The Jungle Called — And I Answered

January 2026 | Costa Rica Ayahuasca Retreat → An Ending & Beginning

There are moments in life that feel less like decisions and more like inevitabilities.

It’s as if something deep inside has already said yes — and the rest of you is just catching up.

Stepping onto a plane bound for Costa Rica in January of this year was one of those moments. My original flight was delayed, and I waited anxiously for 20 long minutes at the customer service counter. Would a seat open up on the otherwise full flight, allowing me to reach CR on time?

If you know anything about preparations for an Ayahuasca retreat, you understand that missing it is not an option!

When the Medicine Finds You

I won’t pretend I stumbled into this lightly. The path to sitting with Ayahuasca — in the heart of the Costa Rican jungle, guided by Soltara and the wisdom of the Shipibo tribe — was, unbeknownst to me, years in the making.

It was built from late nights searching for answers that Western medicine couldn’t provide. Over a decade of study, spiritual work, and discipline shaped my journey. I engaged in whispered conversations with those who had walked their own healing roads, all the while nurturing a quiet, persistent knowing that there was something more I was meant to understand about the body, the spirit, and the sacred space between them.

The jungle in January is alive in a way that humbles you instantly. The air is thick with green. Everything is growing, breathing, moving. You don’t arrive there as a tourist — you arrive as a guest and a student.

What transpired in ceremony is mine to hold close. However, what came out of them — that belongs to this story and to anyone who might need (or want) to hear it.

Integration: The Real Work Begins

Here is what no one fully prepares you for: the ceremony is not the healing. The ceremony is merely the opening.

The real work begins when you return home.

When I came back from Costa Rica, I wasn’t the same person who had packed my bag. I discovered things about myself — my patterns, my purpose, my hiding places — that I couldn’t unknow. With that clarity came something both thrilling and terrifying: responsibility.

I had been handed a vision. Not a vague, floaty feeling of maybe someday — but a clear, grounded, undeniable sense of what I was meant to do with my life. Holistic health integration. Healing the whole person. Bridging the ancient and the modern, the spiritual and the clinical, the intuitive and the evidence-based.

The only question was: would I actually do it?

Starting Over With Almost Nothing (And Everything)

Everyone facilitating your Ayahuasca experience will tell you: Don’t go home and make rash decisions. Don’t quit your job. Don’t sell your house. Go home, integrate, take your time, and use your support.

However, I did not feel that advice applied to me because I had already sold the house, quit the job, and done the things.

Sooooo, I moved.

Not to a place I had lined up in advance. Not to somewhere comfortable and familiar. I moved somewhere new, completely out of my league, with a freshly opened heart and a practice waiting to be built from the ground up.

I want to be honest with you about what that looked like — because the wellness world often makes transformation look clean and photogenic. It is not always clean. It is not always photogenic. It is, however, almost always messy, challenging, and above all, completely terrifying.

There are days I question everything. Days when self-doubt shouts louder than my vision. Days I wonder if what I felt in the jungle was real or just a beautiful story I had told myself.

But here’s what I keep returning to: healing is not a straight line, and neither is the path of someone who teaches it.

In fact, I believe that’s part of what makes this work meaningful. I am not someone who arrived at holistic health from a place of ease. I came here the long, hard way — through searching, struggling, and sitting in the dark. I was called stubborn, hard-headed, cold-hearted, inconsiderate... the list could go on.

Why This Blog Exists

This is the first piece of a series I’ve been contemplating for a while now.

I want to share my story — not from the beginning moving forward, but from right now, moving backward.

We’ll start here, in 2026, with the jungle, the new city, and the practice being born. Over time, I’ll take you further back — to what led me here, what broke me open, what I learned, and what I wish someone had told me along the way.

Because I believe that when healers share their humanity, it gives permission to the people they serve to do the same.

You don’t have to have it all figured out to begin. You don’t have to be fully healed to start healing. You just have to be willing to show up — for yourself first, and then for others. For if you continue to put others before yourself, you run the risk of two things: unnecessary suffering and never living your own life.

The jungle taught me that. Now I’m passing it on.

If any part of this resonates with you — if you’re standing at your own crossroads, or you’ve been wondering whether that quiet voice inside you is worth listening to — I’d love to hear from you. You can reach me through the *contact page or follow along here as the story continues to unfold.