FLOW Yoga Retreats

Last fall while traveling in Valencia, Spain, my partner and I somehow ended up carrying around a tiny Matchbox car that belonged to one of our nieces.

So naturally, we did what any two mature, responsible adults would do. We started taking pictures of it. 📸

Everywhere.

The tiny car went sightseeing. It posed in front of Spanish landmarks. It had adventures. And before long, what started as something completely silly had a name: The Tiny Car Project.

There was absolutely no purpose to it. And that was the whole point.

Sometimes being fully alive looks like awe and wonder like sitting quietly in front of a beautiful sunset. And sometimes it looks like lying on the ground trying to get the perfect photograph of a toy car. Joy lives there, too.

One of the things I love most about travel is how it can shake us out of our grown-up routines. We become curious again. We notice things. We wander. We try foods we can't pronounce. We laugh when things go sideways. And, if we're lucky, we get a little silly.

And honestly, we don't need to travel across an ocean to do that. We just need to remember to look for the tiny things that delight us.... the ridiculous things; the things that serve absolutely no productive purpose other than making us smile.

Because a meaningful life doesn't have to be serious all the time.

Sometimes the journey with heart is also a journey with humor.

And sometimes joy is really, really small.
About the size of a Matchbox car.

I often wonder how much beauty I miss simply because my mind is off somewhere else...Replaying yesterday. Planning tomorrow. Checking what's next; checking off what's done. Moving on to the next thing.

And meanwhile, the sky is doing this. 🧡

Lately, my focus has been my focus.
Being present.
Making room.
Letting go.
Leaning in.

Nature is really good at reminding me of all of this because the sunset asks nothing of me except to notice. To look. To receive. To bask in the beauty without giving anything in return.

So, wherever you are today pause and look up.

Be here for this.

This past week during family holiday in Boston we went to see The Great Elephant Migration: A Coexistence Story. If you haven't heard of it, imagine a herd of life-sized elephants wandering through the middle of the city. (YES, please!) They are magnificent. And while the elephants themselves are pretty hard to forget, it was the story behind them that has followed me to our next destination.

The exhibit describes the elephants as a love letter from a culture in India that has never forgotten how to share the world.

Share the world.

Those three words linger in my heart.

Because somewhere along the way, it seems that we humans got pretty good at thinking everything revolves around us. We build, consume, travel, hurry, acquire and move through the world as though we're standing at the top with our conquerer's flag planted in the earth.

But what if there is no top? And what if there is nothing to conquer?

What if instead, we are but one thread in a living web of people, animals, plants, places, and experiences, each affecting and depending upon the others?

We live in a culture that celebrates independence. Handle your own s**t. Pull yourself up by your bootstraps. Be strong. Be productive. Take care of yourself.

Don't get me wrong, there's value in being able to stand on our own two feet. But the truth is that we are wired for connection.
We need each other. We need nature. We need experiences that interrupt our routines long enough for us to remember that we belong to something bigger than and beyond ourselves.

Maybe that's what it means to make room.

Make room for other people. Make room for people who aren't like us. Make room for the natural world instead of expecting it to continually make room for us. Make room for listening instead of always speaking. Make room for rest. Make room for wonder.
Make room for the unexpected.

And perhaps most importantly, remember that making room for something else doesn't necessarily mean there is less room for us. (Gosh we humans have a hard time with this one!)

That may be one of the things these enormous elephants are here to remind us.

There is room for all of us.

And when we stop thinking of ourselves as standing at the top of the world and begin remembering that we are part of it, maybe we don't actually get smaller. Maybe our world gets bigger.

Travel isn't just about seeing more of the world.
It's about learning how to share it.

Recently, travel handed us two pivots in two days.

The first one said MOVE.
Change the plan. Make decisions. Grab the bags. GO! GO! GO!

The second said STOP.
You're not going anywhere today, lady. Whatever you thought was happening next is waiting.

Same trip. Two completely different disruptions. Two completely different responses required. And this got me thinking about how much of life is actually an exercise in pivoting.

We all got the master class in 2020. Practically overnight, the entire world changed direction. Work. School. Travel. Relationships. How we bought groceries. How close we stood to another human being. So it's not that we don't know how to pivot. We're actually pretty damn good at it.

But how we *experience* the pivot?
Well, that's another story.

There's the pivot itself... then there's everything we pile on top of it. (Hmmmm, sounds suspiciously like Yoga.... it's not the pose itself, it's what we feel about it.)

This wasn't supposed to happen.
What are we going to do?
This is ruining everything.
Why today?
We should have....

And before we know it, we're not only dealing with the thing that happened. We're fighting the fact that it happened at all.
And just like Yoga, this is where the practice begins.

Not in becoming so zen that nothing bothers us. Not pretending disappointment isn't disappointing or that a stressful situation isn't stressful. But learning to ask:

What is this moment asking of me now?

Sometimes the answer is MOVE.
Sometimes it's WAIT.
Sometimes it's ASK FOR HELP.
Sometimes it's LET GO.

And occasionally it's Well...I guess we're doing this now.
This last one may actually be my favorite.

Because there's something incredibly freeing about recognizing the moment when Plan A has officially left the building.

Travel teaches this lesson particularly well.
We leave home with itineraries, reservations, confirmation numbers and plans. And then we enter a world filled with weather, mechanical problems, other humans and approximately 4,782 things we cannot control. Which ironically might be part of why I love traveling.

Travel gives us opportunities to practice something we need when we get home: Responding to the life that's actually happening instead of clinging to the one we planned. Not changing direction without getting rattled. But knowing when to move, when to stop, and when to loosen your grip enough to discover what happens next.

This is the art of the pivot.

I’m okay saying Chair pose is one of my least favorites ever. C’mon Caroline….

https://www.facebook.com/share/19FgucWZTK/?mibextid=wwXIfr

It’s fine, Caroline.

Somewhere along the way, too many of us started believing that being busy meant we were living.

We zip and zoom from meeting to meeting. We feel a need to respond to every message, read every notification, answer every call. We keep our calendars full. And then wonder why the best we can do sometimes is to numb out behind a scrolling thumb. (Spoiler alert: Your nervous system is doing exactly what it’s supposed to do – protect you!)

Our bodies have become so accustomed to constant activation that it feels normal. Have you ever sat your butt down to relax for a few minutes and feel the pull that you “should be doing something?” I hate to be the bearer of bad news…. But that is not relaxing. It’s sitting and worrying.

Here’s the good news: When we spend time in environments that invite safety, rest, and belonging, our nervous systems can begin to soften. With our inner system no longer on high alert, we become more present, more connected.

This is the heart of Soul & Sea.

A time designed for you to enjoy meaningful conversations around a table. Quiet, slow mornings. Fresh ocean air. Shared laughter. Meandering with no destination in mind. Feeling safe enough to let your shoulders soften. To breathe a little deeper. To simply be.

Because beneath all the noise, there is still a version of you who knows how to live this way.

Soul & Sea is simply an invitation to remember.

I admit it. I used to have a terrible scrolling problem. Before I brushed my teeth in the morning—I needed to see what transpired overnight. Work breaks? Gotta check in on who's doing what, where. In the evening? A scroll appetizer before dinner and then some scroll dessert before bed. Sometimes even one last peek as I turned on my sound machine and set my alarm for the next day.

Then...let the scroll games begin again.

Y’all. I was out of scroll-control. Tired of reading the word? Yeah, me too. About as tired as I was of thinking that time on social media was giving my system a rest. Nope. In fact, all that interaction with information and input put my system on high alert and was causing havoc on my body and my mental state. Here I thought scrolling was helping me recover from stress. Come to find out, it was helping create it! What I believed was giving my nervous system a break was secretly keeping it on high alert.

Whew! Now that we got that out in the open…

Maybe you’ve been through a phase like that in your life too.

In 2025 I took a six month course in polyvagal theory, a framework for understanding how our nervous systems respond to safety and threat. Think of your nervous system as your own personal safety patrol. When it senses safety, you feel calm and connected. When it senses danger, it prepares you to fight, flee, freeze, or shut down in an effort to protect you.

That's when the dots connected for me. I finally understood why I felt the way I did after spending so much time on social media. Here are the top 3 lessons I learned both from the training and personal experience:
- Our nervous systems are constantly asking “Am I safe or am I at risk?” as a part of their protection mechanism. I can’t always predict what I will see on the next swipe… Within minutes, I might see a funny video, a tragic news story, vacation photos, political conflict, and a gardening tip. This Emotional whiplash keeps our nervous system activated and requires our nervous systems to fully settle.
- Our brains are constantly processing new information. Every swipe introduces a new image, opinion, headline, or video. Our brains must rapidly decide what's important and what to ignore and it’s doing most of this underneath our conscious awareness. Meanwhile, our bodies don't always distinguish between physical effort and mental-emotional stimulation. So even if we're curled up on the couch, our heart rate, breathing, muscle tension, and alertness can all increase without us even realizing it.
- Activities that require little effort don’t equate to resting. True rest requires less mental input, more quiet, and intentional moments where nothing is demanding your attention. Slow nature walks, gazing out a window, breathing deeply, sitting in silence.

It’s been just over one year since I made this change. Some weeks I go days without ever swiping a screen except to answer a text. I experience better equilibrium in my moods, I feel more content, my thinking is clearer, and my creative instincts are more readily rising to the surface. I sleep more soundly and wake up feeling fresher. I feel more present, connected, at peace.
Looking back, I realize my sense of peace wasn't determined only by what was happening around me. It was deeply influenced by what I was taking in every single day. What we repeatedly consume plays a big part of what we repeatedly feel.

So I’ll leave you with this…
What are you turning to for rest that really might be keeping your nervous system awake?

A note: I am not anti-social media (obviously!). I just no longer expect it to do the job that rest is designed to do. 🩵

When people ask us what makes FLOW Yoga Retreats different than other yoga retreat offerings, destinations are never the first thing that comes to mind.

The first thing that always comes to mind is our FLOW family.

.. Friendships made and continued throughout the years.
.. Hurt-from-laughing bellies that are full with happiness.
.. Hearts filled with care, connection, support.
.. A feeling of belonging.

Over and over, our guests tell us the same thing:

"I came for a retreat and left with a family."

Today is the final day to save your seat for Journey with Heart: Discovering the Soul of Spain.

There are still a few seats left at the table. If you've been waiting for a sign, this is your invitation.

Registration closes tonight. ❤️