Four years ago, I was struggling pretty hard, mentally. In short, I was telling myself a really terrible story about myself, living inside my failures, unable to really see anything positive I was doing (work-wise). This was around the time when TikTok disrupted media so much, dispersing the attention away from blogs and even IG (it’s shifted back, thank god), which affected all of our numbers drastically. So my reliance on social media had to increase. And listen, I’m extremely grateful for social media because it basically supports my team and my family, but living inside it can be super toxic if you aren’t mentally taking care of yourself, which apparently I wasn’t at the time. I constantly compared myself to others (my looks, my weight, my likes/views, my house, even just sheer volume of content I was able or unable to produce). I only saw myself falling short, looking old, and not performing at the level that others were. And then I shamed myself for caring about all of those things, knowing that I was also failing at being as evolved as I thought I was. And while I was proud of the boundaries that I had in place to protect my time with my kids (done by 5 pm, no weekend posting), it seemed as though restricting my social media usage wasn’t good for business. So I felt trapped – not wanting to sacrifice my time with my kids for something that I didn’t value, but fearful that if I didn’t, the business would dive off a cliff, and then what? While I never wanted to fully give up, I stopped saying yes to annual contracts or anything that would lock me in for more than a few months, giving myself the out if I needed it, or just a sabbatical to be able to rethink it all with a clear head. And then I would feel so much guilt and shame around that – to even think about giving up a career that provided so much autonomy, fun, and financial security felt like a slap in the face to everyone else stuck in jobs that they actively didn’t like. I still loved the work, and I adored my team, but I didn’t feel like I was good at parts of it anymore (mostly the social media part). I was just beating myself to a pulp. I worried severely that I was a relic from the past, totally irrelevant and not keeping up with the times (let alone the Joneses). I was really grateful for everything my career had given us, but I was so clouded by my negative self-talk that I was spiritually very sick. I needed a massive mental shift. Outwardly, I was still positive; only Brian and my closest friends knew I was struggling. It’s not that I thought my life sucked, just that I sucked. It was a genuine midlife career crisis, a spiral so long and deep that I didn’t know how to reset it on my own. 

For years, I had done a winter girls trip with my three best friends from childhood, but this year was a 911 for me. These are my soul sisters (so cheesy, but no other descriptors make sense). Thirty-five years of friendship, support, and deep spiritual connection. The four of us are open to anything (we’ve always incorporated some sort of spirituality in our weekends – sound baths, tarot, mediums, spiritual counselors, etc). So I pitched a “wellness resort” – Canyon Ranch in Tucson (I admittedly cringe at the word ‘wellness’ these days). My newly minted sister-in-law worked there at the time and could get us all 90% off with a friends and family discount. What was typically $1,200 per person, per day, would be $120 for us. Truly insane. The kicker? No alcohol. No sipping on wine. No end-of-day martinis. But it was planned for January when I don’t drink anyway, so we were like, yeah, let’s go for it. (Canyon Ranch now has some alcohol, but it’s restricted to just an hour happy hour.)

One of my best friends brought us all the book Super Attractor by Gabrielle Bernstein. Admittedly, it’s a TERRIBLE cover, but I was willing to do/read anything that might help (and honestly, sometimes the exact material doesn’t matter; it’s the act and dedication to the process that is effective). I dove headfirst into it, doing the work (mantras, journaling, dismantling my blockages, calling on my spiritual guide). I’m a good student, and while skeptical, I had had a few spiritual experiences in the past that changed my life/perspective, so this didn’t feel too foreign to me. And this 100% changed my life (again). I’ve read a lot of these books and they all circle the same things (The Four Agreements, Lacy Phillips’s How to Manifest and Many Lives, Many Masters also had massive impacts) but I think this one hit harder not just because of how she writes (which is friendly and entertaining) but because of this combination of the weekend – exercise, friends, sleep, time, nature, space. I also just started Tara Swart’s The Signs. Her first book The Source, was more about manifestation (she’s a neuroscientist), but this one is about talking to the other side, and it’s WILD.

We exercised 2-4 hours a day (including hiking), ate so healthily, slept so much, read, journaled and then verbally digested for hours with my best friends, who were reading the exact same book. 

It was an epiphany. I felt watered and fed on all levels, and I was bursting with new growth. I came back from that weekend bouncing off the walls, filled with so much love, not just from my friends and me, but from the universe/God. I know how that sounds, but there is no other way to say it. I was so positive, filled with lightness, I saw everything so differently, like I was literally wearing rose colored glasses. The same things that triggered me 6 days before, I now saw as a gift, an opportunity, a fun challenge. It wasn’t that “only” 60k people viewed my reel, it was “how lucky am I that 60k people viewed our reel”. 

Ladies, we can not make meaningful change without giving ourselves healthy time and space away from our triggers and chaos to dive into learning and growing. You can’t just “get better” or “figure things out,” especially if you are a working mom, which means you have two full-time jobs, ripped apart on a daily basis, desperate to be great at both, and likely beating yourself up for falling short at all. 

We went back three more times to Canyon Ranch (once just Brian and me) until my sister in law stopped working there. But I’ve now re-prioritized my girls’ weekends to be focused on feeling better (inside and out) instead of just “fun”. Life is just too short to come back needing to recover. Obviously, these weekends are very, very fun, too, just in a different way.

I’ve now been to 6 different “wellness resorts” (none as high-end as Canyon Ranch, but some even better in my opinion). If you are interested, I could review them all. It’s a bougie topic for sure (even having the time to get away is a privilege, let alone the budget) – so I want to make sure the appetite is there. I’ve even conducted 2 DIY retreats at Airbnbs when we wanted to save money and get a similar result. When the elements are there, you can kinda do it anywhere.

Now, not everyone is in the same life mind-frame, and this might just seem so boring to some. But it’s all I want to do now, I’ve consistently felt so much improvement in my mental and physical health after each one. If you are interested, I’ll review the resorts that I’ve been to (trust me, it was hard to find reviews online from people I trusted). None were sponsored or discounted; I don’t think I even posted organically while there. Just some middle-aged ladies taking a break from it all to connect with each other and our spirituality, workout, eat healthy foods, read, journal, sleep, spa like crazy, and come home like 40% better humans 🙂