Illustration by Marley Allen-Ash
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“I didn’t even break a sweat,” I thought as I rolled up my yoga mat after the first morning session of my retreat in Costa Rica. Ninety minutes in and I still hadn’t found the physical challenge I had expected. As I left the open-air garden yoga shala, I crossed my fingers hoping the next four days would push me harder.
For most of my life, yoga has been a test of my endurance, not serenity. I’m the person who signs up for the hottest vinyasa power flow class, where the room hits 40 C and sweat pools on my mat. A few years ago, my friend Katherine and I even completed a 30-day yoga challenge at a Toronto studio. It was a big physical undertaking. If I missed a day, I would double-up the following day. The studio had a sticker board and with each class completed, you would add a sticker marking down the days. My enthusiasm and competitive nature grew deeper with each sticker I added. I successfully completed the challenge, despite feeling light-headed and weak on some days, mostly from the excessive sweating.
How a community pool helped me see in colour again
Lately, I had been craving that feeling again, so Katherine and I signed up for this retreat in Central America. According to the website, the five-night retreat would involve morning and afternoon yoga sessions in a dynamic mix of slow-flow vinyasa and restorative, including breathwork and guided meditation. Wanting to arrive in peak shape, I doubled down on my practice in the weeks before we left.
The retreat drew 20 women, ranging in age from early 30s to 70s. But I didn’t go into the retreat with the intention of meeting new friends. I assumed I would mostly stick with Katherine and was hyper-fixated on the yoga.
On Day 2, our group was scheduled for a six-hour catamaran excursion once classes were done. Katherine got seasick and stayed behind at the hotel. I immediately felt a twinge of anxiety. The idea of going alone and spending the day with a group of women I barely knew made me unexpectedly uneasy. Not wanting to miss out on exploring, though, I decided to go.
Within minutes of boarding, something shifted. I sat beside a woman from Vancouver and we fell into an easy conversation about work, travel and family. While sipping on our drinks, we spotted dolphins under the boat. We scrambled for our phones in unison to capture the moment. It was magical.
Later, I connected with another stranger over losing our fathers, discovering that they had died under similar circumstances. After lunch, I snorkelled with two sisters from San Diego and laughed with one of them about dating in California. On the drive back to the hotel, I found myself in deep conversation with a woman from Ontario about raising a child with a learning disability.
I returned to the hotel exhausted with my hair full of salt and sunscreen, but I also felt an unexpected fullness. I had started the day unsure I even wanted to go and ended it feeling like I had made a whole group of new friends.
Our circle of two widened and Katherine and I folded into the group of new friends. We rode our bikes into nearby town of Tamarindo, swapped stories by the pool and literally braided each other’s hair. We formed a group chat called “Pura Vida” (which means “pure life” in Spanish), mostly to share photos of the hotel’s four resident cats and iguana sightings.
On the final day of the retreat, our instructor gathered us in a circle for meditation. Hand in hand, she asked us to silently pass an intention to the person beside us, symbolizing that each of us would be giving and receiving something new.
What I received from this retreat was a fresh perspective. I was chasing a physical challenge – but what stayed with me wasn’t the yoga, but the women I met. I learned to dismantle my mindset of pushing through and be present, or “drop in,” a phrase our instructor repeated all week, but I didn’t fully understand until the last days of our stay.
I still love the burn of a hot vinyasa class but in letting go of my expectations of sweat, achievement and a rigid plan, I discovered something more powerful: connection and being present.
Sometimes the best part of a trip isn’t the activity but the people you connect with. I’m already planning another retreat next year with some of the women I met. I cannot wait to see them again.
Amanda Whalen lives in Toronto.