Why Yoga, Therapy and Retreats Keep Failing You (And What Works)

I'll be okay if I can just get to the weekend.

If I can just get through the week, I'll be okay.

If I can just get to my next yoga class, I'll be okay.

If I can just get through to my next therapy session, I'll be okay.

Does that feel familiar?

I said this for years.

Probably most of my life, but really intensely for the last 12 years after going through multiple losses. Loss of jobs, loss of family members, loss of a daughter who was stillborn. All kinds of things.

There’s this feeling, the one where you feel like you need a break from “real life”, like you need to escape it in order to survive. And I think a lot of us feel this way right now.

Somewhere along the way, I figured out I was actually stuck in a loop.

I’d built these containers where I could find relief from a life that felt impossible instead of changing my actual life.

The Pressure Cooker Life

The thing about living in survival mode is that you need somewhere to go to release the pressure. You need the yoga class. You need therapy. You need the retreat where for three days you feel like you can breathe again.

And look, I'm not saying those things are bad. They're not.

I'm saying they're necessary because the systems we live in aren’t designed to support our wellness, especially after a loss. Instead, they drain us. The hustle and productivity culture. The constant go go go. And the ease of numbing and distraction, so we don’t have to feel anything.

We're living in a pressure cooker. So we find containers, little escape routes. And we count down to them. Because without them we might explode.

My husband and I used to talk about it all the time. Relief valves. That's what we called them. Like releasing steam from something that's about to explode.

But here's what I figured out: relief isn't the same as real change.

The Vicious Cycle

We get into this cycle of relief instead of truly taking care of ourselves. You go to the retreat. You have a breakthrough, insights, and you feel transformed.

Then you come home. Monday hits. And your life looks exactly the same.

Maybe you feel a little lighter. Maybe you have more capacity to get through the day.

But nothing has actually shifted in your real life. The pressure cooker is still there.

So you book another retreat. Another therapy intensive. Another yoga class. Looking for that feeling again. It's a cycle of survival and escapism.

And we just keep doing it. Over and over.

Because we have to find the relief.

We stay in this revolving cycle just waiting for the next pressure valve release.

And we're just managing the pressure. We're not getting out of it.

The problem is this:

Relief isn't the same as real change.

What Actually Matters

The reason I’m a Somatic Life Coach now is that I lived in that churn for decades. I lived in that vicious cycle of surviving until I could get to the next valve release.

Let me give you a real example.

After losing my daughter, who was stillborn, and then going through years of infertility treatments, I came to a crossroads where we had some big decisions to make.

And I said, "I need a minute” and booked a flight to Bali. 14 days later, I was on the other side of the earth. Talk about escaping. All by myself, with my journal and all my thoughts.

But when I came home, it was back to reality.

Still facing all the same choices, but this time it was going to be different for me.

I looked my husband and our therapist in the eyes and said, “I’m done living my life like this”. It’s time to make some changes.

What I had to change was how I related to my work and how much energy and effort I was giving it.

Small Intentional Actions

I started letting go of working harder than I should. I made a conscious effort to end my work when it was good enough and walk away. I started making a conscious effort to not care so much at work, because I was killing myself to create things that I thought were perfect and meaningful, and they didn't need to be.

I started timing myself. Putting things on the calendar and saying you have an hour to work on it and then move on. I started implementing little changes in my life. Small intentional actions that I would implement that were aligned with the way I wanted to live my life.

Because I was tired of feeling so drained and exhausted, not taking care of myself, and putting so much energy into everyone and everything else around me.

And as soon as I did, as soon as I started making these small aligned actions, my husband and I finally found a home we’d been looking for for years.

Then we moved into our house, and a week or two later, we found out we were pregnant.

Totally naturally. After years of infertility.

This is what’s possible when you begin to align your choices and take action aligned with your truth.

And while I’m still finding my way, life feels very different than it did all those years ago.

Integration: The Missing Piece

Here's the cycle. Stay with me here.

We live in survival mode. We go find these relief containers. We have these epiphanies. We come back to our real life. And nothing changes, so we have to do it all over again.

But when we make small intentional changes in our life, we have the ability to jump of the wheel.

If we are able to take what we gain from these relief valves and then make small intentional changes that are aligned in our daily lives and stick to them—and when I say stick to them, I have to caveat this. I cannot stand habits. I cannot stand consistency. These words make my skin crawl.

So let's talk about what I mean when I say stick. Integrate into your life so you're not having to try. Integrate into your life so it is just normal and natural.

This isn’t about forcing a new habit. It's not about white-knuckling your way through consistency. It's about making small aligned actions so normal and natural that they become part of who you are and how you live. That's integration.

When you do, these synchronicities start happening in your life. That's the universe giving us what we want because we’re aligning to our truth.

And that's a real gift.

The Life You Actually Want to Live

So what if instead of focusing on finding more places to escape to, you built a life you didn't have to escape from?

If you’re here, you’ve been through a big life change.

You're looking for reconnection with yourself.

You're looking for reconnection to your truth, the essence of who you are.

I'm here to help do just that.

Integrate your truth into your real life.

Integration is how you build a life that feels good, in small, tolerable ways, in ways that feel sustainable and meaningful, and not forced.

If you're feeling this inner pull, this persistent quiet pull towards building a life that you love to live in, grab this free 10-day audio reset. Just a few minutes a day that will help you recenter and reset on what matters most to you.

It's a great place to start.

And I'm here if you're feeling this inner pull, this persistent quiet pull towards building a life that you love to live in; I'd love to connect. Book a discovery call and let’s chat.