That Magic Moment

My Retreat Story in Yelapa, Mexico

Daily meditations in nature, yoga overlooking the ocean, waterfall hikes, journaling in a hammock, therapeutic massages, organic food, energy healing, somatic movement and dance, all of these amenities had opened me and released me from within myself to prepare for this moment. You know that magic moment we sign up for when we expectingly book a retreat with the hopes it will serve to be transformational? The story I’m going to tell you was that moment.

I laid there in an (almost) strangers arms in the ocean water waiting to take control of my body and submerge me under water.

She placed a nose clip on my nostrils to protect me from inhaling water droplets before she would submerge my body.

We had been here before about three days prior in an earlier session and I simply could not do it. On that day I had given her back the nose clip and asked her to continue with the floating and stretching exercises instead.

Immediately upon her placing the nose clip over my nostrils I began to sob.

The fear of letting go of control was so intense that it shook my body. Allowing someone to submerge you into the water served as a symbolic metaphor to releasing control and letting God submerge you into the divine plan for your life.

How could I let go? My childhood has taught me you could not always trust to be secure and held. How could the universe truly support me if I let go? How could God really be that good? Tears streamed down my cheeks into the pool as I laid there floating, the energy from these thoughts released from my body. My body shook with the choice to surrender.

My watsu instructor waited patiently to sense the energetic shift that my body was ready to be submerged and my soul ready to surrender. As that moment presented, she slowly cradled my head and put me under water. There I laid repeating affirmations that I am held, I am safe, I am provided for. Not knowing when my next breath would be I just let go. My body fell limp and I waited enjoying the floating. Enjoying the unknown. Releasing my entire being to the Creator.

In that very moment my last molecule of oxygen left my lungs and felt my body being lifted to the surface.

I breathed in the breath of life that is always provided for us, just like direction to our next step, just like abundance for our every need.

We repeated this exercise a few more times, each time maneuvering my body deeper, more and more fear leaving my body.

At the peak moment of free flow and surrender, my instructor began flipping my body in full circles under water. I could feel the Spirit speaking to me that this would be the way I would carry out the next season of my life. To be guided, held, submerged, even flipped at times not knowing the future as I released total control.

After the finale with my instructor, she lifted me to the surface overlooking the ocean. Just as we had finished our dance, two giant humpback whales finished their play, taking their final flip in unison back into the water, portraying the dance I just had with the Spirit.

My instructor had witnessed the entire scene and was speechless. Neither one of us could deny the synchronicity of these whales guarding my experience and creating a beautiful scenic metaphor.

I had fully released. I had fully surrendered. Yet in this moment I had never felt so fully alive in freedom and abundant in security.

This water healing practice, called watsu, served as a divine moment offering me the chance to completely let go and surrender in my life.

This year I knew the Spirit gave me the word “surrender”. Now I know to call it my surrender experiment of 2021.

The days leading up to this moment I cried at the thought of going home to be honest. I had not realized the walls I had created around myself, my work, my heart; keeping the divine from taking over.

I have built an inspired business in 1.5 years; exceeding influence and revenue beyond my dreams. I founded a Spirit-led nonprofit changing the lives of women. Yet I feel like a slave to my own reality some days. I love the work I do, there’s nothing else I’d rather be doing. Even though this work was spoken into my heart by God, the way I had been doing the work was crippling my soul. In fact, the perfect state I had healed my physical body into had began to dissipate as well. Old patterns and ways of knowing, deeply ingrained into me, had taught me to work hard and just be thankful you’re a slave to whatever you do. But now… now I’m able to flow instead of grind. I’ve become a vessel instead of a victim. I’m allowing my masculine implementer serve my feminine creator. I’m fully releasing and surrendering to God allowing my work to come through me instead of from me.

Several others on the retreat had their magic moment too. Addictions dropped, the presence of God felt, awakenings beyond all imagination took place in this magical place called Yelapa. This is why I encourage all of us to take a retreat. To leave the fear. To leave the rat race, the hamster wheel, the matrix and reprogram ourselves on a soul level for a better way of living. I have never been more connected to my Creator and clear about the path ahead of me than after this retreat.

So what are you waiting for?

Break old habits.

Abandon patterns that plague you.

Have your God moment or many.

Join me on my next retreat this June or build a retreat of your own.

Plain and simple- just retreat!