondering if this whole trip was a huge mistake. Like, was the universe trying to tell me something here?

But then something shifted on the drive from the airport.

The air was thick and warm, and it just wrapped around me in this weirdly comforting way. My driver Manuel kept pointing things out: people on motorcycles, kids playing soccer in a field, and I swear there was a guy walking his pig on a leash. Everything felt so unhurried compared to the chaos I'd just left behind.

For the first time in forever, that constant anxious buzz in my head started to fade. Just a little. Just enough to notice.

When Things Got Messy (Because Of Course They Did)

The retreat place was gorgeous: these little villas scattered up a hillside overlooking the Pacific. I thought, "Okay, finally I can relax."

That lasted about five minutes.

Turns out most of the group was from some boxing gym in New York, and I immediately felt like the outsider. And just like that, all my old habits kicked in. I started being overly nice, trying not to take up too much space, basically shrinking myself to fit in. Which was exactly what I'd come here to stop doing.

Luna, the breathwork teacher, seemed to sense my discomfort. She gently reminded us that everyone had a place here. But did I say anything about how I was feeling? Of course not. I didn't want to be "that person" who makes things awkward. So I just wrote in my journal instead: "Don't abandon your peace to make others comfortable."

It's funny how you can travel thousands of miles and still end up having to learn the same damn lesson.

What I Learned from a Sloth and a Stubborn Horse

My first night there, I slept for sixteen hours straight. This was like my body finally giving me permission to completely crash. I've been running on fumes for so long that I'd forgotten what real rest even felt like.

A few days later, I'm looking out my window and there's this sloth just hanging out on a branch. At first I thought it was kind of silly. Like, what's the big deal about a sloth being slow? But then I realized I was watching it the way I watch everything else, expecting some kind of performance or progress.

This sloth was just existing. Not apologizing for taking up space, not rushing to be somewhere else, not performing productivity for anyone.

I sat there for probably twenty minutes just watching it stretch and move at its own pace. And somewhere in those twenty minutes, I started to breathe differently. Not the shallow, efficient breaths I usually take, but these long, slow inhales that actually filled my lungs.

When's the last time I'd moved through my day without this underlying urgency? When had I last done anything without mentally calculating if I was being "productive" enough?

This lesson got even more real during a sunset horseback ride. My horse was named Dulce (Sweet), but she was anything but. This girl decided she was tired and just laid down in the sand, no matter how much anyone coaxed her to get up. She was done, and she was completely unapologetic about it.

I kind of loved her for that.

Learning to Breathe (And Let Go)

The whole retreat was focused on breathwork, which was new territory for me. Apparently I've been taking these tiny, shallow breaths for years without even realizing it. My body constantly braced, like it was waiting for the next crisis.

During one session, I felt this single tear slowly roll down my cheek. Just one, quiet and unexpected. I didn't even know where it came from or why.

But I realized something: I hold my breath constantly, like my body is perpetually preparing for impact. That one session gave me a small release I hadn't known I needed.

Another day, while everyone else was boxing, I snuck off to sit alone in the pool. I didn't talk, didn't overthink, just let the sun hit my skin. It was this deeper kind of rest I hadn't experienced in I don't even know how long.

Not Quite an Ending

On my last morning, the group surprised me with a little birthday thing, which was both mortifying and really sweet. We all rode to the border together, and when they headed to their flights, I got in another car. This time by myself, heading to my next stop.

My new driver glanced at me in the rearview mirror and asked how the retreat went.

"Honestly? I'm not sure yet," I told him. "But I think I remembered how to breathe."

He just nodded. "That sounds like a good start."

This was just a small crack in the armor, barely noticeable but definitely there. I was heading to Costa Rica next, carrying these tiny shifts with me.

Sometimes that's how change actually happens. In learning to notice the small stuff. In stopping the constant apologizing. In remembering that breathing fully is actually an option.

That feels like enough to build on, at least for now.

The Week I Became a Professional Paperweight in Scottsdale

I showed up in Scottsdale with this vague but hopeful plan for transformation? Peace? I don't know, something good. The resort looked like it came straight out of a wellness influencer's fever dream: all terra cotta and perfectly placed cacti, with that signature hotel smell that's supposed to make you instantly zen.

None of it worked on me.

My room was the darkest cave I've ever stayed in during all my travels. While everyone else was probably soaking up that famous Arizona sunshine, I was living like a vampire in what felt like a sensory deprivation tank. And honestly? I was the main attraction in my own pathetic little show.

When Your Body Calls in Sick to Life

The pressure to actually enjoy this expensive trip was crushing. I'd go down to the hotel restaurant and see all these other guests looking so purposeful. Like they had their shit together and were here to optimize their chakras or whatever. I'd last maybe twenty minutes before bailing back to my room, leaving behind an $18 smoothie because I just couldn't handle all that collective enthusiasm.

My body, which usually runs on pure stubbornness and caffeine, was completely tapped out. Sleep felt more like my system just shutting down for emergency maintenance. I'd wake up with no idea what time it was or sometimes even what day. My brain felt like it was trying to think through cement, and the idea of going outside seemed as realistic as climbing Everest in flip-flops.

I was basically a very expensive human paperweight at this point.

Food became this weird, mechanical thing. Room service was just fuel delivery. I'd order something, eat it without tasting much, repeat. I got no joy from it, no real nourishment. Even the idea of "self-care" felt completely hollow. Like, what's the point of a jade roller when you can barely remember to drink water?

This was falling apart in slow motion in a really nice hotel.

The Guilt Trip Nobody Asked For

Of course my brain wouldn't shut up about what a waste this all was. That lovely inner critic kept reminding me how much money I was spending to lie in a dark room like some kind of wellness failure. I had a book sitting there unread. My suitcase stayed mostly packed because even unpacking felt like too much commitment to existing.

The gap between what I thought a sabbatical should look like and what was actually happening felt enormous. Where was the meditation? The journaling breakthroughs? The Instagram-worthy sunrise yoga?

But somewhere in all that emptiness, something clicked.

I was finally figuring out what rest actually was.

All this time I'd been thinking rest meant sleep, or a weekend trip, or just "not working." But real rest? The kind you need when you've been running on fumes for years? It's your body staging an intervention. It's the complete system shutdown that happens when there's literally nothing left in the tank.

My nervous system had been stuck in fight-or-flight mode for who knows how long, and it finally gave up the fight. I was finally letting myself fall apart, which apparently is a very different thing.

Tiny Wins in the Land of Giving Up

On my last day, something small shifted.

I woke up actually wanting food with flavor for the first time all week. I ordered huevos rancheros and could actually taste the different parts: the spice, the egg, the way it all came together. A tiny signal that maybe I was still in there somewhere.

Later, I cracked the curtains open just a sliver and sat in that thin slice of sunlight, watching dust particles float around. They were just existing in the light, getting moved around by invisible currents. Something about that felt weirdly comforting.

I'd put my regular life on pause and given myself permission to just be empty for a while. To stop performing, even for myself.

What the Desert Actually Gave Me

When I checked out, the front desk person asked cheerfully how my stay was.

For a second I thought about lying, saying it was "rejuvenating" or "restorative" or some other wellness buzzword people expect to hear.

Instead I said, "It was a start."

And I meant it.

The desert held space for my complete collapse without judgment. It just sat there being harsh and resilient and patient, like, "Yeah, this is how survival works sometimes. You endure the hard stuff without constantly moving."

I still had no plan or vision or clarity about the future. But I had this quiet, fragile sense that something was shifting. Something outside that dark room, and something deeper.

Maybe falling apart is sometimes the only way healing can even begin.