Go Climb a Tree (and find inner peace)

0:00:12 - Marvin Bee

Hello friends, Uncle Marv here with another episode of the Unhealthy podcast. This show is actually something that we try to do to live healthy and be happy. If you've been following us on our previous shows, you know that we've talked about healthy both from the standpoint of diet and exercise. We've talked about relationships, but tonight we are going to talk about something along the lines of self-care. I don't know how close I am to getting that right, but to help me talk about it is my friend and my sister-in-law, carrie Steele, who has come down to Florida to hang for just a bit. Carrie, how are you?

0:00:56 - Carrie Steele

I'm doing well, Marvin. How are you?

0:00:58 - Marvin Bee

Doing good Great. So just to let everybody know, this is the start of pop-in season, where family and friends will be coming down to Florida starting this February and will probably go into the summer and you are here stopping by on your way to where.

0:01:23 - Carrie Steele

Costa Rica.

0:01:24 - Marvin Bee

Costa Rica Nice. What's happening in Costa Rica?

0:01:30 - Carrie Steele

So, Costa Rica. I am joining some friends that have to do retreats around the world, and we're doing a retreat in the Monteverde area, which is the cloud forest region of Costa Rica.

0:01:48 - Marvin Bee

Okay, Interesting so the name of this group.

0:01:53 - Carrie Steele

It's called Bigger Life Adventures.

0:01:55 - Marvin Bee

Okay.

0:01:56 - Carrie Steele

So the couple, Carrie and Zach, are their names, and I met Carrie when I was doing my Ayurveda health counseling training. So she and I are both Ayurveda health counselors and she and her husband started a retreat business. They’ve probably been doing it for 10 years. They met and they traveled all over the world. They loved to travel. They loved living a very eco life and all their travels were all about eco and just being in nature and living a grounded, carefree life. And when they traveled for several years they came back and started this retreat company. So when I met her, she told me about it and I said, oh, I've got to try some of these, Okay. So it was a very, very interesting retreat and just sounded like it was really up my alley. So Right.

0:03:03 - Marvin Bee

So to kind of put this in perspective, let's first real quickly talk about AYURVEDA, since you brought it up, and that's not what we're going to talk about tonight, but just to quickly let people know what Ayurveda is.

0:03:17 - Carrie Steele

Yeah, so AYURVEDA is. It translates roughly into the wisdom of life and it's about 6,000 year old system of actual medicine. It's Eastern medicine versus Western. We are Western over here in the United States. Eastern medicine is more in the India region but very, very ancient, and it's more of a natural way of balancing your life to be healthy and to fight off disease before it even starts, rather than waiting until you get a disease and cure it. Arya Veda looks to help you find signs that disease may be coming. And how do I balance my life? What changes do I make in order to balance myself out so I don't get that disease? So there it's very, very natural. It's very much about routine and eating healthy and diet and lifestyle and how to really know your body and know what's happening in your body so that you can correct it and balance it back out.

0:04:32 - Marvin Bee

Alright, so more of a proactive prevention? Yes, absolutely. As opposed to a reactive. Here's a pill to mask the symptoms until you need to come back again.

0:04:42 - Carrie Steele

Exactly. That's exactly right, that's our health care.

0:04:45 - Carrie Steele

Aryuveda does not do pills.

0:04:49 - Marvin Bee

So I'm going to have to have you come back and chat with us about that.

0:04:53 - Carrie Steele

Absolutely.

0:04:54 - Marvin Bee

But we're going to focus now on the bigger life adventures and you know, a quick look says that bigger life adventures offers these retreats and they focus on some of the things you talked about yoga, meditation, nature, self-discovery. So when Carrie the other Carrie, because your name is Carrie- that's right was describing this to you. What was it that made you decide I got to do this?

0:05:26 - Carrie Steele

Well, I mean, it definitely helped that. We kind of we hit it off very well and we you know, just finishing other sentences we believed in the same things. You know, we were studying Arya Veda, we were both yoga teachers. She, I just I actually always told her if I, I want, I live vicariously through her. If I had my life to do over again, I'm like I want to live your life. If someone said whose life would you want to live, I'd say I'd want to live hers, just because they are so carefree and so easily travel all over the world, find such uniqueness in the world, not afraid of anything. You know they're hikers and climbers and just every adventure. You know surfers and you know they're not afraid of anything and they've carefully crafted their retreats to kind of focus on certain themes. Good, so it could be hiking or rock climbing or surfing or it like Costa Rica, the theme is tree climbing, so I'm going to climb very high trees.

0:06:44 - Marvin Bee

Okay, so let's take a step back, because you use this word carefree but that doesn't sound carefree at all. You were going with the intention of climbing trees.

0:06:56 - Carrie Steele

Oh yeah, that's right, that's not carefree at all, okay, well, I guess when I say carefree, I think living more with nature, just not being in the bounds of, you know, working a job eight to five and being careful, you know, with your life and even in travel. And I've done a lot of traveling and I love all my travels, but they weren't necessarily something unique and different, like rock climbing or tree climbing.

0:07:25 - Marvin Bee

Climbing a high tree. What's careful about that?

0:07:29 - Carrie Steele

I said carefree, not careful, so they just find really unique pockets in the world. So the reason they started this retreat is because they were in Costa Rica and they live outside the Grand Canyon, so it's very, very cold there in the winter, so In the winters they like to go south. So they've done all over Mexico, all over Costa Rica, all over the area.

0:07:57 - Marvin Bee

Okay, that's south.

0:07:59 - Carrie Steele

What'd I say?

0:08:00 - Marvin Bee

South, yes, but that's like south of Florida.

0:08:03 - Carrie Steele

I mean, that's south, south oh yes, yes, they don't have much use for Florida.

0:08:07 - Marvin Bee

no offense, but Florida's a little too concrete jungle for them.

0:08:12 - Carrie Steele

They like to go places that are a little more natural, but they met. So they were in Costa Rica last year and they met some local people where they were staying and they said they met them and they said we're tree climbers. And they're like well, what do you mean? You're tree climbers, you just climb trees. They're like we have a tree called a strangler fig in Costa Rica that can get about 150 feet tall and we climbed them barefoot and they were like, oh, we got to do that. So they made friends with the locals, like they always do everywhere they go, and they went and climbed trees and they said this would be a wonderful retreat, all right so.

So they coordinated it. They talked to people that had accommodations and things.

0:09:05 - Marvin Bee

There's got to be more. I mean, just to go down and climb a tree doesn't really sound. I mean I did that. I climbed trees as a kid. And just because it's 150 feet tall doesn't make it any more exciting. So there's got to be more to these retreats and transoms. Oh, it's exciting.

0:09:22 - Carrie Steele

This tree. You climb like you climb a rock. Have you ever seen them climb rocks in the harnesses? And it's straight up and you have to. Eh Well, I rock climbed for the first time last year and, believe me, it's scary as hell. Okay, well, scary is different than carefree, it is hard and scary, true, but you're in a harness I know.

0:09:45 - Marvin Bee

But I want to get to the heart of what these retreats actually represent. I mean, I understand it's to get away out of your comfort zone. Mm-hmm, how much of, I don't want to say the RU Veta life, but how much of the, because I imagine that you don't just climb the tree. Yeah, you actually do other stuff, right?

0:10:08 - Carrie Steele

Yeah, so they find a very eco-friendly resort and accommodations. We have what we call silent meditation every morning, where you, just, you don't talk to anybody, you, just, you're silent for a certain period of time. It's just your way of disconnecting from the technical world. You don't look at your phones, you don't get on computers, you're with nature. You, you can meditate or you can just sit and watch the sunrise, whatever you want to do, but they, you know it's just silent in the morning. We do, you know. You can do gentle yoga, we can do, you know she gives us, we do breathe exercises. So it's just mostly there is about being in nature and disconnecting, or I was going to say reconnecting with yourself.

Or reconnecting with nature or yourself, right Taking that time to you know, get away Unplugging.

0:11:05 - Marvin Bee

Unplugging. Yeah, now there is structured yoga and classes and things like that. While you're on these retreats.

0:11:13 - Carrie Steele

Well, she's a certified yoga teacher, so she and you don't have to do the yoga if you don't want to. So these aren't. I mean. She calls them yoga retreats, but you don't have to do if you don't want.

0:11:23 - Marvin Bee

Okay.

0:11:25 - Carrie Steele

But she will usually do morning yoga class. Everybody kind of gathers and we kind of do yoga together and then we do an evening class to kind of close down the day, and during the day it depends. So we're going to be tree climbing for two days. There's a park in Costa Rica where they have a sloth sanctuary. We've got zip lining through the tree; you know the tree canopies. We're going to do a night creature walk where we're going to take infrared lights and see the night creatures of Costa Rica. Or you can you're more than welcome than just to hang out and just if you just want to unplug and just be quiet and just have nothing to do at all, you can do that too.

0:12:06 - Marvin Bee

All right sounds kind of interesting. So this isn't the first retreat you've done with them, is it?

0:12:13 - Carrie Steele

No, this will be my third.

0:12:15 - Marvin Bee

Okay, so what was your first?

0:12:18 - Carrie Steele

the first one was hiking on Catalina Island, over off the coast of California. Okay, and I love hiking. Hiking is like my Mecca of peace in my life. When I'm out hiking I just feel so good. So I wanted to start doing a little more than just going on short hikes around the area. I have really had done much, and they offered a retreat, a four day retreat of hiking and camping on Catalina Island and you do the entire Trans. They call it the trans Catalina trail. It's about 38 miles, and so it's the first time I have ever in my life packed all my camping gear, slept in a tent, put my own tent up at night.

0:13:07 - Marvin Bee

The first time ever, ever yeah.

0:13:09 - Carrie Steele

Yeah, and I said I'm going to do it. You know, I just you know. It just feels good to get out of your comfort zone and say I'm going to do this thing that I've never done before. And so many people won't do things they've never done before. And they're wonderful guys, and they'll you know. They let you go, do what you want, or they will be right there by your side whatever you want and like, and he is A wonderful chef and he cooks all your meals for you.

0:13:37 - Marvin Bee

He being Zach, he being Zach, so he's a chef and so are these the types of retreats where does he cook all the food for you?

0:13:47 - Carrie Steele

Yes, Really yes.

0:13:49 - Marvin Bee

OK, yeah.

0:13:51 - Carrie Steele

Elise, breakfast and dinner depends on what the event of the day is. You may be eating lunch out somewhere, but it's probably good local food that you're eating out. But he's actually putting out a cookbook too, so hopefully he'll finish that up and not too long. Maybe it'll be on their website if you want to order his, his cookbook. But an excellent, excellent vegetarian chef.

0:14:14 - Marvin Bee

Well, I was just thinking that I should probably mention the website before we get too far along. No bigger life adventures dot com, and it looks like I mean just about anybody can go, if you want to right, yes, the only thing they so that both of them have decided that they want to live a sober life.

0:14:39 - Carrie Steele

So these retreats are only for people that are willing to not bring alcohol into the retreat or go off site and drink it in a local place. So they just don't want this is just a disconnect. Be with nature, no alcohol.

0:14:56 - Marvin Bee

So is this intentional, based on something in their past, or because somebody got a little carried away?

0:15:05 - Carrie Steele

Well, so nothing bad, really, right? No, so it's been sober retreat since they started the company. But when they started dating they were young, they were in their 20s. They actually met in a bar and they kind of continued the partying and they just got tired of being tired all the time and just feeling drained and they did, you know, being sloppy and being. They just didn't like the feeling of alcohol anymore. And she was the first one she told him I think I'm done being with the alcohol. And he still drank a little bit, but he was, he wasn't far behind. He said, yeah, okay, and they just think that there's a clarity to life when you stop with the alcohol. It just you have more energy, you know everything, you sleep better, they just like life so much better. And that's all they ask on the retreats. And they also offer retreat discounts and scholars they call him scholarships for anybody that is recovering from alcoholism.

So Nice they offer they will have that, you know, give them a big, reduced rate to come on. So it is definitely promoting sobriety in life. You know we do fun stuff. They have this little ceremony, cacao ceremony, which is so. They picked up a lot of little ceremonies, you know, throughout the travels. They have one in Thailand. They actually lived in Thailand for six months. They actually loved it. Guatemala is one of their favorite places. I'm going to go to Guatemala next year. They picked up, you know, just some ceremonial things that are just very grounding and things. So it's very, very interesting people that have Definitely live their true selves, like they're living the life that they believe in. They 1000% believe that this was the life they were chosen to do so.

0:17:03 - Marvin Bee

So I imagine that somebody that committed to Connecting with nature, reconnecting with themselves, doing the meditation, doing the yoga, doing the, are you bet that there was a point in time where you just look back and say, okay, what in the world am I doing? I need to, I need to turn this around. So I know that you started the. Are you they training? What was it three years ago, four years ago? I think 2019 is okay, so five years yeah.

I imagine that everybody that goes on the street treats are on some sort of similar path. Does that?

0:17:55 - Carrie Steele

Generally the people that will sign up for you know it's I don't, you know, sometimes it's all over the board. So this will be my third one. I've been a variety of different people but I think in general, people that go on these retreats Just want to disconnect from their crazy lives. That is their big Thing. They, I think they just want to get away from the hustle and bustle of their crazy life, of all the social media that we're bombarded with. You know all the pressures of life. I mean I think for the most part everybody that has gone on these are just want some peace. They want peace, they want quiet, they just want tranquility. And they will get.

I mean, these retreats are definitely that. I mean you wake up in like I went to Joshua tree national park for Retreat last year. You get up from your 10th and you walk up on a rock formation and you just sit on the rock and you watch the sun come up. There's nothing more connective to nature than that and it's really magical. It just makes you feel so good and you don't have to be anywhere except there. Right, you know there's not. You don't have to get ready for work, you don't have to go check your phone. You don't have to. All you have to do is just be there and it's just very relaxing. And you'll read some of the testimonies if any of your listeners go on their website. But everybody just says it's just like it's just. They just feel this overwhelming peace by the end of the retreat. They're just like me. You know, it just felt so good just to be in a peaceful place, because this world is not peaceful.

0:19:48 - Marvin Bee

Well, I was going to ask the question. So if some yahoo like me decided, yeah, I think I'm going to go do this, but my phone and my tablet will probably go with me, are these places where service doesn't exist so that you have to be unplugged? Or is the temptation there you just got to make yourself?

0:20:09 - Carrie Steele

do this. Well it depends on the retreat and where it is so like camping on Catalina Island. You're not going to get much of anything unless you hit a little town and there might be a tower that you can get a signal on your phone if you really want to. Most of the outdoor ones, you know they're not going to provide Wi-Fi for you anything.

0:20:30 - Marvin Bee

Well, that's what I was asking is cause that's where, going with intention to disconnect, you want to go someplace where you got to disconnect?

0:20:38 - Carrie Steele

That's right.

0:20:39 - Marvin Bee

But if the service is still there, yeah, I'll go climb the tree during the day and I'll do whatever, but at night I'm going to go watch some Seinfeld on the tablet.

0:20:50 - Carrie Steele

Well, they're not going to make you do anything. You're a big boy, you can make your own decisions. But if you want the true experience of the adventure and that they're providing for you, shut it down, go, be with nature. That's why you signed up, that's why you paid to go, and they will provide that 100%. But you got to be willing to put the phone and the devil, you got to be willing to do it. They're not your babysitters, they're not going to. But the alcohol thing is definitely prohibited. So it is definitely a sober experience.

0:21:27 - Marvin Bee

All right, so I get that Now. Carrie and Zach, this is their deal and how many people do you think are on the bandwagon? I mean, do you see the same people? I know that you said this is only your third, but have you seen the same people? Is this a sense of friendship, a sense of community with the people that you meet?

0:21:52 - Carrie Steele

I know that a lot of people repeat their retreats. I have not had other people Well. So we did hike the Grand Canyon. That wasn't officially a retreat, but I had some similar people that I had gone to the Catalina Island hike with. They hiked to the Grand Canyon with me. We did a rim-to-rim hike. That was very interesting. That wasn't officially a retreat, though that was, so we all just got along really well and we met. But I do know they do have a lot of people that do at least one retreat a year. Sometimes people do two retreats a year. I've had new people every time so far, so it all depends. I've had a couple of people I've made some good friends with. I look forward to doing another retreat with them, which just hasn't been hooked up because I live over here on the East Coast. They are actually on the West Coast, so sometimes it's hard to hook up. I'd rather do a retreat over here, because it takes a long time to get over there sometimes to do a retreat.

0:22:53 - Marvin Bee

Sounds like a partnership coming down the road. Maybe you'll do your own set of retreats.

0:22:59 - Carrie Steele

I may help them with their retreat someday. They probably add two new retreats a year. They sell out very quickly on their retreat so as soon as they add a new retreat they'll say only two spots left. They try not to do too big of a group. You're talking anywhere from 10 to 12 people. It's about the max they want to have on the retreat. Everybody ends up being pretty good friends by the end of the retreat.

0:23:32 - Marvin Bee

Other than asking them to come on the show, but you'll give me some idea about them. Is this their gig? Is this what they do, full-time, yeah this is their gig.

0:23:41 - Carrie Steele

They do take a break in the winter. They call it retreat season starting soon. So retreat season starts in February, usually runs till about. I think their Thailand retreat is in November. That's their last one. Then they unplug, relax, because it's a lot of work to do these for the winter.

0:24:05 - Marvin Bee

It's a lot to travel too, even though you may like travel it is Because are you Vedas' balance. If you're talking a day's worth of travel, you need a day recovery.

0:24:15 - Carrie Steele

That's right. That's a great way of looking at it, because travel is very much a lot of activity for your mind and for your body. Well, to balance that, you need to be still and quiet and not traveling. You've got to balance it to stay healthy when you're traveling, definitely find that time to, or just don't travel. Or stop traveling for a little while. That's right.

0:24:43 - Marvin Bee

All right, well, Carrie, we'll have to follow up after the trip and we'll have to learn more about bigger life adventures. Again, that is the website address, folks, biggerlifeadventures.com, and anybody can sign up. You just got to obviously be willing to go where the retreats are and stay sober and be willing to live with more connection to nature, be willing to embark with a community on a similar journey, and then it doesn't help to like yoga, right, or it does help to like yoga.

0:25:26 - Carrie Steele

It does help if you like yoga. Yes, not required. You don't have to know how to do it, all right.

0:25:32 - Marvin Bee

So if you want to get outside of your comfort zone and create community with people you've never met before, bigger life adventures is the place to go, and I've got somebody who's a part of it and can give you some pointers and tips. So all right, Carrie, so you're off tomorrow. For that right. Yep, and is this now, how long is this trip?

0:25:54 - Carrie Steele

The retreat starts on Sunday, so I'm flying into my all-spend-the-night in San Jose and then we take a bus to the Ica Resort, which is about three hour drive. So it starts on Sunday, and then I fly back here the following Saturday.

0:26:10 - Marvin Bee

Oh, so you're gone a full week, that's.

0:26:14 - Carrie Steele

Unplugging with nature, you'll be unplugged the whole time.

0:26:17 - Marvin Bee

You'll plug in on the plane, right?

0:26:20 - Carrie Steele

Well, I did have to download movies for the plane because I'm taking a certain am I allowed to say spirit airlines. You can say whatever you want here. That doesn't give you internet or no entertainment, so you have to bring your own.

0:26:31 - Marvin Bee

Well, it's available, you just got to pay for it.

0:26:33 - Carrie Steele

That's right.

0:26:34 - Marvin Bee

You have to pay for everything on spirit. All right. So, Kerry, thank you for sharing. No, thank you, Mark, and it sounds like a great thing to get involved with bigger life adventures.

0:26:45 - Carrie Steele

Great people.

0:26:46 - Marvin Bee

Get close to nature reconnect.

0:26:48 - Carrie Steele

That's right.

0:26:49 - Marvin Bee

And then we'll chat more later.

0:26:50 - Carrie Steele

All right, I'll let you know how it goes.

0:26:52 - Marvin Bee

Figure out if you've got your life all balanced by climbing that tree.

0:26:55 - Carrie Steele

I'm going to get. I can't wait. I'm going to send you a picture of me climbing that tree.

0:27:01 - Marvin Bee

All right, folks. That is it for this episode of the Unhealthy Podcast. Thank you for downloading and listening. If you find value in this, well, subscribe and hear more about shows like this. Again. We talk about just about anything that you need to change in your life that is unhealthy. Either eliminate it or reduce it, because the goal is to live healthy. Be happy. We'll see you next time. Holla!