#126 Reflections from My First Retreat

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Hey, this is Melissa Parsons, and you are listening to the Your Favorite You Podcast. I'm a certified life coach with an advanced certification in deep dive coaching. The purpose of this podcast is to help brilliant women like you with beautiful brains create the life you've been dreaming of with intentions. My goal is to help you find your favorite version of you by teaching you how to treat yourself as your own best friend.

If this sounds incredible to you and you want practical tips on changing up how you treat yourself, then you're in the right place. Just so you know, I'm a huge fan of using all of the words available to me in the English language, so please proceed with caution if young ears are around.

Oh my word, y'all. Welcome back to the podcast. 

You are getting me on a very natural high today. I just returned home from my first ever retreat that I've hosted. I've participated, of course, in several, but have never been the fearless leader. And let me tell you, it was amazing. 

I'm going to try to put into words some indescribable experiences. So please bear with me. So I have been kicking around the idea of hosting a retreat for some time now. And after I went and spent a long weekend in Toronto at a Liz Gilbert and Martha Beck event with a bunch of other healers, so coaches, therapists, physicians, physician coaches, hopefully you get the idea, I was determined to make it happen for my clients. 

Many of them had been asking me to host my own retreat because I often share with them the insights and healings and fun that I have when I go as a retreat participant. So I decided after coming back from this event that I was going to do it. 

My usual MO for these kinds of things is to look at like 20 different places and weigh the pros and the cons and get myself all tangled up and confused. And for me it just makes it easy to say fuck it, throw in the towel, kick the can further down the road. 

So I decided to do things differently this time. The first place that I clicked on when I searched retreat centers on Google was the Jungle Kiva Tulum. The photos and the videos and the text on the page were immediately soothing and calming to me. 

I reached out to the owner, Kendall. She is very responsive and made me feel like she could of course help me curate my perfect retreat for my women. So every interaction that I had with Kendall, the owner of Jungle Kiva Tulum, put me more and more at ease. 

She kept saying of course we can do that or that's no problem or yes we've done that before, no biggie. And she was offering me ideas. to enhance my ideas to make the retreat even better. She really was the perfect person to help coordinate my first retreat with. 

So I'm so grateful that I followed my intuition and did not do my normal thing of comparing and despairing over the quote unquote, right choice to make. I had some fun selling this retreat. My clients in my current groups were mostly easy yeses. 

Though we did have a few of the women need to say no to this retreat, all for good reasons. One was over 34 weeks pregnant. Another was just starting a new job that we had coached on her getting. And the third of my current group has a son in the middle of a very busy downhill ski racing competition season. 

So she was not able to attend and we miss them and brought them up with love when we were toasting one another with our hibiscus tea or with our coffee. So ladies who wanted to come this time, but weren't able, if your ears were burning while we were on this retreat, we were missing you with love. 

That was no mistake. I also had a few of my former clients say yes to themselves and to the retreat. And then one of my current clients brought a friend. She didn't buy her friend. She brought her friend, someone who's new to me but not new to self-development. 

So it was fun to have someone there that I had not yet coached. The anticipation of this trip was also incredible. I started following Jungle Kiva Tulum on social media. And every time they posted, it gave me and the other ladies something to look forward to. 

Now, normally the anticipation that I have for a trip like this outdoes the actual trip. And I'm thrilled to report that that was not the case for this retreat. Everyone that went, including me, kept remarking that the retreat exceeded our expectations in every way. 

I knew in my heart that it was going to be incredible but I had no idea just how incredible it would turn out. We all had pretty seamless travel to and from Tulum. Many but not all of us were on the same flights to and from Mexico. 

The Tulum airport is very new. It just opened last year in 2024 and it's very easy to navigate and I have a feeling with all the construction and growth that we saw in Tulum that they were going to have to expand the airport sooner rather than later. 

We were lucky and we were able to coordinate everyone to arrive around the same time and once everyone was through Immigrations and Customs we were picked up by our suite driver Guillermo and transported to the Jungle Kiva. 

During the taxi ride I took some time to set the coaching container so I gave everyone some rules and guidelines so that we could all feel safe while we were retreating together. And then once we arrived at the Jungle Kiva, we were met by Kendall, the owner, her son, Jake, who I somehow mistakenly called Alex for a full day before realizing my error. 

And not one of the assholes with me, I say that with love, ladies. Not one of them corrected me until I said, wait, is that his name? And then they were like, no, I think it's Jake. So then I yelled at Jake and the women with me to please correct me if I'm calling you by a name that is not yours. 

I can take it. It's okay. And now that I'm thinking back on it, I may have been channeling my dad at the time. He often confidently called people by the complete wrong name. And I'm thinking about it. 

At least I come by it honestly. Kendall, Jake, and Jesus, one of the housekeepers, got us all squared away in our rooms. We took some time to freshen up from our travels. And then we had a snack prepared by our amazing private chefs. 

Soon after that, I invited everyone to participate in an icebreaker activity where we answer fun questions about ourselves to get to know each other better. I loved it. And I don't think I was alone. 

Most people hate icebreakers, and I don't really love them either. But it was fun. And we had a lot of laughs and a few tears, even at the icebreaker portion of the day. We then sat down to an incredible three-course meal. 

Each thing prepared fresh for us in the kitchen right there, Jungle Kiva. And after dinner, I asked the retreaters some questions with the intent to help them set an intention for what they wanted to get out of the retreat. 

Why did they come? What did they hope to get out of it? And they journaled on those questions that I provided, and then we shared a little bit. The first night was an early night for everyone as we'd all gotten up pretty early to make the trek from Ohio, Florida, and Texas to Tulum. 

The next morning, everyone slept very well. The beds and the pillows at Jungle Kiva are top-notch. Kendall told us on our last day that she had tested several different types of mattresses before picking out the ones we were sleeping on. 

So thank you for doing that research, Kendall. Your attention to detail definitely was apparent in every aspect of our lodging. So that morning, we awoke to coffee and tea and tropical fruit to munch on before our first yoga session with the absolutely marvelous Natalia. 

You can follow her at No Drama Yoga on Instagram, all one word, N-O-Drama, D-R-A-M-A, Yoga, Y-O-G-A, on Instagram. So she took us through gentle, slow reflections, breathing, and movement. She is the real deal. 

She studied yoga for several years in Nepal and has been teaching for over 10 years. So many of my ladies said it was the best yoga class that they had ever attended. And one of my ladies, it was her first introduction to yoga. 

So she got to have an amazing teacher. What a beautiful introduction to this beautiful practice. So after we did our movement, she had us reflect on the class in a circle. And again, lots of laughs, lots of tears. 

And it feels so good to feel those feelings, my friends. It really is truly cleansing. So after yoga, we had a fresh and delicious brunch. Then we got to coaching. There were several ahas. The women achieved so much clarity, lots of laughter, appropriate, maybe swearing mostly by me, and some tears. 

And everyone left that first coaching session feeling freer than when we started, which I don't know if there's any better feeling to feel than free, honestly. There was some time in the afternoon to rest and read and relax and chat with one another without any coaching. 

And then later in the afternoon, a gentleman named Diego and his brother Omar came to set up for our sound healing. And Diego said at the start that one session of sound healing does not make for complete healing, as with everything. 

So he likes to call these one time sessions sound medicine. Now again, any description that I give to you of what happened next will completely undersell what happens during a sound medicine ceremony. 

Suffice it to say that he offered that we did not have to think about anything at all, that if thoughts came up, we could notice them, acknowledge them, and let them float away in a cloud. And then for the next hour, we lay in a circle with our heads toward the middle. 

And Diego and Omar made sounds and music and when I tell you we all felt like we left the planet for a bit and then he gently brought us back to earth, that's all I can tell you because I was a participant too. 

No one knew exactly what to expect with this but we all came to the conclusion that we all need more frequency and vibration in our life in the form of music. I'm going to ask the retreat participants to come on the podcast in the future to discuss all of this and we'll see if they can come up with a better description for all of you. 

I doubt it but I'm sure these amazing women will try, right? After the sound medicine we again ate a beautiful dinner together, we laughed and cried at dinner, and then we had an early night again anticipating going to the cenotes the following day. 

The next morning we taught each other how to use the French press to make coffee because we were all feeling officially pretty fancy by this point. We had breakfast before being picked up for our cenote tour, and once again, the people that Kendall, the owner of Jungle Kiva, put us into contact with were all magnificent. 

I'm really running out of adjectives here. Pablo was our tour guide for the cenote tour. He gave us an earth science lecture on the way to the cenotes that made me wish that he was my earth science teacher in high school. 

It is fascinating how these cenotes have formed over the millennia. Pablo had the best laugh that we all love, so we tried to make him laugh at every turn, and one of the retreaters suggested that I get his laugh on video so that we could take him home with us. 

I did that, by the way, so we can all hear Pablo's infectious laugh anytime we need to pick me up. At the cenotes, we were offered the opportunity to not only swim and canoe in the cenotes, but to zipline over them as well. 

For some of us, our growth was to say yes to the scary zipline. For some of us, our growth was to say yes to seeing the cenotes from high above. For some of us, our growth was to say no, thank you, and stay on solid ground and rest in a hammock unapologetically, so we did that. 

We also had the opportunity to jump from a cliff into the cenote. We also ziplined to the center of a cenote before letting go and dropping in the water. Again, some of us participated and some of us did not. 

We all cheered for each other, though, and we celebrated listening to our bodies and their wisdom. Sometimes the answer our body gives us is a yes, and sometimes it's a no. We can celebrate listening for the answer and following through so that we can learn to trust ourselves. 

After all that adventure, Pablo showed us that the Mayan people who work at the park where the cenotes are also live on that path. land. So we walked past their simple, beautiful homes and their community on our way to lunch, which was prepared there in the traditional Mayan way. 

Every bite was scrumptious. Many of us also enjoyed some strong Mayan coffee, dipped out of like this huge vat into a tiny cup. And it was such yummy coffee, like yummy coffee in the middle of the jungle. 

Sign me up. And then on the drive home, we stopped at Kendall's favorite gelato shop and Pablo bought us all gelato. So it was quite an adventure. After all of that, walking and hiking and ziplining and canoeing and swimming, we were ready for our massages. 

And each of us got a 90 minute massage. Four of us went first and then four of us went second. So if you weren't getting your massage, you had downtime to journal, rest, read, anything quiet so as not to disturb the women getting their massages. 

And again, Kendall vetted this group of women who came to love on our muscles and fascia. Apparently they're all single mamas and they are all incredible at their calling of being massage therapists. 

We were all very relaxed after that. And that day we saved our coaching until after dinner and we stayed up late, at least late for me to make sure that everyone got the coaching that they wanted that day. 

And then it was our last full day. Again, we woke to fruit and coffee. We were all so looking forward to seeing Natalia again for yoga. We had an amazing practice once again, lots of breathing or pranayama exercises to help us when we're back at home and trying to regulate our nervous systems. 

Natalia was so sweet. She stayed and drank coffee with us while we ate our brunch. And of course the messages that she shared with us over coffee were some of the same ones that we had been working on already that week. 

And I just love it when that happens. When my people get the same loving messages from me and then from others, it seems like the universe always knows what we need to hear over and over again from different sources. 

One of my clients had asked the prior day if we could somehow go to see the beach and put our feet in the Tulum sand. The place where we were staying was about 15 minutes away from the beaches of Tulum. 

So Kendall was again able to arrange Guillermo to come and pick us up at Cinco Tulum, a beach club in one of the preserve parks in Tulum. So we took our journals and we did our coaching session at the beautiful beach. 

Let me tell you nothing beats coaching at the beach. After we were done coaching, we had time to relax and read or to walk on the beach or stand in the waves. It was just perfect. Guillermo got us back to the Jungle Kiva just in time to wash the sand off of our bodies and get ready for our cacao ceremony with Amaya Dominguez. 

She is a seventh-generation Mayan medicine woman. Amaya doesn't speak English fluently, so we had a beautiful translator who helped us communicate together. Again, any words I used to describe the ceremony would be woefully inadequate, so I won't even try. 

Let's just say that Amaya has ancestors and tradition and a knowing on her side. She had never met any of us, I had never spoken to her, she had no idea who we are, and she had some very pointed messages for us when the ceremony was over. 

Again, the messages shared were what we'd been coaching on for the week. It was really pretty magical. We had our final dinner together after the cacao ceremony, and I gave my retreaters some stationery to write a letter to themselves that I would take home and send to them in a few months. 

I have shamelessly stolen this idea from Miraval. They do the same thing, and I love receiving the letters to myself from myself months later, so I wanted everyone to have this experience coming home from the retreat too. 

So I asked them to write a letter to remind themselves what they intended to get out of the retreat, what they actually got out of it, and what they wanted to have as a reminder in a few months. The next morning we had a lazy morning, waking up to breakfast and slowly packing our belongings to go home. 

Some of my lovely retreaters took the morning to write their letters to themselves. I asked them to be completely honest with me about anything that I should add, change, do differently, take away. They all said they would not change a thing except to maybe add a day to the retreat. 

So I love that they had a great time, and they were still wanting more. That makes me so happy. So needless to say, this will be happening again. So all of you who wanted to come this time, but something got in the way. 

Maybe it was just you who got in the way. That was some of the coaching we actually did on this retreat. My clients were grateful to themselves that they decided that they were quote-unquote enough to book this retreat. 

Grateful that they stopped talking themselves out of coming and just said yes. And to all of you who messaged me or one of the other retreat participants and said, I'm coming next time, know that there will be a next time, likely sooner rather than later because I really, really, really loved my time with all of you in Tulum. 

Okay, folks, until then, keep listening.

Hey - It’s still me. Since you are listening to this podcast, you very likely have followed all the rules and ticked off all the boxes but you still feel like something's missing! If you're ready to learn the skills and gain the tools you need to tiptoe into putting yourself first and treating yourself as you would your own best friend, I'm here to support you. As a general life coach for women, I provide a safe space, compassionate guidance, and practical tools to help you navigate life's challenges as you start to get to know and embrace your authentic self.

When we work together, you begin to develop a deeper understanding of your thoughts, emotions, and behaviors. You learn effective communication strategies, boundary-setting techniques, and self-care practices that will help you cultivate a more loving and supportive relationship with yourself and others.

While, of course, I can't guarantee specific outcomes, as everyone's journey is brilliantly unique, what I can promise is my unwavering commitment to providing you with the skills, tools, support, and guidance you need to create lasting changes in your life. With humor and a ton of compassion, I'll be available to mentor you as you do the work to become a favorite version of yourself.

You're ready to invest in yourself and embark on this journey, so head over to melissaparsonscoaching.com, go to the work with me page, and book a consultation call. We can chat about all the support I can provide you with as we work together.

I am welcoming one-on-one coaching clients at this time, and, of course, I am also going to be offering the next round of group coaching soon. 

Thanks for tuning in. Go be amazing!