👋 Hi my name is Roslyn, I’m a 2x founder and executive coach. I help founders fall in love with building their companies again. Learn about working 1:1 here.

Hi there,

I’m typing these words from my casita in Costa Rica, where I’m working for the week. I just came off a yoga retreat and a plant medicine ceremony. Between that, the time spent with wonderful new souls, and the magic of Costa Rica, I’m feeling very open, held, and immensely grateful—not just for this trip, but for my life in general.

So today… I want to use this newsletter (and the next one) to share my experience from this past week, and hopefully convey the impact that taking time away from your day-to-day can have—not only on your business, but on your life, who you are, how you move through the world, and how you fit into the universe.

Today I’m going to share:

• What made me decide to book this trip 

• The value of intentionally interrupting our patterns

• Lessons from my week at a yoga retreat in Costa Rica

I’ll also be sharing Part 2 next week, which will go into more detail about the plant medicine ceremony.

And also, NYC female founders, we’re walking again Friday, December 5th. RSVP here.

Where we go deep on the inner and outer work of building a startup.

How to disrupt your patterns

WHY I BOOKED THIS TRIP

I’ve been in Costa Rica for 13 days now, and I’m a different person than the one who stepped off the plane in Liberia last Saturday.

I booked this trip at the beginning of 2025 for a few reasons.

1. I felt called here.

I first came to Costa Rica 10 years ago for a Yoga Teacher Training, back when I was a CPA at PwC and my dedication to yoga was an early sign of the spiritual path I would eventually embark on more fully. Even though that trip kept me mostly inside the resort, something about the land, the people, and the energy stayed with me.

Since then, I’ve watched people come here to vacation, attend retreats, or live as digital nomads, and each time something in me sparked. Could that be me? Something deep inside me wanted it: to be immersed in the rainforest, watching sunsets over the ocean, engaging with the spiritual and entrepreneurial communities that feel like my people, and practicing the healthy, present “Pura Vida” lifestyle.

Once I decided I wanted to make a trip to Costa Rica happen, my friend Ash (founder of Retreat) recommended this retreat run by Lisa White. I called Lisa, and she walked me through all it would be: yoga, breathwork, meditation, mantra, sunset swims, nourishing food, the land, the ocean, the energy of Blue Spirit Resort, and the option of a plant medicine ceremony with a group she trusted implicitly. I hung up the phone fully in.

Soon after, I booked not just the retreat, but also a week in Guiones to try out the digital nomad lifestyle. I rented a casita in Playa Pelada with a bed, a kitchen, fast WiFi, and a shared pool.

Then, by chance, I connected with a post-exit founder who runs a retreat center in Santa Teresa focused on helping high-performing women reconnect with themselves, their intuition, and their natural cycles. It felt very aligned. After one call, he generously invited me to come stay and explore potential collaboration. I’m heading there at the end of this week.

So reason number one: I followed the desire. Once I set the intention, aligned opportunities unfolded.

2. I needed to interrupt my patterns.

And I knew getting out of my day-to-day life and space would be very helpful to do this.

I absolutely love living in NYC. It’s a magical place. And it’s hard on the nervous system: the constant hum, the endless plans, the striving, improving, competing. It can leave you in the subconscious trance of “not enough.”

I knew that a week of reconnecting with myself, healing deeply, and being in nature would help interrupt the thought patterns that have been quietly shaping my life.

Over the past couple of years, especially after navigating founder burnout, I’ve come to see how much of my life is run by my subconscious. Most thoughts, emotions, and nervous system responses aren’t consciously chosen—they’re automatic. Conditioned by childhood, school, work, community, society, social media… most of which does not teach us inherent worthiness or self-trust.

As I’ve done the inner work, I’ve noticed how many of my reactions come from fear and a sense of inadequacy. That’s why so much of my life has been spent striving, controlling, proving, trying to be valuable, worthy, lovable.

Much of my action has not come from an open heart. It hasn’t come from the deep knowing and embodiment that I am sacred, whole, lovable, and that life is unfolding perfectly (which I actually am beginning to believe).

And even though I deeply desire to live from that place of love and trust, it’s HARD to change what’s wired into the body, the nervous system, and the brain. Inner work is about healing the subconscious so we can return to our factory settings of love, trust, presence, the truth that’s always been underneath.

So yes, I wanted to remove myself from my routines, environment, patterns, and relationships. To learn and embody new ways of being. And also to work with plant medicine, which is known to help create new neural pathways and support real change. (I’ll get to that in Part 2 next week).

SHARPENING MY INTENTION

Even as I started my journey to Costa Rica, I started aligning with teachings that supported the work I came to do. 

On the plane, I brought Conscious Accomplishment by Scott Britton, which appealed to me because it explores the idea of integrating the spiritual path with the path of accomplishment. In other words, you don’t need to quit striving and become a monk to become spiritual. Life gives you a TON of material for healing and inner work, so there is immense value in pursuing spirituality and accomplishment in parallel.

I’d bought the book, but busy as I was, I hadn't had a chance to start reading it. I figured a five hour plane ride might help me put a dent in it.

The first part of the book is all about how we tend to move through the world with a closed heart—showing up as anxiety, control, judgment, blame, perfectionism, overwork and more. The book offers a method for catching yourself when you’re in a closed-hearted state, welcoming the thoughts, emotions, and sensations that arise, investigating the underlying pattern, and replacing it with something more aligned with your open-hearted true nature.

Reading in the car on Costa Rican roads is… not advised (very bumpy!). So for the three-hour shuttle from Liberia to Blue Spirit Resort in Nosara, I downloaded a couple of podcasts, including Amanda Baudier’s interview on Brooke Robbins’ Well Path. On a similar theme, when Brooke asked what we can do when we catch ourselves being triggered, Amanda pointed to Tara Brach’s RAIN framework: Recognize, Allow, Investigate, and Nurture.

Wanting to go deeper, I downloaded her audiobook Radical Compassion (free on Spotify Premium!) and soaked up Tara’s wisdom for the remainder of the ride. She explained what she calls “the trance of unworthiness,” a semi-unconscious state many of us live in when we’re stressed, activated, or disconnected. To exit the trance, we need to return to presence, come home to ourselves, and remember who we really are.

I felt like, in the span of my travel day, I was being pointed to this concept over and over again: to break my patterns, I needed to learn to open my heart and return to presence.

By the time I arrived at the retreat, I knew my intention clearly: 

To learn how to move through the world with a more open heart, grounded in presence and the fullness of who I am.

Little did I know how fully I would receive that gift over and over again throughout the week.

THE RETREAT

I made it to the retreat center around 7pm in the evening after a long travel day. It was too dark to fully take in the surroundings, but the energy was very peaceful. Dinner was buffet-style, mostly vegetarian, nourishing, delicious—a major highlight for me all week. Then I went straight to bed.

I woke up the next morning to a view of the jungle and distant ocean and decided I’d go find the ocean before breakfast. I followed the signs down to a path that would take me through the rainforest and to the beach, and immediately was struck with emotion as I took in the lush trees around me. It just felt like my body recognized how right it was for me to be there. The place resonated with me on a soul level. 

After breakfast was orientation in Sky Mind Hall, a huge studio with floor-to-ceiling windows that open to the jungle and ocean. It was breathtaking. We learned about Blue Spirit: founded by Dr. Stephan Rechtschaffen (who also founded Omega Institute) with the intention of creating a nature-immersive, spiritually oriented retreat center for deep personal transformation and holistic wellbeing.

Our first yoga class followed. As I put down a mat and gathered my various props, people filtered in and got settled, and the Gayatri Mantra played in the background. As people gazed to the front of the class with curiosity, our teacher and retreat leader Lisa, who many of us had yet to meet, sat on her block, spine straight, eyes closed, and chanting the Gayatri mantra. I was entranced.

I’ve never experienced yoga the way Lisa teaches it. Her classes are part dharma talk, part breathwork, part asana, part meditation, part dancing and shaking and release. It was so… resonant and liberating and emotional for me. As someone who used to use yoga as another form of self-improvement, pushing, overstretching and going further than my body wanted to… Lisa’s yoga was transformational for me. As I practiced, I laughed, I shook, I felt seen and held, reconnected to my own sacredness, and I ended the class in tears in Savasana, with this deep sense that I was exactly where I was meant to be. 

A typical day at the retreat looked like this:

• 6:45am: meditation / breathwork / dharma talk 

• 8am: breakfast

• 10:30am: vinyasa class

• 12:30pm: lunch

• 3pm: restorative yoga / sound healing / Qi Gong / Reiki

• 4:45pm: sunset swim

• 6pm dinner

• 7:45pm: restorative yoga / meditation / sound healing

During breaks I read, walked to the beach, sat by the pool, or hung out at the café with new friends. I went to bed by 8–9pm most nights, open, exhausted, and excited to do it all again.

I quickly befriended my fellow retreat goers. With everyone becoming more grounded and open each day, it became easy to drop the usual pretenses and connect from a deeper place.

The purpose of the retreat, as I understand it, was to give us the tools to more deeply connect with and love ourselves and the world and embody that we are sacred, divine, fractals of consciousness, that we are all connected, that we are pure love. 

Through her morning talks and yoga practices, Lisa taught us about the power of movement, sound, breathwork, drishti (gaze), mantra (words for focusing the mind) and mudra (hand gesture), as ways to come back home to ourselves.

One of the things that struck me the most was Lisa’s vulnerability. She didn’t pretend to have it all figured out, to be a fully healed human or anything like that. She shared her own shame, stories, samskaras, even as they arose in real time. Her humanness made her teachings land even more deeply.

Over the course of the week—between Lisa’s special brand of yoga, the energy work, the nourishing food, music, the ocean and rainforest, the open-hearted conversations, and yes, the plant medicine ceremony (coming next week!)— I felt my heart crack open. My nervous system relaxed. My stories of unworthiness softened. I felt emotions fully. I looked people in the eyes and truly saw them. I felt connected: to nature, to others, to myself.

As I sit here in Costa Rica, a few days out from the retreat, I can say with conviction that I am a very different version of myself than I was going in. I was already on a healing path… but man was it accelerated over the course of one week. 

And I know this deeper presence and open heart will come into my work.

With my deepened self compassion and love, I can love my clients more deeply and see them more clearly for their truth, beauty and goodness.

With a sense of my own perfection, I can let go of proving and focus on service and creativity.

With trust in the universe, I can build my business with mor ease, releasing control and opening to aligned opportunities.

TAKEAWAYS

So, if you take anything away from this I hope it’s this.

Follow your intuition towards what brings you joy. The universe will meet you there. It doesn’t need to make logical sense yet. Trust the inner pings. Ask yourself: What would feel fun? What does my heart want? And give yourself permission to follow through on that. You deserve it.

Disrupt your patterns. Get out of your routine, and usual environment. Maybe book a trip your heart’s been calling you towards. Even if it’s just a weekend away. Even if it’s just a staycation in your own home where you create a mini retreat for yourself to take yourself out of your usual routine.

The work you do to open your heart, to release what’s no longer serving you, to connect with your own sacredness, will radiate into your work as a leader, a manager, a founder, a visionary and creator. 

What’s one thing you can do this week to move towards this version of yourself?

GO ON RETREAT

•  If you want to go on this same retreat, Lisa is co-leading another just like this with my friend Ash, Founder of Retreat, April 11th-18th. Learn more here. I may just be coming again to this one…

• You can see the list of all the retreats going on at Blue Spirit resort here.

READ

Books I’m reading on this trip:

• Radical Compassion by Tara Brach: As mentioned, in this book Tara Brach teaches the practice of RAIN for bringing yourself out of the unworthiness trance and back into presence.

• Conscious Accomplishment by Scott Britton: On integrating the paths of spirituality and accomplishment. If you’re interested in these concepts and want to hear about them via podcast first check out this conversation.

• The Raise by Ali Kriegsman: This was my fun reading by the pool book. Although one day I got too into it and just had to stay up late reading it to the end. It’s a psychological thriller with a female founder protagonist. OMG I felt seen by it… the pattern of using your company to prove you’re enough, the complicated dynamics between female founders who are close friends, the way startup hustle culture reinforces scarcity, inadequacy and need the hustle… it was all so spot on.

LISTEN

• Amanda Baudier on the Well Path Podcast: mentioned above. This is a fabulous listen for founders on the spiritual path.

• Amina AlTai on Ambition 2.0: Ok this was such a beautiful merging of worlds for me. Amanda Goetz, my mentor and expander, and recent new author with her debut book Toxic Grit, recently became the host of Girlboss’ new reinvented podcast, Ambition 2.0. One of her first guests was none other than my former coach Amina AlTai, author of The Ambition Trap. Both of them speak so honestly and wisely about reclaiming ambition as women and so I was SO happy to see this collaboration. I haven’t listened yet but have it downloaded for my ride to Santa Teresa!

MUSIC

Songs that I’ve had on replay this trip:

• Hey Ma Durga by Baird Hersey & Prana

• Resilient by Rising Appalachia

• Glorious by MaMuse

• I Still Hate Hate by Razzy Bailey (Santiga Remix)

• 1:1 Coaching: Want to go into 2026 feeling clear, grounded and supported? Book a free coaching consultation to learn how we can work together.

• Walk with me: Join for our next Within Walk.

• Let’s be friends: on LinkedIn and Instagram. I share more startup content and what’s going on behind the scenes there.

• Finally, tell me how you liked this newsletter. I read every piece of feedback.

Thanks for being here.

With love,
Roslyn 💚