Have you ever had a moment where things just fall into place… perfectly?
Well, thats a bit how my new partnership with SoCal Wellness Retreats came about. I had finally been settling into my new home in San Diego, and started attending a sober yoga class through an amazing organization called The Phoenix. I walked into my first class and was warmly greeted by the kind spirit of Michelle McNicol.
I started to regularly attend her classes and we became fast friends, at which point I learned about another place she taught and worked with— SoCal Wellness Retreats.
She told me about the founder, John Quirk, and his focus in mindfulness, breath work, and meditation. I learned about his story— leaving the corporate world and finding himself again through yoga practice and teaching. I saw photos of their gorgeous retreat oasis here in San Diego, and learned about the physical and emotional benefits you will receive from doing ice bath therapy; something they include in their offerings.
I was entranced, and excitedly scoured their website which led me to learn of their retreats not only in San Diego, but their retreats in Bali, and Costa Rica as well.
John and Michelle collaborate to host retreats focused in Digital Detoxification, Meditation, Yoga practice, and also provide healthy nourishing food to keep you energized throughout the length of your stay. As you all may know by now, I am deeply passionate about living a healthier, happier, more healed life, and wish to spread that joy to everyone I interact with. To meet folx that aligned so closely with this goal, was truly a gift.
At SoCal Wellness Retreats, they work off of three core principles:
“CHANGING YOUR ENVIRONMENT
The first step in true change is to get out of your “known” by changing your physical environment. By changing your physical environment you are immediately creating new neural pathways and the opportunity to have new experiences by stepping into the unknown. By waking up each day and having the same experiences over and over again, we become conditioned to our external environment and it becomes extremely hard to change.
CHANGING YOUR HABITS
In order to create new habits the first step is simply to recognize the ones we have and which ones we would like to change. By stepping out of our day-to-day we get a broad snapshot of our lives and can begin to prune away the thoughts and feelings we want to change, this leads to better decisions and eventually we develop new habits.
CHANGING YOUR LIFE
Whether you want to just feel a bit better, feel a bit more joy or gratitude in your life, or perhaps you need to fully reset, that change begins with a first step and with knowledge. We pride ourselves on meeting you where you are. We have had people come on our retreats that are all ages and all races. The have all kinds of different jobs (especially jobs devoted to helping others). They face all kinds of challenges, but they all have one thing in common, they say “yes” to change.”
I felt incredibly aligned with their mission, and was honored when they found my jewelry equally as enticing. I spent hours researching the exact type of crystal that would bring their guests the added benefits they were looking for, and found Blue Apatite to be most aligned for their purpose.
Blue Apatite is a stone that manifests self reflection, inner clarity, and stimulates an open mind. All of these would allow their guests to flow deeper into their meditative practice, and achieve higher levels of consciousness they had been seeking.
I crafted them a series of custom meditation/ mala bracelets, and they offered these to each of their guests as a thank you gift for their commitment to their health and healing journey.
At the end of each retreat, a closing ceremony is held.
Each guest is given a bracelet of their own, and they stand together to set an intention over their stones. Each person infuses their own intention into each-others bracelets, so that they make carry the beauty and memory of their experience, and the energy of those who helped make it all possible.
It is with endless gratitude that I am able to contribute to this experience through my art. I look forward to the continued impact that John & Michelle have on our communities, and I hope you explore their offerings and treat yourself to the gift of relaxation with SoCal Wellness Retreats in the near future.