Why Retreats

Today we are talking about retreats, especially retreats for wellness, retreats for reigniting relationships.

Welcome to Wellness in Every Season. We talk all things wellness to help you align yourself, align with your goals, g- find balance in your life, and just recalibrate yourself. If you are listening for the first time, welcome, welcome. I'm so glad you're here, and let's get started in the rest of the podcast.

I have been thinking about this, and then I realized, "Oh, I have Barry coming on," so he's already going to fill this need that I see that's here.

This is something that we have not talked about. I have been on retreats. I love retreats. I am a huge advocate for them, and Barry has a very unique story that goes along with this, so I'm so excited to talk about his story with him and learn more. I think we will all find ways to relate to him through his story.

He is the founder of Carmel Retreats, and he says, a steward of Cuddle Dune. I'm very excited to learn about that because I love cuddling. I woke up my husband early this morning to snuggle with him. I don't think he enjoyed being woken up, but he enjoyed the snuggle part. Oh, well. We

enjoy cuddling.

Right. It might be hidden, but we like it.

Yeah, I think we forget that we need it, and there's so much data on that. But as a mom of four children, when they were a lot younger, it was like, "Please, I'm touched out. Stop touching me." And now that they don't wanna snuggle with me, I'm like, "Husband, come on.

Come over here."

Absolutely.

So tell us about your story. You are a single dad of twins, and I feel like that's like having four children right there. Just have twins. I feel like it's the same.

I mean, I don't have four kids, but first of all, Autumn, I wanted to step back for a second and thank you for having me-

on this podcast. I'm just, so excited to talk with you, and I appreciate your guests who are here listening to us for the next few minutes or so forth.

But yeah, I got into these private retreats because, as you mentioned, I'm a single dad. I've raised two boys who were born in India on my own almost since the day that they were born.

And then when they were six years old, I was diagnosed with cancer, and it was advanced. I mean, imagine raising your kids on your own and then thinking you're not gonna live. And so that happened about seven years ago at this point, so I'm seven years cancer-free.

But it changed my life, as you can imagine. Gave me a much deeper appreciation for every single moment I'm walking around on this planet, that I get to hug my boys again, and tomorrow they're graduating from eighth grade. You think, you know, "Am I gonna reach this milestone? Will I see them do that?" And to think they don't have another parent, so forth.

To kinda go into some of the details there, a few years ago, I had a swollen gland, and my doctor said, "Well, you're really burned out. You're raising kids. You have a lot of stress." I had a big corporate job. I was leading a team. I think I had 25 direct reports at that point at one of the big corporations in Silicon Valley that everybody's heard about.

But my doctor said, "Let's just go check it out by a specialist." And so I went to the specialist, and she walked into the office and she says, "So let's see your swollen gland. I hear you've been sick." And when she touched my neck, she became very quiet. And she said, "If this is what I think it is, you won't be able to get out of bed for the next six to nine months if you survive.

You'll be on feeding tubes." And I said, "Now wait a second. Why do you think that?" And she says, "I've seen this. I've seen enough of this. It's very serious, and I know." And I said, "But you don't know me." And she says, "I've seen a lot of this." And then she picked me up... Well, first she started doing biopsies of my neck, about 12 harpoons going into my neck right then and there in the office, and then she took me to the CT scanning department and walked me up to the counter and said, "Put him first in line."

So that's very, very sobering. You have kids who are six years old at that point. They're little tiny peanuts, right? And you're thinking about, y- you can imagine everything that goes through your head. So that's how it all started. That literally changed my life. I left my job at that point, right?

'Cause I wanted to survive.

And I just dove into wellness and healing, and I read a great book that changed my whole mindset called Love, Medicine and Miracles. I highly recommend it to anybody. I don't get any commissions from it, but basically the premise is if you believe you're gonna survive, that's who survives, like traumatic illness.

You believe it's about mindset and believing that you're gonna survive, and I did. It's about having a great purpose in your life, and I had two great purposes, my kids. I wanted to watch them grow up. I wanted to watch them graduate. I wanted to watch them... be with them when they get married. I wanna see grandchildren.

I want all that. So now I'm focused on how do I live and survive to 120 in a good, with a great mindset, clear mind, clear thinking, right? And that's the path that I'm on now, but at the time that I got that diagnosis, I went into survival mode, and the doctor was right that it took me, you know, the next six to nine months of really brutal healing.

But I made sure that I got out of bed every single day, and then I upped the game. I said, "I'm not only gonna get out of bed, I'm gonna run up and down my stairs every single day to stay fit. I'm gonna, do everything that I possibly can. I'm gonna eat. I'm not gonna have feeding tubes." And I did that.

I, I managed to lose 50 pounds, which wasn't ideal. I didn't have 50 pounds to lose. I looked really skeletal at the time, and my doctors kept threatening and saying, "Hey, we're gonna put you on feeding tubes. We're gonna punch a gastric bypass into your gut." And so I would fill up two liter water bottles with water to make weigh-in, and to get my weight up for the, for the weigh-in, and I didn't have to go on feeding tubes.

So at the time, though, we had a beautiful vacation home. I was doing well in corporate. We were living in a beautiful place in California, and we were fortunate enough to have a vacation home by the ocean in Carmel-by-the-Sea. But after this diagnosis, I knew I was not gonna go back to corporate, and so I turned our vacation home into a place for wellness and healing because it really helped me heal and become well from being in Carmel.

So that's kind of the top level view of it all. At this point, you're welcome to kind of dive in and say Oh my God, how do you deal with two kids on your own while you, like, can barely walk? You can't swallow. I couldn't use my arm. They'd cut through the nerves in my left arm. I couldn't feel my left hand.

It was just really brutal healing. I went through speech therapy for, one or two years. I went through physical therapy for a couple of years. After two years of a diagnosis like that, my oncologist said to me "Barry, we've never seen anything like this.

You are healed. You're miraculously cured.

Your cancer's never coming back." Now, as great as those sounds are to your ears, you don't want to take it for granted. So to this day, I still have changed my spiritual outlook. I focus on releasing emotions and pent-up feelings every day. I meditate and pray every single day.

I eat lots of broccoli and lots of different vegetables every single day. I take lots of supplements, right? There's so many things that you can do to really just up your game But I also do, blood tests every six months. And my biological age is about 10 years lower than my calendar age.

So I'm always proud of that. So, like, I think one of the messages is, let's not wait for trauma to come. Let's, whoever's listening to this story, just, like, take every day as a gift. Fill your heart, fill your day, every single day with joy, even if you have kids yelling at you in stereo because they're twins.

Dad." They're the same developmental age, right? They just come at you like stereo, but saying different things. All right, so I'll pause there, Autumn. But you're welcome to kind of tug on a few of those strings and I can go from there.

Much there.

Yeah. Little bit of an opener.

So let's go there.

You said that you wanted to survive, and it sounded like you found not only survival, but how to thrive.

Yeah.

And you're now sharing that with us here, and that's a huge reason why you do retreats.

Right.

And when we were talking before we hit record, I told you you'd have to repeat several things- Happy to

'cause you had so many good things to say.

Happy to.

You were saying that with your retreats, you have it so that you have your favorite companies that feel very aligned for having a retreat.

Yeah ...

you have a relationship with them.

Yeah.

So that if somebody wants to go and do yoga or have the yoga instructor come and do it on location,

right.

How important that is because of the social interaction, and we talked about how important that is to wellness. So with that in mind, my question is: how did you set up your village, because you could not leave your house as much.

Yeah.

And you needed that support for your children, and this is during COVID, right?

Exactly, yeah. Because that's when two of my kids were born.

Exactly right. That's a big thing to- Yeah ... I left that out, but not intentionally. I just forgot about it, but... that wasn't as important as your life diagnosis. I was dealing with

cancer.

At the same time, I had cancer and then COVID came out, I'm gonna say like six or seven months later. And it was like, "Oh my God, if I'm gonna survive cancer and then a virus gets me." Right, so it was kind of juggling that too, and your immune system is suppressed. But I think your original question was this village of healing, right?

And how I've set up Carmel Retreats to be this community of healing. Because a lot of people think about healing as medicine, and I am not so... Let's see. I'm a spiritual believer. I believe that there's a creator. I believe in the light. I believe in the source energy. I speak to that source and that creator every day, twice a day, throughout the day as much as I can.

But I'm also just not "Oh, let's just not have surgery. Let's not have radiation. I'm just good. I'm just gonna heal myself," right? The body is very powerful, and it has mostly everything it needs inside of us to heal, but I'm gonna take the medicine too. Most people stop there.

They're like, "Okay, it's the medicine. I'm gonna have the surgery." But healing, I believe, is really about community, nurture, feeling cared for, being surrounded by love, by having a positive mindset. And so as I was going through cancer, I found that when I would go to Cuddle Dune, that's the name of our cottage,

when I'd go to Cuddle Dune, I just wanted to put my hands in the ground. I loved gardening. I planted probably 100 shrubs on the property, maybe 20 trees that are 30 feet tall right now after seven years. I planted flowers and lavenders and sage bushes and just made the place bloom and attracted hummingbirds because I wanted those hummingbirds, the little messengers, on the property.

So I had my hands in the ground. It was healing. And I think the more I've read about having your hands in the soil, it actually can be healing. You're putting your hands around all the fungi, and we need fungi to live, right? I would take walks out the cottage door to the ocean. It's maybe a five-minute walk.

And so I would walk down to the ocean in Carmel. I'd put my feet in the ocean. I would be breathing in fresh ocean-scrubbed air. I would hike in the redwood forests. I would see starfish in the tide pools. I would see whales breaching offshore and seals having their pups in the coves. It's just impossible to not connect with nature when you're at that cottage or around Carmel-by-the-Sea.

So that was all just like I started getting filled by all this vitality and just being around there, it makes you just want to, like so appreciative, so grateful for everything that you have in life. Yes, I was diagnosed with cancer, but I was, in my head, I was like, "Well, 99% of my body is healthy. I feel great."

Today I'm still healthy. And so I was just filled with this joy and gratitude, and it makes you just need to share that. And so I wanted others to come and experience that too. So I started getting the word out, had my website, started talking to friends and family, and people would find me, although I'm terrible at marketing.

But if I could just talk about it and people can find me, they love the experience of being there.

But for an example, somebody reached out to me and she said that she and her husband had just lost their first child. And for anybody who has kids, I mean, it's a tragedy for anybody, but if you have kids, it really hits you deeply, right?

To know that you lose your first child in, a miscarriage. And she said they were filled with grief, she and her husband. Could they come and stay at Cuddle Dune? And so I said, "Of course." So they stayed for a week or 10 days and I set them up on a spiritual hike in the Redwood Forest with one of my retreat partners.

And they texted me after their first day of arrival, after their first night at Cuddle Dune, and they said, "Barry, we just need to reach out to you immediately and let you know that this is the first time we've slept fully through the night and felt a sense of calmness since we lost our child." Big

deal

It's a really big deal.

So that I think right there shows you the power of this community of setting them up. They weren't asking me for a spiritual hike in the redwood forest. I don't think they ever imagined doing something like that. But it can be very, very powerful to be connecting with nature so deeply and being on a personal hike with a, with one retreat leader who's connecting-

Well, you feel about this compared to trees that are this big.

And

the

ocean-

And you feel how old compared to you, just remembering your place in the world.

Yeah.

Looking at the ocean, seeing the starfish, spending time planting and being in the soil. I love gardening too.

Yeah. It makes you feel part of something bigger.

Yeah.

Right? It gets you out of yourself, out of your own head.

It reminds you of your place in the circle of life.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So they contacted me about a year later and they said, "Our family's growing." Don't know that it exactly started in the cottage during that week, but about that time.

The healing did.

The healing started there, right? And it allowed...

So it can be a life-giving place too, just to come and connect and be in a place that feels nurturing and private and quiet. You see hummingbirds on the property. You just hear birds singing. You take walks by the ocean. And so I've been doing this now for the past seven-ish years, and I've had countless people coming through cancer.

I had a father who reached out to me who said that he just had quadruple bypass surgery and he wanted to stay at the property with his grown sons, not knowing if he'd ever get a chance to again, right? Because he wasn't taking every day for granted anymore. I had a woman who had the exact same cancer as I did.

In fact, I've had two guests in the past few years. My cancer is fairly rare but this woman, she also had the same cancer that I had just by chance, and she's now an inspirational speaker. And she's pretty disfigured. She had to go through speech therapy. She's lost parts of her body, and cancer is really devastating, and yet she's out there public speaking and being an inspiration to others.

So the people who have now come to the cottages are inspirations to me, right? And the feeling that it gives me to be able to share this space with others is... I can't calculate it. The property values in Carmel are insane. Just, to give you an idea, first of all, we have 4,000 square foot lots, which are tiny.

They're postage stamp size, really tiny. If you buy an empty lot with nothing on it, it's $2 million. If you wanna build something, it's $1,000 per square foot construction cost to start with, and a year of planning to get through the city commission. So it's untouchable by a lot of people, right? I was fortunate to buy the house 14 years ago when my kids were born.

But it's really untouchable by most average people to be there. And so to be able to give them a week or a month to be well, to me feels like it's a gift that I get to be the steward of Cuddle Dune and get to share it with others.

And how is this a retreat versus, like, a vacation rental?

Yeah.

So we're a retreat because we set up our guests with yoga, with spiritual healers if they want, with a refuge spa that we partner with that's about five minutes away from the cottage if they want healing mineral baths and a beautiful view of the Santa Lucia Mountain Range. If they want to rent a vintage roadster and bomb down Highway 1 along the coast, they can do that.

I rented a 1955 Thunderbird convertible and went down to Big Sur. With this engine roaring under your feet and the ocean spread out against you, the redwood forest on your left. It is healing, I'll tell you that. It is unbelievable. So we do private boutique personal retreats for couples.

So we're not a resort in the sense of, like, you're gonna come and be with 15 other people at the property. We provide the space. We're gonna give you a PDF guide about how to curate and put together your own stay-your-way retreat, but you're gonna feel healed or in the process of healing over the course of being with us.

Our stays are weeks sometimes. I have a couple who comes every year for six weeks, others who come for a month, some who come for a week. But we're not a vacation rental property. We don't rent out for short stays. We specifically focus on people who are coming for healing or wellness or romance too, right?

For Valentine's Day, you want a couple to come out, there is nothing more romantic than being in Carmel by the ocean with the incredible beauty that you're surrounded by, and I'm gonna say 15 wine tasting rooms within a few blocks of the property.

And in February, do you have dolphins during that time?

What would you have there animal-wise?

So dolphins we have throughout the entire year. I'd say, like- Carmel has beautiful weather, like year round. I mean, I've been to Carmel at Christmas time, it'll be like 70 degrees and sunny. There are dolphins jumping out of the ocean, right? And it all depends, right?

It could be rainy and foggy too. But January and February are times when you tend to get a little bit more rain, but it's also beautiful too. And I'll tell you right now, I'm booked up in January and February for 2027 and 2028

It makes sense. Being on the East Coast- Yeah.

and you said you're originally from Chicago.

Yeah.

January and February are the times where you wanna escape somewhere warm, because winter feels never ending.

Yeah. An

d in terms of, let's say, the whales, right? So Carmel is right on what's called Monterey Bay. It's this C-shaped scoop out, this bay. And-

Which

are well known for a reason.

Yeah, Monterey Bay. I didn't know certain things about the topography and the geography, which is that Monterey Bay has this fissure, this crack in the earth at the bottom of the bay, just stretching right from Moss Landing and stretching out to the ocean by a few miles. But that canyon, that deep water canyon, is as deep as the Grand Canyon.

Wow.

Yeah. Most

people- I knew it had one, but I didn't know the depth that's

It's as deep as the Grand Canyon. It's a very unique part of the geography of the area and it attracts all this sea life into the Monterey Bay. So what happens is there are these plankton blooms, and that draws the whales in.

So we have sperm whales, we have gray whales, we even get blue whales. We have orcas, three different varieties of orca whales. Humpback whales. And they're migrating throughout the entire year. So if somebody were to ask, "When is the great season to see whales in Carmel?" It's like every day.

When you're ready to come.

Yeah, when you're ready to come. There's some type of whale's on a migration path and coming into the bay, and they don't have to come into the bay. Shorter path down to South America is by bypassing the bay.

They come into the bay as their playground and to, get all this great food and be with all their friends, and so they're right offshore.

And that goes back to being that reminder of we're seeing animals socialize. It's that reminder that we need to also be doing that.

Yeah.

Sorry, having a retreat-

Yeah ...

where you can come alone, or even better, come as a couple or come with your girlfriends, whatever.

We've

had them. Have boyfriends. We have. Whatever you call it.

Yeah.

But you have this opportunity to have the space for reflection, being by yourself, and just feeling that if you're not feeling peace, that opportunity to feel peace, to resolve whatever's going on, and you have that opportunity to socialize, and you're seeing that in nature.

These animals are doing that. You see them having moments where they are more alone and moments where they are together. That's what I think is so fun about watching dolphins and watching whales, is seeing how they come together and they also split off.

That's absolutely true, the pods of whales, the groups, families of dolphins, because when they're jumping out of the water they're jumping out five at a time or 10 at a time, usually, in synchronicity.

So yeah, you mention your eight dimensions of wellness. I talk about, my dimensions of healing. And where you talk about social, I think about relationship and connection. And so that relationship when you're in Carmel, with your husband, your spouse, your significant other we have couples of every type and background and same sex couples and alternate sex couples and everybody.

We'll have women's groups come to... we have two cottages side by side, and if you have the whole campus, then you can sleep six at a time if you wanted to, if you really need to. Mostly people come as couples. But Carmel is a community of artists, and so you will feel that social connection immediately.

It's a very welcoming community. It was created by artists about 100 years ago, and some of the famous writers would be like Sinclair Lewis Ansel Adams John Steinbeck, Robinson Jeffers the poet. And then the woman who built the cottage that I have now, Eliza Yoakum, nobody's heard of her.

I've been starting to kind of dig into her history, but she's possibly one of the earliest feminists in the United States.

That's

She was a schoolteacher, an English teacher, and wrote poems. And she read a poem called Cuddle Dune, and I think it inspired her to build the cottage that I now have as this healing center.

It's a poem by Alexander Anderson called Cuddle Dune. But anyway, so Carmel as a place has this history as an artist community, and you feel it when you come there. And, so socialization too, just it has art galleries where you step in and you're gonna strike up a conversation with other people and find some dimension of yourself discovered inside of you that you haven't explored before.

It's gonna open you up in so many different ways

What I like about what you're saying is yes, we're talking about a specific place, but if geographically this is a little too far for you or maybe a little too far out of your budget there are ways to still bring this into your life. So we are talking about having connections with people, having opportunities to get a little bit outside of your comfort zone, and especially the opportunity to be around creative people.

Have you noticed how when you're around creative people, even if they're not the same creative that you are, that it brings that energy and that vitality back to you? You have that creative energy. It helps for problem-solving. It helps you feel energized. It helps you feel like, "Oh, maybe I'm not so odd or out there in my thinking in this other area."

You feel included. I've found that those who are very creative are very inclusive, which is really fun. You talked about being in nature. That's something that there are so many studies on.

I assume in your personal life before your diagnosis, how much were you in nature compared to when you went to Cuddle Dune for your recovery and your healing?

Night and day.

Yeah.

Night and day, right? I'd always heard, you know, you want to go out in nature and recover and feel well and feel whole, but you maybe go hiking twice a year. Or I did. Something like that, right? Now I'm gonna take a walk every single day. I've been recently experimenting with a, continuous glucose monitor.

I pretty much manage my health and wellness through diet and nutrition, exercise, spirituality, so forth. But I noticed with this glucose monitor on, because now you get to see it on your app what's going on, and it's in real time too. So I would take these walks along the ocean in Carmel, and my blood sugar would drop 30 points, like within five minutes of starting to walk.

That was eye-opening for me, and I thought, "Wow, this Carmel, this is a really incredible place." I was wrong. I walk at home, not anywhere near the ocean. I walk around my neighborhood, and my blood sugar would drop 30 points within five minutes of me starting a brisk walk. Wow, that's powerful.

There are studies about...

walking after meals is supposed to be extremely helpful.

That's exactly it, right? Yeah. So I started doing that. If you go outside and walk around the block after a meal, you'll live to 120. Yeah. I think there's some proverb. I'm gonna butcher it. He who walks 1,000 steps lives 100 years.

I've heard some variation of that.

Yeah.

Sounds good enough. That's about how I quote things too.

Yeah. Ballpark.

And also, there are studies with being around the ocean. I don't know, how close you need to be I think it's being in the ocean helps release... or how is it?

The negative ions, I think- from the ocean.

Yes. That's what I was trying to say. I think you need to be touching the water.

Okay, that's possible. I mean, I feel it, even anywhere you are close to the ocean.

I think just hearing it- like smelling it, yeah, for me too

You can feel the fresh air from the ocean, a mile inland.

Yeah.

Nothing compares with putting your feet in the ocean and having your feet in the sand though. Then you're grounding yourself. You're actually connecting with the earth, and you're feeling the water surrounding you too.

I think one of the things you mentioned, Autumn, was how do I take... how do I bring this home? Like, how do I do this at home?

And so a few of the ingredients to the wellness recipe for me would be big one is quiet time alone, mindfulness, and meditation.

So I started my own meditations, which I now do every morning and every evening, like every single day without break. But I had such a monkey brain that I couldn't do it for 10 seconds. My brain was, like, going off and think about all different things. So if that's anybody in your audience too, I think that's normal.

That was me. That's most people that I talk to. But the thing is, just sit there anyway. Sit there and be quiet, and just focus literally on, like, taking a breath in, taking a breath out. You can do box breathing. Look that up if you just want a simple way to breathe. But go from 10 seconds to 15 seconds.

The next day or next week, try for a half a minute, and just start to build it up, and let your mind wander, and then just bring it back to your breath. I now do it for, like, 10, 20 minutes at a time and then twice a day. That has been one of the most powerful ingredients to wellness that I can imagine.

It calms your whole body. It calms your mind. It allows you to think through things. It brings joy into your life. I've always believed that a mind and a body that's filled with worry cannot allow the light in, and we want light into our lives. Joy, filling ourselves with joy attracts the light. More light comes in as an added bonus.

So you meditate- And fill yourself with joy, things from the universe start flooding into your life. So that was really, really key the meditation time. Time with friends or partner, your relationship. You've mentioned that too, Autumn. So important

with them It's gone. It calms your entire system.

So

that's

a really

good

Okay. So important, and then it cut out. So I have no

idea. Oh,

I think you said, like, a paragraph's worth in there, and I'm like, "I'm just gonna sit here and hope the internet comes back." Okay. I'm pretty sure it's on my side

you'll have to check it in the show notes, 'cause I can't repeat it.

If it was even going in the background.

Yeah.

So you were talking about the connection with other people. How important that is, and then go from there.

Now you're making me say it twice, 'cause it's that important, right? So having that connection with other human beings. Nature's great, too. Animal's really good. When you start talking with other people, too, you start feeling a sense of inspiration by what they're saying, too. I love connecting with people.

We calm one another's nervous systems. We commiserate. We nurture one another. Sometimes just by listening to another person you help them heal, just because they get to vocalize. When we put labels on feelings that are within our body, just the act of putting words onto our feelings changes our body chemistry And so that in and of itself is- So I

notice I can let it float away if it's a negative thought, just-

Yeah

or it cements it in more. Yeah. If it's a positive thought- Right ... that I can actually- Yeah ... put the label on.

Yeah.

Here's another thing that I tried, 'cause you cued me up. You know, most people meditate silently. I did that for years. Somebody encouraged me to meditate and talk out loud with the source, the creator, the light, whatever.

If you're not religious, then whatever your source is, connect out loud with it. That's a whole 'nother level. Now because- Okay ... when I'm silent... Well, first do your meditation, have some silence in your meditation, but afterwards invite the source in. Say, send me your light. Send me your healing.

Help me puzzle through X, Y, and Z. Send me the answers. Send me messages. Give me the, the vision to see your messages, the understanding to know what messages you're sending me. Give me the courage to act f- upon your messages." If you start saying all those things out loud or just say what you're ought to...

You know, you're juggling four kids right now. You have one home looking through the glass at you as we're on the podcast right now.

Actually was, yes.

You waved to him,

right?

Minute ago. Right? Your mind is always on these other things too. If you start connecting with your light source, with your s- what- whatever it is s- spiritually for you, and you're saying those words out loud, you're putting labels on all this, you're changing your body chemistry, and it's very, very healing.

So that's something that I just kinda learned probably in this past year, and it's... You feel weird doing it at first, but it also forces you to think through your thoughts. And so I would throw that out there as well too.

That makes sense. When you were first saying them like out loud meditation, okay, so like praying out loud.

So I can bring- Yeah ... my religion in there.

Yeah.

For my own... not for you guys listening. I'm not gonna bring my religion to you, but just for my own needs. Yeah. That makes sense. And with me having four children and- Yeah ... summer break is right around the corner I don't know that I'd wanna start.

But I love that because there are times where when I'm really struggling with something, some, whatever it is, if I can share it out loud, it's one of those, oh, I can kind of see the puzzle pieces and see where things need to fit together for my own needs. Yeah. I'll do that with my husband, and at this point in our marriage he knows, okay, I'll just wait until she seems like she's at a pause and, like, really struggling, and then ask if she wants advice.

But him just being there and willing to listen, and, like, he is fully tuned into me gives me enough space that I can figure it out for myself.

Yeah.

So it makes sense that that's the way that I work-

Yeah ...

that an out loud meditation would work really well for me, too.

Yeah.

Something that I've been wondering for myself, and I have not even done any research on this, so you guys get to listen with me, is I have monkey brain sometimes, too, so I really enjoy guided meditations.

Where is your time and place to allow you to have the monkey brain? Ooh. I feel like there is a need for that, It can be part of meditation maybe before or after, but where do you allow that in? Because I've noticed if I don't, and I've noticed with people that I coach as well, if it's not allowed in during the day, it will come up when you're trying to sleep.

Oh, that is so interesting. Yeah ... I mean-

So what's your thought?

So I feel like I have monkey brain all day. It's like, when, when do I get time to escape from it? Whereas I think what you're saying is you've done such an unbelievable job of actually containing your monkey brain-

Sometimes that you wanna give it some creativity and some space to breathe at times.

Yeah.

I've never heard that. I mean, so that's pretty unique. Maybe many of your listeners will be like, "Okay, I'm on Autumn's side with that one." I'm like, you contain it. I'm kinda just thinking spontaneously all day.

So for me, meditation is about quiet time. And I think you called out something interesting before, which is, like, when I start talking about, like, meditating out loud. I will still meditate silently at first, and then I'll kinda go into my mode of talking out loud with passion and conviction.

Almost yelling and just, like, loud voice and just, "Send me these messages. What..." But you feel really, really foolish until you start doing it every single day, especially if you have those spiritual or religious beliefs. If you're doing that, the, what it caused in me, and I don't do any drugs, but food is my drug, nutrition is my drug.

I started having extremely vivid visions once the talking out loud was added after my silent meditations. Almost like daytime visions. Almost like, as great as a nighttime dream that vividly, but during the daytime while I'm talking out loud.

So like a daydream? Or is this- Yeah ... like, maybe visualization?

Because visualization is something that's super important for goal setting and really aligning, is my life on the right track with my life purpose and where I wanna go. So is it anything like either of those?

I wasn't prompting myself to have certain visualizations, right?

Like, if there's something, let's say, you wanna do great at the basketball game tomorrow and shoot the hoops, there are studies that show that people who just, like, visualize shooting a basketball are gonna do as well as the people who are actually shooting that basketball. So I'd say that the visualization was coming spontaneously on its own.

For example, I don't know what prompted this at the time, but spontaneously there I was on the back of a mule riding through a desert toward dunes and a sunrise coming up before me. And I was not prompting myself to think of those things. I wasn't... My mind wasn't on sand dunes. Mules, it's not like I have a pet mule in my house.

So these things were just coming spontaneously. And I think from that point then I was got curious. Oh, where am I going? Where is this leading? Is this, is this a figurative journey? What is my destination? What am I moving towards? Oh, I'm moving towards the light right now.

Okay, is that a message that I'm on the right path? What path am I on here? You know, I'm on multiple paths. I'm trying to be a great father. I'm trying to help others heal, too. My mission in life is to help other people thrive, which, okay, there's my monkey brain right there. I've just, all these different things and I'm trying to make sense out of them at once.

So for me, the visions came spontaneously without prompting. By vocalizing-

That's very interesting.

Yeah.

Because one camp can be like, "Oh, wow, that's weird what he's saying about." But if you take it the other way, especially if you're in that camp like, "Wow, that's out there and weird"- Do you maybe need to have TV or books in place of what he's able to do to have that for yourself?

And maybe it's showing that this is what a healthy brain looks like. You don't need to unplug in these other ways, right? And then there could be that other camp that can't get themselves there, so they're now thinking about maybe they need to see a shaman and have some type of help there.

F- shrooms or whatever-

...

To get themselves there, where it's showing that healthy children would have these moments, and how much have we disconnected from ourselves if we can't anymore? Like, there's so much deeper thinking that can happen there for anybody who wants to put pause on this for a second and just let yourself meditate in this of if I struggle with this, why am I struggling with this, and why can't I get myself there?

Because it can be so good for... let's talk about how did your body feel when you were having this? How did it feel for yourself?

Very... I didn't know where it was coming from. I haven't done ayahuasca or shrooms. I just got this sense that if other people do what I'm doing, they're gonna see these visions too.

Yeah.

And they're gonna be very vivid, especially if you get to the point where you quiet your mind first. I think that's the really key step. Be able to quiet your mind until the point where you can hear or feel your own inner voice. And that inner voice doesn't need to be, an actual voice in your ear that you hear, but it can be a feeling, too.

You feel it in a different part of your body. But if you can get to that point where you've quieted your mind where you can hear or, feel an inner voice, then I think you're in the right setup to then start, "Okay, I'm gonna open my mind to having these visions." Now, when you mentioned TV, I'm a dad.

I'm always trying to limit screen time with my kids, right? They could live off of video games. Right now 14-year-old teenage boys, "What's... Why do I need school anyway? Why do I need friendships?" Like, "I can just live with my video game." So I'm not an advocate of the screens. Unless, of course, it's some, like, a visual meditation that you're watching, something like that.

Some people might say, "You know what? I just need a TV show to veg out." I get that too. That can be very relaxing, 'cause then you get this whole other narrative going in your head while you're watching the TV show. So if people like the TV, I won't deny that. But I like your thinking about, quieting your mind.

I like the idea of being able to envision things too.

I'm a huge advocate in visualization. I'm a executive coach in the daytime for Silicon Valley executives. Visualization of success is a big part of the practice. It's really key, so I'm a huge advocate of that as well.

And it feels good when you then are stepping to something that you visualized for a while, because instead of feeling imposter syndrome, you feel like this is what I...

i'm showing up exactly where I belong, and I've already visualized this. I know exactly how to behave in this situation because I visualized it. It just, it feels good in your body. It's amazing. Yeah. Highly recommend it.

I'm with you, right? You just know that if you've thought it through almost daily, like let's say coming up to a presentation.

If you're visualizing yourself up on stage and wondering how people are gonna judge you, then your mind is in the wrong place. But if you visualize yourself up on that stage in front of people and know that you're giving them each a gift in the audience, that you're sharing something that either they haven't heard before or they haven't heard before in your words and in your voice.

Even if they've heard it 1,000 times before, they haven't heard it in your words and in your voice or as you... Maybe you're their manager, maybe you're their VP, maybe... Whatever it is, they haven't heard it from you before, so it's gonna be inspiring no matter what. If you visualize yourself up there giving them all a gift and saying words in a unique way that nobody's ever s- le- it's n- they've never experienced that way before, you're gonna do really, really well.

Even if you stumble upon your words or forget your lines or you're just gonna be authentically you up there because you've rehearsed it in your visualizations.

Yeah. Makes a big difference.

Yeah.

So do you have a final thought as we close out? And then after that, tell us where to find- how to get in on your retreat.

Yeah.

The final thought is, so powerful is to bring joy into your life. If we all want more. I mean, I think t- as humans, we want more. Which also can translate into not having enough, right? We feel like we don't have enough, and that's the, I think, the negative mindset. If we don't have enough or we don't have this or something's gotten in my way, it's something external to me has kept me from achieving what I want.

Even at the worst of times and when I was struggling at the lowest not knowing which way things were gonna go, I still said to myself, "Well, today I'm alive." "So today I'm getting out of bed. Today I get to hug my kids. Nobody's guaranteed tomorrow, but I have so many things to be thankful for today, right now.

Today I get to be with Autumn on this podcast. I get to talk with her before the show and kinda laugh and talk about things." I told her she looks radiant. She does, if for anybody who's just on the audio. Once you shift that mindset to what am I grateful for and what is bringing me joy right now, it allow, it allows the floodgates to open and so much more then comes into your life.

Yeah. So I'd say let's start with that. And then you asked me, I think, where I can be found?

Yes.

I am online at carmelretreats.com. That's where the private retreats are. You can find me there. You can find me on Instagram at carmel.retreats as well. One thing I wanted to mention too is that we used to have occasional gaps in between our bookings at Carmel Retreats that we would gift or give away to local artists.

And since then I've shifted and I started giving away those dates to people who are coming through illness and trauma, and active in the healing process. So it's called Postcards for Healing. And so if you go to the website at carmelretreats.com and click on the tab at the top that says Postcards, it will take you to a page where you can nominate somebody that you know and give them a gift of healing.

They'll be absolutely free. It'll be, like, two nights in the cottage or three nights in the cottage, and they'll come, they'll be by the ocean, and it makes the people who nominate their friends part of the gift giving, right? 'Cause we all know somebody who needs this And then there's me, who are like, "I own this property, but the property's not mine, right?

So I can't take it with me after I go. I just get to be the steward of it for now. I need to share it with as many people as I can." There's some people who are fortunate they can come, and then there are others who need to be nominated and come as a gift. So go to Karmoda Retreats/postcards, nominate somebody that you know, and then we'll pick a postcard at random as a lottery, and then help somebody heal.

I love that. You found multiple ways to give back.

Yeah. Postcards for-

And your healing.

Yeah.

Thank you for being on.

This made me reflect on when our family went to the beach, and it was a last-minute, our friend has a second house over there, and how amazing it was for us.

Yeah. And it's a rental, so a different space, but it was right there on the beach. One side had the beach, and the other side had more of the marshlands. There were a lot of birds around there. And my husband loves birds. We've all gotten into it because of him, so it's a lot of fun. And it just felt so peaceful after how hectic everything has been, and it was his perfect birthday weekend.

And the friend came up with us, so we all met there. We had our dogs there. We all enjoyed loving on our dogs. She's a dog person, too. And we were able to see whales. We helped rescue horseshoe crabs, and it was just this amazing weekend for us. And we put intention into it,

and seeing that you have local businesses that are aligned that you have connecting with it, too, is making me realize how much more impact- Yeah ... you have than the weekend that we had. And it's something that we know that our children made core memories that weekend.

Yeah.

And this is a space that is for couples, and it makes such a difference just having intention put in there.

And it sounds like you have thought every aspect out, and that makes a big difference, and I'm sure that you have had amazing- experiences and reviews written from this, even the ones that you've shared, have made an impact on me, and I'm sure it has on other listeners who are now listening. And I know as I've gone through different things in my own life journey where when you are hit with something super hard that you just don't even know where to turn to next-

Yeah

the most impactful thing that you can do is go on a retreat like this, where you are unplugging from all the negativity, all of the busyness,

yeah.

And we can go back to nature, go back to the beginning, where we're seeing where we fit in in life makes such a big difference

It's true.

I agree with everything you said 100%.

Yeah.

People... and there's something about being by the ocean or being by water that they become like indelible, permanent memories for us somehow. I mean, anybody who's fortunate enough to travel, we definitely remember our vacations, time spent with family. But there's something about connecting with your kids and being with your family or being with your loved one or spouse by the ocean.

And people write in the guest book that they built unforgettable memories there and felt healed. And this is gonna sound like a plug, but I say it just because I wanna reassure people, but we've had nothing but five-star reviews ever in the time that we've been doing this for seven years. And people say it's one of the best places they've ever come to.

And often, I'm gonna say maybe a third of the people who come, they come again and again, right? There's just so much to be experienced in Carmel and in Big Sur and by the ocean and the artist community around there, in the whole area, that it will be a healing experience with unforgettable memories.

And hopefully you'll come away, and I think most of the guests do, like with their lives changed. I know that sounds like a big statement, but a lot of people have come and they felt their lives just change there.

Well, most people are looking for peace and/or joy.

And love and connection and romance with their partner.

I mean, all those things are good too, right? I think people always said to me, "Hey, are you a cancer survivor?" And I said, "No, I'm a thriver." What is thriving about? It's not just like staying alive. It's about being fanatical about your connections with people. It's about finding romance, finding joy, just going for all those positive things that life has to offer.

And then of course, life is gonna throw you a whole bunch of curve balls, and that's, those are the tests. Those make us stronger. It's like lifting weights. If you don't lift the barbells and the dumbbells, your muscles don't get bigger. So

Makes

I don't know if we should make the word dumbbell our final parting word, but- how about this?

I would like to be grateful. I'm grateful for you for having me on, Autumn, and once again, I'm grateful for all the guests for listening through to these stories. And I wish everybody that they have some nugget that they can come away with today that will help bring them closer to a connection with somebody they know or love or to their own inner voice or with nature, or even a pet.

And what type of person should they share this with?

This podcast? Like who should they send it to?

Not a question I've ever asked before. You've prompted it.

Who should they share this podcast to?

Uh-huh.

Okay. Well, I'm struggling to think, like, who would be bored by it. I think... Well, okay, I am a little bit long-winded, so there might be a number of those out there.

I mean, I, I think you don't need to be going through healing loss. But I'd say this, if you know anybody who's stressed, share this podcast with them, right? That's most of it. If you know anybody who's coming through a serious diagnosis, share this with them. Share the book Love, Medicine and Miracles, 'cause it gets you in the right mindset right away.

Get them that book. I give it to anybody who wants it.

thank you, Barry, for being on, and for sharing your journey with us. And how amazing is it that you opened up this space for others to heal in, for others to thrive, to find that connection, to figure out where they're disconnected in their life and reconnect.

So thank you for offering that to so many people. It's... I love hearing from people who have found healing, and they turn around and share that with others. I think that is really how we heal the world and how we bring love back in.

It truly is. And it's part of our own healing process too, because it's so...

Yeah ... the feeling that it gives you to be helping others too is unlike anything else that you can possibly do. But thank you again so much for having me, Autumn.

You.

Incredible. I've really enjoyed. I don't want it to end, but,

But for those who don't want it to end either, they can go to your website.

Absolutely. Carmelretreats.com, and Instagram @carmel.retreats.

Perfect.

Thanks, Autumn.

Thank you.

Thank you so much for listening to this episode. I hope that you found the answers that you needed and you had some amazing aha moments. Please share this episode with others because it helps us align ourselves and then better align the world so that we can seek the healing that we really are looking for.

As part of the legal language, I am a certified life coach with a bachelor's in applied health. That is what I am leaning on for this. This is general advice. Take it as such. See you in the next episode.