Intuition, Transformational Yoga & Wellness Retreats with Isabella Channing

Hello, wonderful listeners, and welcome to the Longevity and Lifestyle Podcast, where I invite pioneers and thought leaders in all things longevity and lifestyle. To give us the strategies, tools, and practices to live better and help us reach our highest potential. Today's guest is Isabella Channing. Isabella is a childhood friend of mine and the founder of The Shack Yoga, based in beautiful José Ignacio in Uruguay. At The Shack Yoga, Isabella has created a welcoming space for people from all over the world to practice yoga, self-healing, and growth. By empowering their senses of internal control. The Shack Yoga is a wellness refuge offering a variety of yoga, movement, and massage therapies designed to address stress and trauma and cultivate a balance of energies that promotes health and longevity. In this episode, we talk about her experience growing up between two cultures, the revelation that awakened her passion for yoga, the winding road to starting The Shack Yoga, the healing effects of yoga, and what you can do to promote a healthier and more positive lifestyle, and much more. Please enjoy.

Good afternoon to you, Isabella, in beautiful José Ignacio in Uruguay. It's such a pleasure and honor to welcome you on the Longevity and Lifestyle Podcast. We had a conversation the other day on a nostalgic note that we actually knew each other since we were in kindergarten together at school in New York City. Actually making you one of my oldest and dearest friends. So I'm so delighted, particularly, to connect on our new venture with this podcast. So real welcome to you, Isabella, on the podcast.

Claudia, it's so wonderful to be here. It's such a thrill to realize how long we have known each other, and to be connecting so many years later on something that I'm so passionate about. And I know you are too. So thank you so much for having me. It's wonderful to be here.

Such a pleasure. So we have so many exciting topics to cover, but first I would love to ask you to describe for listeners who don't yet know the beautiful South American country of Uruguay and the stunning seaside town of José Ignacio, where you are now based. Can you describe it a bit to give people a feeling?

Yeah, well, Uruguay in general and José Ignacio specifically It has the most massive sky you can imagine. There's something almost the sensation of being like the sky is more than 180 degrees. It's like you're in a snow globe or something. The sky is so massive. You can see the visual landscape is so vast that everyone talks a lot about the sky because it's just so, it's so present somehow in like the light, the clouds, the colors of the sky. There's something kind of really special about the sky. Stars at night. It's very sort of primal elements in Uruguay. It's funny, the cuisine is also a little bit like this. The ocean, the land, the sky, it's sort of all of the elements are at play in their most simple and bare, raw form. Food is like that as well. There's not a lot of, you know, uh, in like you've seen a lot of Central American countries, sort of like mixes of spices and, and flavors. No, it's, you know, a potato with maybe a little bit of olive oil, maybe a little bit of salt, and that's it, cooked on fire. You know, that's, wow, that's the best, you know, it's It's because the quality is so great in a funny way of— in terms of just the elements really at play. And you see that in, in the landscape, in the tapestry of countryside and oceans that just are expansive. I really think one of the last places in the world that has still really, really virgin beaches where, you know, are just untouched lagoons and beaches and wetlands. And people speak a lot about this very powerful healing energy in Uruguay and that you can feel it even just from arriving. I I think the culture also accompanies this sort of very calm and serene, and I've just completely fallen in love, as you can imagine, now that I'm living here. And José Ignacio specifically, to answer your question, used to be just a tiny little fisherman's peninsula on the Atlantic Ocean in Uruguay, and it has one little lighthouse. You used to have to take a boat from the mainland just across a little piece of water. And so I think it was in 1994 they first put the little bridge and the, you know, water and electricity within just in the '90s, mid-'90s, where it came to this little village. And it was one of the few places that has a lighthouse in Uruguay, so it became sort of an important port, but a port meaning for fishermen families, you know, just a real handful of them. And what makes it really so special is that you feel on this peninsula like you have water 360 degrees because you have the bay on one side, the ocean on the other, and this very rocky, beautiful sort of cliff, you know, cliffs, not, you know, not very Like dunes, sand dunes. Dunes and rocks all around where you are. So it's about 6 blocks by 6 blocks. That's José Ignacio. So small.

Wow.

You know, then there are the outskirts. That's really it with a little lighthouse. Then there was one little restaurant later on, and then little by little has become kind of this very, you know, chic, cool place to be in South America. But it really still maintains this very rustic, beautiful, romantic, and really incredibly physically beautiful place.

So stunning. I had the pleasure when I was living in Buenos Aires to just spend a couple of days in José Ignacio, and this is, gosh, over well over 10 years ago, and I can still visualize it there. And you're right with the sky, it just seems so expansive. It's such a magical place, so beautiful. Thank you for elaborating on that. You discussed the culinary hub or the gourmet eating there and that the specialists— maybe you can talk a little bit more about the unbelievably— you can even say popular. I mean, you have Francis Malman, who is also based there, that Uruguay, many people I don't think are aware of, is such a culinary hub, not just for South America, but internationally as well. Can you talk a bit about that?

Yes. Well, you know, Francis Malman really pioneered and also brought to the forefront a style of cooking that has been really native to the whole Rio de la Plata, you know. So we have Argentina and Uruguay is sort of in Rio de la Plata, and culturally they cook on an open fire grill. And so just in that, you know, the element of fire becomes sort of a main player in the composition of the meals. And there's a whole culture of sitting around and, you know, starting the fire, and the fire has to be lit because then the wood has to turn, you know, you have to cook with the— and so it's really, it takes time. It's not quick cooking. And once they have the fire at this perfect place, then you just become creative at putting things on the grill. And they are in that purest kind of way. It's, it's really just a play with fire and the ingredient. And what's also so lovely about Uruguay is that the ingredients are so wonderful, you know. You know, the fish is pure, and so you have just white fish. And then again, they don't like lots of sauces, you know. There's maybe that little chimichurri, but it's always a little bit and it's on the side. Yeah, you know, but they don't have elaborate sauces. I think it really just takes away from sort of being the soul of the food, whatever it is, whether it's a carrot or a piece of meat or whatever. And Francis Mallmann really took that really to the next level, you know, and, and took that as almost this like spiritual way of connecting with your surroundings by bringing the fire and the ingredients and then making these delicious, elaborate, very creative meals that way. So from that, you know, it's become— in José Ignacio had the really one of the first restaurants, that a lot of the people who worked with him at that restaurant now are the owners of the various restaurants in the area, started their own things. And there's all these wonderful stories about having worked with him. And so you have wonderful chefs who are doing really special things who are in the area, and also Uruguayan chefs or Argentinian chefs who have worked with him who are now all over with top restaurants in New York, LA, London. So some of the spotlight has come onto this style of cooking. And it's nice to really feel where it originated from, which is here, you know, which is just that, again, back to the elements, you know, the fire, potato, the air, the sky, and then the sea becomes this moment of eating that you see.

So yeah, it sounds really like paradise. You've found the right spot on the planet for sure. Can you tell us about the origins of the name The Shack, which became The Shack Yoga, and your lifelong connection to the sea and natural wood as well? As well.

Of course, I love that question, Claudia. Yeah, um, so it's so funny because it's actually, you know, it's such a simple word in English, but I never really quite considered how the shack spelled in English in Spanish is actually so complicated that it's a hilarious thing that in people who aren't quite aware of what shack means in English will call it jack. So I have jack yoga, jack yoga, and it's spelled every single way, J-A-K, you know, J-A-C-K, C-K-S-H-A-K. So it's hilarious how seemingly a really such a simple concept in the word has become a hilarious little twist, and I've gotten every idea how it's written possible. But the origins is actually wonderful because it's a very meaningful one to me. And basically to make it, you know, not an endless story, I was born by an American father and a Uruguayan mother. I was born and raised in New York, and I would come down to Uruguay and speaking Spanish with my mother, you know, every year to visit her vast family in Uruguay. So I have really kind of always felt like I came from two worlds, so to speak, and two cultures. And my father was a lover of wood and trees, and he was a sculptor a lot. You know, he always had this split way of being in business, you know, venture capitalist, but also really his heart was in art and being an artist. So as soon as he— could early on in his career. He started to buy up small plots of land north of the highway in Long Island, in Bridgehampton, and little by little he acquired really failed potato crops, you know, at the time, that were just pieces of land that people didn't really put a lot of value to at the time, you know. And he loved the raw— he loved that it had nothing and it was rustic and raw, and it was a lot of some potato crops and then these woods, these big expansive woods. And for a long time, he, you know, he even had, I think, a little trailer or a tiny little, you know, sort of house that he put together literally with sticks, just to be on the land, because he just— it was so inspiring to him. And then the first thing he built was a studio, and then a house that was attached to the studio, you know, to his art studio. So it wasn't the other way around.

Priorities.

Build the studio and then add a little house, you know, alongside. And his deep passion for nature, and he would carve immense— you probably remember Claudia on the, you know, from years and years ago.

Beautiful.

He would uproot trees from the ground, all of this in Bridgerton, and he would be inspired by the root structures and he would carve these elaborate beasts and women's bodies and he would sort of see things in these branches and trees. And so he would work in these very large-scale pieces of art. When he first acquired the land, the only thing that was built on the property at the time when he bought it was this very old— it was sort of like a bunker in the middle of the woods that, from what I understand, it was actually an ammunition shed to take trees down. So they would sort of— that was the old way to fell trees, you know, they would instead of an axe, they had this little ammunition that would help sort of clear areas in the trees. So it was a little bunk in the middle of the woods where I guess it was an ammunition shed. And what it did was that it had these walls, and I guess to protect from the explosion of ammunition, but these walls that were maybe, you know, 2 feet thick. And on the outside was, it was sort of this oxidized metal. And it was this very kind of, you know, you would come up, you'd be walking in the middle of nature, nothing around, and all of a sudden you come up to this very kind of almost— it could be spooky, but it was really kind of this incredible little place that my father, being a lover of wood with a friend of his, cleared it out, cleaned it up, and added a tiny little attachment to it and made it this beautiful little house. It was like this tiny little refuge that had a tiny kitchen that was all very, you know, quaintly made, a bedroom, little windows he put through, even a sliding glass door. So this funky— he kept, you know, the oxidized metal and the really thick, you know, Yeah, but it had this incredibly charming shack, and we called it at home, we called it the shack. And so, you know, as my sister and I would go, you know, every weekend, every summer, every moment that we weren't at school, we would be there. And our favorite thing to do was to go visit the shack, take these long walks out to the shack. And it was a really interesting thing. If I ever think about sort of maybe my first mystical experiences, it really can be in those woods, you know, going to the shack and, and having sort of the awe of being in a place that was far away from civilization at the time. It's so funny, you know, here we are talking about Long Island, but in my little brain—

Of course, especially in comparison to Manhattan, right?

So especially, yeah. And also to how it is now because, you know, there's a lot of it still intact. But really at the time, you know, there weren't— we didn't have neighbors. It was really a different place, the Hamptons, you know, in the '80s. Yeah, I remember. So we would take these walks out to the shack and it was really just our little mystical haven. And then of course, as I got older, I even spent summers living in the shack, and it was really my place in the world. I mean, I would travel, I would go away to school, I would do this and that. And then if you ask me, where do you feel the most comfortable? Where do you feel the most happy or free or, or grounded or at home? It would be at the shack. It really— there was just this fantasy aspect of it, but at the same time, a really grounding thing about the shack. And anyway, long story short, the shack started— after years and years, there was a little bit of decay in the walls, and we were trying to figure out a way to salvage it. And we tried to lift up— this was the most hilarious thing— and the nostalgia that we had for it. A little corner of the property had to be sold, and it was right where the shack was. And it was a really horribly sad thing that we didn't want to happen, but really because of the shack. So we tried with a friend who had this certain special tractor to lift up the shack from its foundation and to move it to a different part of the property. And in the process, all the walls just started to come down. And we actually saved these walls because they're just so sort of iconic, but we have it sort of in stacks in the woods. So it was a really sad thing. And this happened several years ago. And jumping forward, when I decided in, I guess it was 2012, 2013, to open a, at the time, yoga studio with a wellness component, yoga studio in José Ignacio. You know, trying to figure out a name and I couldn't. It just wasn't really coming. And I was just thinking, well, yoga, maybe think about something, you know, in Sanskrit or something. But I also really knew that the concept really was beyond just yoga and just a sort of yoga philosophy, that I wanted it to be sort of a little bit more open to more accessible, just sort of accessible. Exactly.

Yeah.

And I was thinking, really, what am I creating? I'm creating space. It's a space that things happen in. And then at one moment, I remembered the shack, and I said, oh my God, I'm gonna bring the shack back, you know, from, you know, Phoenix rising from the ashes. And I thought, how lovely to bring the shack that's from the other part of my life, from the northern hemisphere, bring it down to the southern hemisphere. And from then on, the minute I remembered it, it stuck. And so it became the shack.

Yeah, I love that story. It's so beautiful. Tell me about the time you arrived in Montevideo, the, the capital of Uruguay, with 25 yoga mats.

Oh my gosh, well, that was funny. It's like you could look at it as the low point or the high point of the process. But yes, oh God, you know, I had yoga mats stuffed in every crevice of, you know, as many suitcases as I could possibly bring down on one flight. I had a moment, you know, in my mid-late 20s or late 20s where I just— I think a lot of people can probably relate to this, where you have a turning point in your life, a crossroads rather, where certain cycles of the work, a relationship, a thing had ended and that it wasn't as obvious immediately what the next thing was. And those are actually such wonderful moments, I think, because it forced me to pause. And, and thank God that I did, because I think if I hadn't, I would have so quickly continued with a similar version of what I had been doing, because that seems like the right way. Just exactly where, you know, it was, uh, and it was all right there, and I was already living in it, so it was accessible. The other thing wasn't very clear at all. There wasn't really a path. But I gave myself a moment to say, okay, before I go in, which I know I can, to another job, to the thing, and to sort of continue I'm gonna just take a little moment, almost like a sabbatical few months of just— and I thought to travel, and I thought to go to Uruguay. And I remember arriving and just saying, okay, I have to figure out— I love being here. It's so important for my story, which I can also tell you about as well. But sure, the importance of it to me became so clear. And I said, okay, the only way it will be something that I can do in any sustainable way is if I do a project here and not just like try to visit every now and then. And that's when I decided to try out, put a little savings into renting a yoga studio and a little house. I hadn't seen any real yoga studios around, especially in José Ignacio or that area. And I said, listen, the worst case is that no one comes, I have a great summer and practice in my own studio, and anyone wants to come and— well, it was kind of like a little bit of an idea. Okay, I've never really opened my own business, never ever opened my own business, and it felt a little bit nuts, you know. But the how nuts it actually was landed when I, you know, I'd already rented the studio and this house, and I'd been in touch with the real estate agent, and I was packing my bags, and I was— my friends were like, what are you doing again, and where are you going?

And so you're leaving from New York City?

Yes, I'm in New York City. Yeah, I didn't sort of research the market so well. I didn't really have, you know, my business plan was really just the most simple idea of just trying something out. And that's where I found myself, as I mentioned to you, you know, at the Montevideo airport. It was just this feeling of the sort of absurdity of all of these yoga mats spilling out of my bags everywhere. And I'm arriving and I'm alone. I'm like, what am I doing here? Like, what?

What?

I— it was like the absurdity of it kind of hit me. And the whole process of arriving was so funny. But luckily I, I got my flow back and was able to have a smoother start, but the arrival was such a moment where I just remember being at the airport. You know, you have those mirrors and I have these bags and everything's spilling out of the bags and I'm a complete mess. You know, nothing is organized the way, like, starting a business I thought in my head should be. You know, like, where is the team? How is this organized? And I'm staring at myself in the mirror of this airport being like, Isabella, have you completely lost your mind? It was one of those moments that it wasn't the highlight, but in a way, you know, I can look back and say, well, thank God. I did it even against all odds.

Exactly. I love that. So, so beautiful. And I've had a few times also in my life where I guess curiosity, excitement to try new different things came and sort of took over, but have having those moments. And I actually had a similar one when I decided to work with street children in Buenos Aires, of all places. And my flight with Aerolíneas Argentinas got canceled the Thursday. I was supposed to fly out Sunday night. Was in Florida at the time. It took me 2 days to actually get through on the telephone to the airline to figure out was I actually going to be flying. I was going to be committing several months of my life to go and do this, etc. And anyway, they rebooked me on the next morning. So I booked some cheap airport hotel, which is probably the most disgusting hotel of my life, in Miami under some like highway bypass. And like, I don't know what was going on, so I don't even want to know. And I was lying by myself in the bed. The friends had gone back to Europe, and I was thinking, what am I What am I actually doing? Like, why? How did I think this was a good idea? But as you said before, I think that these are the moments and the experiences that actually, you know, it's really getting out of your comfort zone and trying out new things. And you look back and you say, these were some of the most magical, exceptional experiences in my life and have really shaped and formed me. So such a beautiful story, Isabella. Thank you. Thank you for sharing that. You talked about, you know, being born to an American father and a Uruguayan mother and growing up with two cultural identities. How would you say this has influenced you in your life?

So I think when I was younger, I felt very split, you know. I felt so there were these opposing forces that didn't really have a place to coexist easily in my life. My mother passed away when I was 5, you know, as you know. We were in kindergarten together.

Yeah, yeah.

And, um, and so it also added to this sort of split where we At the time, my parents were also separated, so I didn't ever coexist with both cultures, let's say, in the household. I really remember a Uruguayan household until the time she died. And then we moved in with my father, and he really, you know, did the best he could to continue the connection with our family in Uruguay. So much so that he would make it sure that we went down every year, even after she died, even if he didn't come, or he would, he would come with us. And then even if not, we would have someone fly with us. Or meet us at the airport and we would go down to see the family. But even then, it was this incredibly long voyage, you know, very, very far. It felt like you were really going to the other side of the world, which we are. And I didn't ever have any bridge to cross the two worlds. It was like either I was in the American world, which also I also associated so much with, you know, education, the North, my father, masculine. It was always winter there, you know, and summer down in South America. And so it was sort of really occupied, or a certain part of myself. And that when I went to Uruguay, it really felt like night and day. It would open up not only— and I remember thinking so much about language, that you think a different way, you know, and you come to almost different conclusions in a different language. And in Spanish, and the sound of it, and how it was to me this soft, you know, it was my mother, it was South America, it was always summer when we went down. And so it felt like these really, really opposing polarized in my life. Polarized.

Wow.

Yeah. And I do remember that as I got older, and part of my journey of, of wellness that started, I think, in a funny way, kind of quite young, at least the first initial ideas of it had to do a lot with bridging this kind of gap inside myself, you know. And I think What I love when I hear about other people's journeys as well in wellness or health is that everyone, everybody has a personal story, some sort of healing that they are doing inside. And that mine is very much having to do kind of with this, the trauma of my mother passing away when I was very little, also a little too young to really be able to process it in any sort of a real emotion, you know, which It is interesting. I think even also being in the '80s, there wasn't a lot of understanding, intelligence, or, you know, and I think our school did as good a job as it could to really support us and the family, but that I didn't really have the education or guidance to say, okay, these are how we deal with our emotions. And when you hold in these emotions for too long, they make you unwell. And so I really found myself that later at about 10 or 11, I started to have headaches, suffer from headaches, you know, no idea what. I went to a neurologist, CAT scans. I remember sleeping, and EEGs, you know, it was like at such a young age, and they said, well, where are these headaches coming from? And they were these low-grade constant headaches. They weren't migraines. When we started ruling stuff out medically, medically, until finally the neurologist, I guess, was working a little bit It must just be depression. So psychiatrist, okay, antidepressants. After a while, very quickly realized this isn't helping. And so I even remember at age 11, I stopped it all and I said, okay, there's no cause for this. I'm going to have to just live with it. It wasn't debilitating, but it was like I was having stress headaches. You know, that was what it was.

It was a suppressed emotion, right?

It was suppressed emotion.

100%. The body doesn't.

And that's how my body was dealing with it. And I just remember saying, okay, I didn't find any solution in the doctor, so there's no nothing that I can do. So I remember sort of keeping it. I didn't talk about my headaches again until later on in university. I did my first yoga class. So anyway, that's kind of how it all started. And I remember that for a few hours after my first yoga class, I came out and I said, oh my God, I don't have a headache.

Wow.

Something about this moving the energy around inside. And also after yoga, I would always be wanting to cry. And that the— I said, oh my gosh, something's happening here that is actually really kind of profound. And I'm like a little freaked out by it. But it, yeah, but it was like this idea that me by myself, obviously I'm being led by a teacher, but I'm in this room, there are no attachment EEG attachments or MRIs or whatever. And I myself am creating this massive change inside of myself that's generating all these things, but at the end of the day, alleviating these headaches I've had for so long. And so it's this self-healing path, really. And so, you know, what it was like for me to grow up was a lot of it was bridging this gap, being able to talk about my mother, who a lot of my friends even, and my colleagues at the time, or classmates, didn't even know I had this whole side of me. So to say, you know, how do I bridge is to become an integrated whole human being and to be able to live with these two energies almost, or these two cultures, these two things that are very present in me, and in a sense sort of heal them inside myself. And so it is very relevant in a way to my path.

Beautiful. You touched on a bit your first experience with yoga, and maybe was that how it started you down the, the path to found the shakti yoga? And maybe you can talk a little bit more about your revelation you after that first class?

It's so funny because it almost sounds like a cliché, but it really felt like after that first class a little light bulb went off. You know, I had been, I had done gymnastics, I had done all sorts of sports, and I could sense that obviously physical activity was good for me and helped sort of, you know, but that I was definitely not, there was no sort of mind, body, emotion. There was no touching upon one's, you know, emotional world or no dialogue at all around the idea of energy or anything like that. Yeah, I'm doing dance, and then I go to my first yoga class, and I remember this experience. As I said, this experience, it really was so powerful specifically because I couldn't believe that I had done something through these breathing techniques and specific postures and, and using even my mind and focus to create this experience inside of myself that was really kind of profound because it shifted something that had been so stuck, you know, really this trauma that had settled in, and I didn't really know what to do with it. It had become this sort of thick, heavy, sort of dense energy that, you know, now I'm looking back, you know, my headaches were really that.

Wow.

But anyway, I was so moved by, you know, how profound in a sense the experience had been that I remember thinking, oh God, now I have to, you know, how unfortunate, but this is— I obviously now have to shave my head, move I'm going to move to India, live in an ashram for the rest of my life. You know, I remember seeing, okay, well, like, there are orange robes that I think you have to wear, and that, you know, I have to really say goodbye to all my worldly possessions and my family and my friends because this is it. It was so, you know, I remember even talking at the time to my yoga teacher who was just like, oh yeah, no, you actually, you know, you really don't have to do that. That's not like A man stereotype, you know. She's like, you know, there are other ways to, you know, if you want to deepen a yoga practice here, you're just really doing it once a week with me. If you want to deepen it, there are lots of ways to do so. But I was really convinced. I remember I think I even wrote, you know, sort of our, in our end of year, because it was in university, so we even had to write about our yoga set, our final paper or something, about the yoga sessions that we had done, or, you know, and that I was just really— I wrote in this final paper just that I was really ready to, you know, say goodbye to my life, to the world, and to go into some ashram or monastery or something. But luckily, I found out pretty soon that there were ways to deepen a yoga practice without that. And in fact, I do, you know, have met others who did choose that, and it's a wonderful thing, but it really wasn't my path. And I remember thinking how funny that it was something that I thought that you had to do in order to have anything spiritual practice in a modern life. You know, I didn't know they could coexist yet.

I love it. Do you have any particular morning routine to set yourself up to win the day?

That's a nice one. Yeah, I do seated meditation, and I do 10 minutes. So 10 minutes, you know, I remember thinking, God, I should be doing more than 10 minutes. You know, 10 is really for beginners, but I have found that for me right now, at least raising two little kids and running the wellness center, that if I, you know, add more or I make it too hefty of a goal in the morning, that it either won't happen or I won't really have a winning— as you said, to have a winning day. Yeah, it won't. I'll be rushed and, you know, I go from this wonderful hour and a half, you know, personal practice to, you know, rushing my kids into school or getting breakfast ready. So I do 10 minutes. I wake up after a shower, sit in a seated meditation, and before I start, I do a little Kapalabhati, so a little breathwork for like maybe 30 seconds of that or a minute. And then it's 10 minutes on my little— everyone says there are wonderful apps and I actually haven't used one yet, sort of Insight Timer and all these things. But I just use my little crystal bells timer, 10 minutes already set, and I have my meditation cushion, which really makes such a difference. And I just sit in the little space I created in my bedroom and I do 10 minutes. 10 minutes is really just try to quiet down and slow down and clean out almost all of the static or noise or any sort of buildup from, you know, mental energy that just lodges in throughout the night. And sometimes if I have a little more time, I can add another 5 minutes to it, which is really sort of manifesting or visualizing and really creating in sort of a mental imprint what either I want my day to look like, or sometimes I'll even have sort of love-based emotion words that I'll use to create an intention for a period of time that I'm in. So it can even last for for, you know, 3 months or this month or 6 months that I'm really cultivating, you know, whether it's clarity or, you know, confidence or ease or gratitude. Or, you know, I'll find words that are resonating with something that I feel like I'm really ready to generate more of in my life. And so I'll just put a lot of energy— you know, energy follows thought— so I'll just try to really put my mind into good use, you know. So it's like, yeah, get it out and focus it, you know, is really we get to choose our thoughts. And so spend, even if it's just a minute after the meditation, to say, okay, what quality of thoughts do I want to have? How do I want to guide my thoughts so that my day can follow that?

Yeah.

And so that sort of usually is some sort of intention setting for either the day, as I said, or the moment of time that I'm in.

Yeah, it's so amazing. The more I think people who have come to the realization of the importance of having that sort of inner reflection time, especially at the beginning of the day, to really set them up to win the day, and also the power of visualization, right? And I think Tony Robbins has a great expression. He says, where focus goes, energy flows. And I love the fact you said that you have a choice, right? So you choose where you want to focus on. And I think that's such powerful words that I'm still kind of working on understanding sort of on this journey. But I think, you know, when you read about the greatest achievers in the world, how many of them use the power of visualization and inner reflection and thinking to achieve amazing things. So that sounds really amazing. I'd love to talk a little bit more about your creating the Shack Yoga. You've touched on a few of the things in José Ignacio, but I wanted to share a quote that's on the Shack Yoga website, which I found really beautiful. We believe that every human being has the intrinsic basic capacity to self-heal and discover structural, emotional, and mental wholeness. Can you talk, Isabella, about the meaning behind this belief? It sounds amazing.

You know, I think it really just goes back to this true belief from my own personal experience and also meeting so many incredible people on my journey as teachers and guides or colleagues who I've learned this from as Well-being and healing is something that happens when we shift our focus inward. And that idea of me being hooked up to all those things— and luckily it was really just tension headaches, because there are people who are suffering from so many things. So the capacity to heal, we move outside of ourselves and into professionals. And thank God for all the professionals there, because there are many times when you absolutely need it. Yeah, but that actually, to shift into this concept or an idea that there is self-healing, that there is this state there, you can create sort of an ecosystem or an environment inside yourself through your thoughts, your words, your actions, your habits, you know, that you create, creates energy that heals imbalances. So anything that's emotional, structural, physical, on a cellular level, emotional level, can be brought back into a state of balance, and that actually that's our nature, is to be in a healthy, well state, but that so many things through traumas and lifestyle shift us out of that. And so the process of coming back into a state of well-being and contentment and health and, and really thriving in your life, and not just getting by with these things, that, you know, is to bring that, you know, it's like a birthright almost, take it back, take the power back in and to really own it in a way. And it doesn't mean to disconnect from professionals or even the medical, you know, mainstream medicine, but to say, okay, this is an internal movement. Healing is an internal movement that happens. And so own it, take it back. And so with the idea of the shack and the idea of not, you know, I studied so many different philosophies and things that it's not so much about training people in a specific technique, because although there are techniques, what I really wanted is creating a space so that people can practice self-healing. And how they practice self-healing, well, that is the interesting part. There are lots of different tools, and it depends who you are, what tendencies you have, what gravitates you, what excites you, you know, that we're sort of a whole person. And so whether you want to come at it through physical detoxification or through talk therapy and more energy work, or through even like an activation of physical fitness, yoga practice, or hands-on therapy. So there's lots of different ways that one can heal, and that is almost irrelevant. How to heal? Well, let's play with that. Let's get into that. There are a lot, and I love, and I think we're going to continue as a human race to continue to find ways to be healing, but that those are really tools. I think the main, the hardest shift is to realize this is something that I have control over. It's shifting, as you were saying, out of that sort of victim mentality that I lived in forever, forever with these headaches. Oh, I just have headaches, or I'm a victim of a certain circumstance caused me so much trauma that this is why, and I could even— and everyone would understand, of course you're a victim. And to say, okay, well, that, although that may be true, that's not where the story stops, you know. And in fact, this trauma is— this is your, you know, ammunition to our superpower. Yeah. And to say, okay, well, you know, do I accept this as the way I'm gonna feel from now on? No. And so that's when I think I think the real interesting work starts. And so yes, we believe that everyone has the capacity to self-heal, and that very much so it can be in close tandem with a guide, professional, a healer, a doctor, a therapist, or yoga teacher, or whatever, but that it's really an action that's happening internally inside.

Oh, beautiful. So yeah, taking the first step, and from this powerless to actually realizing how powerful we each are. And so I guess you, you create that space, right, and empower people to realize that they can actually take back control of maybe a lot of ailments that they might have and, and how to fix that through different ways. And I mean, you, you mentioned at different points, but I mean, to focus specifically on yoga, and you said there's different philosophies and different practices, but, you know, just concretely at the Shack Yoga, you know, do you mix up the different types of teachings? You said, you know, people from every walk of life. Can you kind of take us through a day of and, and clients that come in and things you see. Maybe you can walk through a day so we can get a feel of what you do. Sure.

So I guess the, the broader scope of that would be that we sort of see people who come in as being— that human beings are also either in a state of activation, purification, or rest, and that those are almost the things that the energies that people are needing. So So sometimes you see people who are really needing to activate, to move. Movement is activation, really primarily to activate their bodies, which is such an important thing to be doing. You know, we're creatures that are meant to move. And so a lot of times these imbalances or illnesses or things that come up are really from a lack of movement, quite simply.

Office jobs, I guess, as well.

Office jobs, yeah.

Sitting for hours forever.

And so sort of within activation, you know, we have a ton of different things that we'll recommend. We have a really wonderful trainer who does personalized sessions to work specifically with how to move your body. Because I think a lot of people say, oh, I need to move. They'll join a gym, they'll start working, and they'll get hurt, or they'll, you know, or they'll get unmotivated, or they— it's, it's hard, they're lost. Or getting on a bike, you know, it sort of isn't quite inspiring enough, or getting there. So working with— we really recommend working with someone, and even if it's just a little bit in the beginning to get you on a really focused schedule. Then there are the yoga classes that are more dynamic, the vinyasa, kind of more flow yoga classes that we also very much recommend. And then activation can also be, you know, activating through sweat, sort of sweat therapies, you know, and that also helps to activate. It's funny, the activation, purification, and rest are sort of the energies that we see kind of are created in nature. And it's interesting because even in the, in yoga philosophy, the sort of the way that they see, like, you know, all the energies in the universe are directed either by, you know, it's either birth, death, or preservation. So it's kind of like the idea of creation, destruction, and maintenance, kind of the idea of activation, purification, and then rest. The three deities in yoga philosophy represent these energies that are constantly at play in the universe. And So we're always in touch with these energies inside of ourselves. And I think that there are times when we need more one than the other, almost on a therapeutic level. At the shop, we sort of help people, we help guide people to say, do you need to be moving more? And so with activation, we'll bring up, you know, as I said, we'll organize someone with more active-based classes. And then if someone's really needing to detox, and really everybody needs all of them, but sometimes there needs to be more of a focus. —what is more pronounced. Exactly. So we'll even have purification, will be a lot of like body work, uh, that's, you know, maybe lymphatic drainage, a lot more of the sweating, you know, elimination. It's about just eliminating. Some more gentle maybe yoga and physical activity because it's really just a state more of detoxification that someone's needing. And so we'll arrange different sessions and classes and things And then rest is really when someone is just— there's this feeling of, you know, it takes a lot to either activate and purify. And so the rest is sort of finding— that's really where we should be at. So we activate, we purify, and also different cycles of the day, you know, this is also happening. But the resting state is almost like that's when we are maybe in balance as well, and the body can just be in a state state of calm where you're not really needing— it's almost between the exhale and the inhale. It's this sort of moment of calm. And so we even have people who are, after they do more of the other more intensive or sort of extremes, that there are balancing, restful, helping people find joy in the neutrality of your being, almost where your, your body is not either in a state of intense detox or in a state of intense activation, but that once you've gone through those sort of healing energies that are more extreme, that you find yourself in a state of balance and that that's actually where we should be living most of the time.

Yeah, beautiful and really amazing. And I wonder, the clients that come— I mean, do people come because Jose Ignacio, obviously there's people who live there full-time, but a lot of people come sort of to visit. So do they come in a form of retreats that you help them over the course of a week or whatever amount of time that they're there for to rebalance, reshift, recalibrate to achieve the detox and the balancing that, that you were talking about?

So yes, with this opening the building of the wellness center, which was really completed itself at the end of 2019, December 2019. Yeah. Let's talk about that. Where we, yes. Well, where, where we launched and. Then had to close right in March, right? So we were open for that first season with COVID Exactly. But that first was such an incredible launch. It was really the marriage of the shack, which I had started, as I said, back when I had that moment in the airport, day one, uh, to partnering with the Vic Retreats, which we'll get into as well. But that the goal, which we have just only really begun to be able to do as we reopened now and we're going to start to continue to do is that we have people come in who live in the area or are here visiting in the summers. So José Ignacio is a place where a lot of Argentinians, Brazilians, and even Europeans and Americans have homes, and they come for the summer season. It really becomes, you know, very busy during the summer season. Usually this season was a little different, but that we have a high season, and the hotel as well has has guests who stay, and so we have, you know, it's really a space that allows for both hotel guests and general public to come. Along with that, we do host retreats, and so we'll organize a week-long, even a weekend or week-long retreat that has a focus of being either a meditation or yoga or combination, where we'll either invite guests teachers, or, you know, and it's a combination of having guest teachers come and having the South American population join, or it's people who are coming from abroad, from the US and Europe typically, and coming to, to stay for a week to do a, you know, a wellness retreat. And so what's so nice about having this space is that it really opens up the possibility of of, you know, of that dream of mine that with a little yoga studio more in town, although it was— I loved it every day being in there, it was really a, an important step to be able to carry out these programs of having retreats and being able to go deeper, which is really what the idea is, is okay, self-healing is wonderful, but if you only have a little stint of it, you know, to really have the opportunity to dive deep into some of retreats.

Maybe you can walk through a little bit more the details, so, you know, just to visualize. So you, you had the shack yoga and you, you had the small space in town, and how did it come to what you're creating now with this wellness center for longevity and, and well-being for South America? So maybe you could just walk from, you know, how it was with the, the original shack to where you are now. Absolutely.

Well, the original shack was I mean, it was just the most charming. It really was a little shack. It was right in the, you know, the center of town, just whitewashed wooden, big windows, wooden floors, but it was small and very charming. And it was exactly perfect for that first— those first few years. I mean, I immediately— and it was what was amazing was that I arrived, there was like a little sprucing up and laying out the and it was like, that's all it needed. It was so perfect as it was, just that sort of rustic, that again, sort of Posing Nacio, Uruguay, rustic simplicity that you didn't need to do any elaborate sort of wallpapering or reconstructing. It was all very, the simpler the better, you know, whitewashed kind of beachy, wonderful vibe to it. So, you know, I was lucky because there really weren't other studios in Montevideo around, and that people who were coming, who had been coming, and who were beginning to come more and more to José Ignacio and Punta del Este— Punta del Este being about 40 minutes away from José Ignacio, so, you know, close enough— that then the whole area becoming sort of more and more popular as a vacation place in, in the area, that people had a craving for it. They really— it was something— there was like a, you know, a lack of it in the market, you know, which I didn't— a good thing because I had no idea. I didn't do enough research to even know in And the ability to do it in two languages, because there were a lot of people who are, you know, tourists, and a lot of people who are living there. So to have— and at first I remember, I mean, my class ends up being this like Spanglish mix, but to kind of have everyone be able to follow some part of it. And, and it's just a one-room studio with a little massage, you know, treatment room in the back, tiny, tiny little kitchen, which is really just in the hallway between the massage room and the bathroom. And I always loved my bathroom, all the sunlight would pour in, and beautiful, sweetest little bathroom. And that's it. It was— that was it. Wraparound deck, a big wraparound deck around that studio, which really created something unexpected, which is that I would put little— I would put like a little tea and some fruit and nuts. And we had these beautiful sort of hammocks and couches outside. And that it became this community gathering center in a funny way. It was like, you know, everyone is— was used to either connecting at a restaurant or maybe a boutique or at the beach, but there was suddenly as anyone who does have a yoga studio that they love to go to, it becomes your place. You know, you go, you feel some sort of ownership of the space, which is really wonderful because it makes it yours in a way. And we would have classes, and then after class, people would just sit and have tea, and you would see people meeting and having really sort of profound, you know, morning connections that were profound and awake and and meaningful somehow, and also fun and light. And just this vibe was created, you know, this— That's amazing. And that really was so much fun to see that, you know, that people were doing really hard work and then they were able to come out of class and spend time and then walk down to the beach. And the people would say, wow, you know, this 20% of my vacation that was based based on what yoga or wellness or the therapy that I did just made my entire vacation so much more rich and full. I was able to enjoy my family. I was able to really take in this beautiful place we're in. And, you know, that it really supported people that, you know, and a lot of these very high-functioning people who work really hard and the rest of the year it's their one time to be with their family. And it's hard to make the switch. You're in a beautiful place, you have a great house, or you're here, or you're— and how to actually, okay, stop, pause. And that's what it was. The shack was like, you've arrived, you know, you've arrived.

So you're in the present.

Yes, be in the present and connect. And that it was just how simple and how powerful that can be, you know, that we should be doing it every day. But even if it's every year, you know, really powerful to say, okay, this is my time to really connect, and then to stay in the present and to have a different type of holiday where you will have fun and you will go out and you'll do all these activities, but that something about it will have this awareness and this slowing down, and that you're reminded to enjoy and make eye contact. And to— and that all of the feedback was that it was so important to people to do this, and it was really the one— it was a gift that they were giving themselves, you know. That was this little— it was this charming little studio. We would pack everybody in, you know, in the old days now, uh, pre-COVID, pack everyone in, you know, mat to mat, and have these great classes. We'd have 4 classes a day, you know. I basically almost taught all of them. We had a couple other teachers, but it was like really high energy, uh, really fun. But I started to feel after a little while that The space was very funky. It was very sweet, but I mean, you know, the floorboards would lift up. I'd have to keep nailing them down. You know, it would rain sometimes in certain parts of the studio. You know, and I was also limited. The size became limiting because, you know, I would have retreats, back-to-back retreats in the little room. And it was just, I'd have to find another space for my daily classes. And it was just, I was bursting at the seams after a while. And feeling really limited. And a lot of my energy was just on like the little space rather than the pro— you know, the things that were really interesting to me. So yeah, one moment I thought, okay, I really need to find another— the next incarnation of the shack essentially in Hostiasio. And it was clear that it was working and that people were wanting it, and I was loving the process of, of it, but it felt like, okay, next step. And that's when Alex and Carrie Vic, who are the owners of Vic Retreats in Uruguay, a boutique hotel chain. They also have hotels in Chile and in Italy. But that they— interestingly, Alex Vic also has— his mother was Uruguayan. So we actually— oh, when we first met, you know, uh, we, we come from the Northern Hemisphere, yeah, but we had mothers who were Uruguayan. And they started a beautiful hotel group that is Estancia Vic, Playa Vic, and Bahia Vic. So 3 really gorgeous hotels. Beautiful.

I'll link them in the show notes as well for people to take a look. Great, good.

And they were some of my best students. I mean, they'd come to every class. And what I love is that so many people would say, you know, this is the only time of year that I even practice yoga. But it was like the sort of gifts that they would give themselves. Like maybe they did other sports or other activities, but then they'd come to us and ask, and everyone would do yoga. It was just like, okay, everyone goes and we do yoga.

And thanks to you, I mean, you brought it there, right? It was—

yeah, no, exactly. So they were in— I think it was a simultaneous moment where I'm looking to kind of expand the space that I'm working out of, and they wanted to incorporate wellness more prominently into the forefront of the experience of staying at the hotels. They have a wonderful artistic element to all of the hotels. It's very interesting. You can read more about that, but that they really wanted to, you know, capture the beauty of being in Uruguay and that the experience of being— staying in the hotel would allow for a focused wellness. And so basically it was— that was it. It was, you know, this combination of where I was wanting something, you know, that I would— that I could expand into. And so we just built and designed a freestanding wellness center that is located on the Bahia Vic property, which is on the water. And it was a dream come true. I mean, it was— to be able to, you know, being so confined with that small studio, you know, and spending maybe— what was it? 6 years, I guess, envisioning, oh, if I only had, you know, a little extra space to do this or to do that or to have simultaneous class or to do a retreat. And so to be able to, you know, design something that I wanted to maintain very pure and simple, you know, like materials that we use were all very natural and of the landscape, and to keep the shack energy but bring it up a notch in the sense that we really receive people to do long-term healing treatment plans, to be able to have a studio, you know, 2 movement studios, to expand our vocabulary in a sense, because it always was the, the main idea for me that yoga was the starting point for me. And then I did go on into adventure into other areas, aspects of wellness. So, but I do believe that, as I said, yoga is a tool tool, one of many. And that I think that it's an important thing that people can explore the different tools, because in different moments in your life, as well as different types of people, certain tools are just going to align with you, whereas others really don't, aren't. And that it would be so unfortunate if you just said, okay, go to a Kundalini yoga class. Some people are going to love it, others are just going to say, this isn't for me. And how unfortunate it would be to have them turn around and and say, never mind with this whole wellness thing, you know, which more and more and more people are now. I mean, wellness, which I love, since I've left New York, you know, now it's all over the place, which I just— it's great because it wasn't, you know, however many years ago. But yeah, the idea of there being lots of tools in the toolbox, essentially, a wellness center is such a sort of general term. And so what is that? And it's true, what is that? I mean, you know, it's such a— but what it is is a space that you have an array of things and a vocabulary of modalities modalities that are all geared and all the umbrella of that self-healing. But there can be so many ways, and we don't have all the ways. We have some, and as we expand, it'll, you know, provide more opportunity. But that— it's been wonderful. And so we have hotel guests who are doing retreats and have their stay and their daily practices at the shack. You know, they can walk right over from Valladolid. And then people who might— you know, my people from forever, where I've been coming to classes and treatments and continue to come. So it's been really a fun experience. Yeah. Working with them and creating a space that now I feel like I can finally, you know, call home. So amazing.

And so beautiful. And we were talking beforehand about how this impacts sort of wellbeing and longevity. And obviously there's such a big movement now of people's awareness about living better, also longer, but But how would you say the daily yoga or regular yoga practice, and what other ways— I mean, you talked about meditation as well— would help improve people's day-to-day quality of life? I mean, obviously I can imagine some people would, myself included, love to experience what you created there. But are there tools and tactics from a more practical day-to-day perspective to somebody who's not there that you would say this is the aspect of yoga or the connection or the mindfulness, like what is it that would help people improve quality of life that are learnings for you from yoga and well-being focus that you're looking at?

Oh, that's a great one because I mean, it's, it's an infinite journey to—

of course.

So I can respond in a way that I've recently been really thinking about about sort of, I said, I guess essentially like how energy works in our bodies, and that the dialogue of energy being sort of energy can either contract or expand inside, or that's the way that it can feel. It's either contracting or sort of expanding. And that, yeah, I think we can be, you know, sustaining over time a sort of contracted state, which then can be, you know, you can see that in sort chronic inflammation or, you know, something that's sustained over time, oftentimes through habits, through trauma that hasn't been worked through, lifestyle choices, which oftentimes is all connected. How we make the lifestyle choice is affecting, you know, the trauma, or the trauma is affecting how we make choices, or yeah, these things start to create density essentially, or, or contracted energy in our bodies. And I think that we start to get unwell, you know, where it's like your headaches, right? Yeah, like our headaches, like the systems in our bodies start to fail, and they're, they're sort of in survival mode until they stop working, or until they get— so we have a reaction, or until our body finally has a louder signal of saying things are not well. And that there is another language, which is more of an expansive consciousness state, which I think is doing the daily work, because it really is. It's like cleaning your house or brushing your teeth. It's like, well, if you don't sweep the floor, you can sweep it once, but then it'll, you know, you have to sweep it again.

It builds up again.

Be this daily thing, which is a tricky one for a lot of people because they'll have this incredible thing. This is why I always tell people, yeah, it's great, you do yoga once a year when you come, but what about the rest of the year? So that's also part of the idea, is that the Wellness Center is allowing for us to do more year-round programming, which is what I'm really excited about. There's a lot to do in the off-season, you know, the healing doesn't stop. So, you know, I think it's, as I said, what tool it is can be— you can take some time to figure out what it is. It doesn't have to be this type of yoga, it doesn't have to be, you know, this. It can be, you know, affirmations, it could be meditation, it can be yoga, it can be even fitness, because fitness, I think we're bringing What I liked about having the fitness aspect, at first it felt a little bit out of my comfort zone, but I realized you can make fitness as conscious movement. Okay, absolutely. That's super powerful. And so bringing something in that becomes a part of the way that you live your life. And so the choices that you make in your day are going to affect how you are long-term. And that, you know, we have heard this so much, but somehow it really is powerful to incorporate it, actually, because what you're doing is that you're constantly regenerating your energy, and you're constantly letting go of things you need to let go of that are impeding your path somehow. And you're making space for the birth of something new, whether it's more calm, you know, a deeper breath in. You know, you have to let go of the air. You know, it's— you can see it in in every practice that we have to get rid of things that are cluttered up, like our closets, you know, or our house.

The spring cleaning.

Continue, and then soon it'll be moldy and it'll affect the foundation of your house. But if you keep it clean, it'll stay— the foundation will stay clean. So it's preventative medicine, and I just love how sort of low-tech, low-cost it is. It's just so basic sometimes, but it is it is so challenging to make it a lifestyle choice, that it's not just, you know, something you do from here and there, but it's actually a sustainable practice of whatever sort, and that you come back to it. And I think, just to close on that, is that I even found— and I think that why it's so hard for people is because oftentimes it's not a very pleasurable experience at first when you sit down and you're told to close your eyes and take a deep A lot of times it's like we're bombarded with how much is going on in our head and the stress right under the surface. But we're layers. And so the stress or the anxiety or the discomfort— I mean, I just remember sitting in meditation, you can't move, you're uncomfortable, all you want to do is stop doing that and move and do something else. And so the first initial sensation of discomfort discomfort for a lot of these sort of really important healing daily simple things are what dissuade people from continuing. But with time, not only does the discomfort— you realize it's a thin veil that disintegrates, but that the space that you begin to occupy inside yourself is so vast and rich and beautiful. And it's a refuge. You have a refuge, this golden empire inside of yourself that what ends up happening is if you go for any period too long without doing it, you miss it. It's like a coming home to yourself. And that these, in the beginning it is hard. You know, it's like learning something new. It's confronting a lot of times, like the BS, that is in our life. But to sit through that is actually a thinner veil than we think. And then when we move through, that it is such an enjoyable experience. And that, that is what I also wanted to be, is that this shouldn't be so hard. And it is hard, and we do confront a lot of really challenging things, but that the joy and the fun and the freedom and, and how even wild and sexy and cool this can be because you're Moving past just the first level of like frustration or the discipline or the boredom, or that there's so many other things to do. It's just, there's a lot of resistance around it. But that as soon as you shift past that, it's, it's really a profound thing how much more fun, not only how much better you feel, but how much more fun it really is, the experience of our days. Yeah, so what tool? That's completely— I'm never going to tell someone what to do. I'll give people starters. Yeah, I mean, practice yoga and meditation, practice healthy eating, practice positive thinking. I mean, there are a lot of teachers and there's lots of methods to do this. Grab something and stick with it. It's going to be hard, you're not going to like it, but that's irrelevant almost, what— how you feel about it in the beginning. Don't base anything on that. It's just a practice you move through And then talk to me in 6 months after doing it. And then you'll say, okay, there's been a real shift.

That sounds so amazing and such an experience for people to go through and to push through the pain barrier, I guess, to enjoy what's at the other side. Really, really profound. And you were speaking about clearing out things and I think a question for you in the last 5 years, what have you become better at saying no to? Be it distractions, invitations, and what new realizations and/or approaches helped?

First of all, love that question, Claudia, because it's so important, you know, with this, you know, everyone thinks of wellness, like, oh, just be positive and like shift your energy to things that are positive. And although that's true, and you know, the Tony Robbins and the idea of energy following thought, or things will move in the direction that you cannot that there was like a term coined, uh, you know, spiritual bypassing or something, where you, you actually are constantly only thinking about positive things and you're actually not addressing things that are challenging to move through them, because energy needs to be transformed there. It's stuck, stagnant energy that needs to be transformed. And so moving through things that are difficult, and that there is a time to focus on no, and what do we not want to carry with us, what is that healing samurai sword cutting through, you know. You're— there has to be that kind of almost fierceness, I think, at some moment in our healing process where we say, I've had enough, you know. And what, what's great is that you really have to be fed up. It has to get strong enough for someone to say, I've given— I'm fed up. Yeah. Because if it's too gentle, mediocre discomfort, Oh, we're fine living with a mediocre life, you know, with these low-grade tension headaches. Totally used to it at this point. In fact, I wouldn't even recognize myself without them, you know. So yeah, really, we'd rather hold on to things we know, even if it sucks, than kind of like be shot out into the unknown. Who knows what's gonna happen?

So the breakthrough—

um, so I think that there is this very powerful healing process at one moment that we have to continue coming back to, but is this is what, yeah, what do we say no to? You know, I even have, I think, go more into, I think in the beginning talking about what yes, you know, sort of the elimination diet or that idea of like, don't think about all the things that you're cutting out of your diet. Think about the things that you're just gonna add in because a lot of people, it immediately creates a lot of stress, sadness, longing. They hate it. They don't wanna do it. Like, wait, but I love those things. I have to say goodbye to them and they get stuck on all the things that they can't eat. When really it's like, don't put your energy there. Think about all the things that you can. So I also do believe that there is this, let the light flow in and it'll clear out the darkness. But there has to be a, and I think I'm very much still working on this, what are areas that are sucking out my energy somehow? Where I get, and it can be, you know, it's really becoming sort of, and in my yoga classes, I even sort of invite people to be like, enter into an energetic dialogue with yourself, you know, like learn how to have an energetic dialogue with, you know, understanding, comprehension of what's going on with you. And so, yeah, it's like mental, emotional, physical, it's all actually kind of blurred together. So, so bring that into saying, okay, what's happening to my energy? What happened after I spoke, I connected with this, or turned on the news, or I had this type of conversation, or I use these words in this sequence, something happened to my energy. And I actually use those words in that sequence a lot. So what's happening there? And so I think that's always step one, energetic dialogue, to realize, oh wow, look what I'm doing. And oftentimes without quite being so conscious of it. And how can I stop that? So it's actually pausing and eliminating and shifting into another direction. And so by choosing your thoughts, we get to be, have a conscious breath and we can have a conscious mind. And it can also be, those two things can also be unconscious, which is kind of really cool. So we're breathing, thank God breath can be unconscious. I'm gonna think about it every single time we do it. But then what happens when your breath does become conscious? Conscious. And then what happens, and you're thinking all the time, your mind, you're thinking about this, you're thinking about this, your mind is just this wild animal inside. Yeah. And that actually also, but you can, we have the capacity to stop and choose our thoughts. And how one thought, I always love this one, you know, more than even food you put in your body, one single thought has the capacity to change the chemistry in your body so quickly and so drastically. Like it's a chemical cascade that reaches all your organs, all your soft tissue, all your— so choose your thoughts and feel really empowered to do that. And when you're choosing a thought, you're saying no to another one. There, there's a process of interrupting that we have to get really good at. So our natural tendencies tend to be ones that are not good for us. Then with our evolution as human beings, then we get higher quality thoughts little by little. But at first you have to say, you have to pause and you have to interrupt and you're literally, and it takes time where you stop and you say no and you have to change your mind. And then it becomes easier to the point where, you know, you can, that little neural pathway, I guess, dissolves or something. It doesn't, but that then you are now have a new mental construct with new chemicals that are being released in your body and a new outlook on your life. I mean, it's actually quite profound, but it starts with the annoying detail every day, interrupting and saying no to that feeling. So I think that I recently had a— the building up of the wellness center, I had self-confidence issues that would come up that would be like, oh my gosh, can I be the director of a wellness center? You know, like, you know, I didn't get my medical degree. These doubtful thoughts would come in, and I— that's something that I remember just saying say, take a deep breath. You're not trying to be anything other than you are. Just continue this, like, authentic— just authenticity. So it really became really, uh, sitting in my authenticity and, and, and loving it and being it from, you know, and emanating it. So I think a lot of it has to do with thoughts because it so easily can misdirect you or And knowing yourself as well.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah.

Yeah. What I get from that is learning to say no to the thoughts that take your energy and that drain you and being A, aware of it, and B, then choosing to redirect to a place where you can create and actually be in a positive frame of mind and focus on what's there, which I love. And one area I find super fascinating and I'm trying to get more familiar with is intuition and letting making space to actually let intuition come through. So it's also one topic I'm very interested in as well. But it sounds like that through your journey of knowing yourself and inner connection, that you've really become good at trusting yourself and, as you call it, authenticity as well, which is so incredible.

And look what you're creating. Constant process.

But yeah, changing gears a bit for some rapid-fire questions. What has been your most exciting purchase in the last 6 months? I love specifics, so it could be a brand or model, where you can find it, and why.

One of the most fun experiences of starting this wellness center not only was designing the physical space, which was really, really creative, and, you know, how does one move through a space and how does the space somehow inspire healing, you know, and inspire the— what we're trying to cultivate inside those walls, you know. So that was really really wonderful. And then just as exciting was purchasing the equipment, you know, and the tools that we were going to have in sort of phase one of the wellness center. And this is where I, you know, I was reaching out a lot to friends in the wellness world and did a lot of research because I'm really, at the end of the day, in a tiny little coastal town like—

you're the center of the latest trends.

And so, you know, whereas I was living in Manhattan where I did feel very quite confident about knowing the latest trends of all the wellness things. I was such a wellness junkie and all products and all the brands. And I sort of realized that my shift towards this, like, you know, living in the countryside on the coast, and, you know, it was more about the tuition and making the space for all of that. But that I want to have a wellness center that has, you know, because there really are some wonderful gadgets out there. Yeah. And so I'm a fan of them. Yeah. Yes, and I would say that two of the most exciting things that I purchased were an infrared sauna. And I did so much research because I just had to, you know, I like all of the different brands that are making infrared saunas, all the, you know, customer reviews and learning about it. Because I even honestly don't even have that much experience in them because I've been in Uruguay, I remember So it's, it's a fun— it was actually a funny thing. Yeah, right. Steam rooms and saunas. I mean, even living in New York, the bathhouses and stuff, I would use all the time and I loved, and I would do them. But infrared was really kind of more, you know, on the later end of the spectrum. So I ended up using Clearlight, the company Clearlight Infrared Saunas.

So just clear, C-L-E-A-R. Yeah, Clearlight.

I It's all one word, which we have been so thrilled with. It's just amazing. It's like this beautiful cedar interior and it has beautiful like speakers and there's even like chromotherapy. So you have like different lights that are like coming on you and then the infrared panels are really good.

And can you explain for people who might not know that the benefit of infrared light, like why an infrared sauna, what is is it for?

Yeah, so infrared light rays penetrate much deeper into the physical body than light rays, and so the penetration in through the muscle, through the skin, and through— and I can't remember how many millimeters it is, but it's quite a lot deeper into the body. And the infrared rays are extremely healing. They're— they— it's like rapid cellular repair. When it's on the body. And so having infrared, direct infrared light on the skin is incredibly healing. It just— immune system is, you know, wow, even down to like physical muscular issues. But it's deep immune health along with sweating. You know what sweating does? Sweat therapy essentially is just eliminating a tremendous amount of toxins toxins and waste that the body produces.

Because the skin is your biggest organ, right?

And so it's like taking a shower from the inside out, you know, and really eliminating and, and letting go. And so it's that double— it's really double. It's sweating, but sweating with infrared rays, which also what it does is that it heats the body more than the air. So in a regular sauna, it heats the air. There are, you know, regular heaters that heat the air so much so that then the body sweats But actually the body never reaches the temperature to sweat as deeply as it can with infrared. And it also doesn't create such hot air that it's really uncomfortable to be in. It even burns your nose.

Burns the nose. Yeah.

So infrared is a much nicer quality heat in the sense you can really tell the difference in that heat. And we actually have a regular sauna as well. We have a regular dry sauna. Dry sauna, and we have the infrared sauna, which we have in one of our treatment rooms, along with the soaking tub, which we like to do. So you have sort of a private room because we really recommend being, you know, fully nude in the infrared sauna to get like the most impact of the infrared rays. And so we'll align it, we'll put like healing flowers and herbs in a soaking tub so you can have sort of a space to just be with yourself, to soak with lots of salts we'll put in perhaps, or depending on what someone's wanting, you know, and then do the infrared in the same room. And also moving on to the question, my second favorite thing that I purchased was a bio mat. Ah, because it's infrared, it's infrared rays, but it's through amethyst crystals. So it keeps the amethyst crystals and it's a mat and it's kind of like all of the fervor in the wellness world from what I learned and now have been able to experience. What's wonderful about it is this comfortable mat that rolls up, and along the mat inside there are these amethyst crystals. You hook up the BioMat in, so you plug it into the wall— electricity, yeah— and the electricity activates the infrared heating up the amethyst crystals, and you lie on it. The other thing that infrared rays does, and the BioMat being so close up to your body, is that your electromagnetic radiation, like, yeah, field is completely cleaned, you know. And so we get so much— we're on cell phones, I mean, cell phones, Wi-Fi, cell towers, and that, you know, that we really have a lot we're holding on. There's almost like the cleansing has to happen on the electromagnetic level as well. And so, and then you don't even realize why you're feeling so much lighter or so much more peaceful. And that there's a lot of that that's being cleaned out as well. And so the BioMat, what's nice about it, it's also like a warming pad.

So it's not hot, it's just warm, it's comfortable.

Yeah, you have a little temperature regulator, so if you actually do want it to be hot, you can. And they have them also for office chairs, like in the shape of office chairs, and they have them to put over your mattress. And so you can actually be sleeping, which I think the thing about it being plugged in always made me a little straight— feel strange about it. But people do, because you have that all night long. That— wow, it's hyper healing energy that comes from the BioMat, and it's super relaxing. And so sometimes we'll even do like a healing session, a hands-on healing session of, you know, some sort of massage or something over the BioMat. So you get— wow, oh my gosh, like double, triple layers of—

that sounds incredible. Yeah. Oh, that sounds really, really wonderful. So two very, very great, uh, great purchases there. Has a failure or apparent failure set you up for later success? And, and do you have a favorite failure of yours?

Oh, it's a good one. I, for a long time, really was down on myself for, um, I started two career paths, or rather educational paths, that I I decided to not continue. And although they were very conscious choices at the time, they weren't without their, you know, dose of guilt looking back. I started pre-med to think about doing med school, which luckily really, I think, was not more than one or even two semesters, and then psychology. And I spent a long time searching in my post- post-yoga class, a life-altering moment, where I said, okay, well, now how do I— I actually deepened my studies at the time, right after college, in Uruguay in my early 20s, and I studied with a healer. It was more of like apprenticing, you know, with a healer and studying with an informal kind of professional training group. But we learned— I mean, it was just like, it was like an in-depth, and it was almost 3 where it was really learning all about, you know, the basis of Ayurveda and traditional Chinese medicine and bodywork and global techniques. Yes, global techniques and learning how to— it was very sort of integrating healing methods and sort of the synthesis of a lot of these methods and what are these overlaps and how interesting to see how they're all actually in so many ways saying the same thing. Even quantum type theory about, you know, health and the mind and, you know, the planet and us and what. So it was just this in-depth time, but it was not anything, it was an apprenticeship, essentially. So I, after about 3 years of intensively studying, I went back to New York, and I said, okay, now I want to formalize this deep passion of mine into a career. And that's when I just started to look around at all of the, you know, in New York, the big universities, the small training programs to see where can I find this synthesis. I want to learn about all of them in one, in one course, in one training or one PhD or one, whatever it is. And I wasn't finding, I just felt like I wasn't, I couldn't find what I was looking for. And so I, you know, I did a very sort of in-depth medical massage training program, which was wonderful. It was like a 2-year program and we were always working, but I felt like, okay, I need more. I want more.. And so then I started, you know, pre-med at NYU and I just felt like, okay, great, but that's not actually the direction that's, that's taking me too far away from this. But I'm very clear on what I want. And then I, I mean, I, I, it's like, then I started psychology, psychology. I thought, okay, psychology, I'll be able to get. But it was, you know, I, I just remember that I would meet graduates of the programs I would then, you know, that were 7, 8 years down the line. And they really, it wasn't the work that they were doing. And that wasn't what I was actually looking to do. It really wasn't. It felt like, okay, I could do this, but I would be doing it kind of just for the degree, which is valid. And maybe that's what I should do. But I just felt this fervor of, I already know what excites me and I want to do this. And I think it's powerful and important in the world. And I, but there was nothing. I didn't find it at the time, at least. Something that really integrated different healing methods that I could become an expert at. So many modalities into one. Yes, different areas. And then I studied nutrition, you know. So I feel like there was this feeling of dabbling a little bit that I remember at the time. It's so interesting, I look back and I was like, I think going back to the sort of self-confidence thing or the, the failure where, where at one time I felt I thought, oh, I just, I failed, you know, in these courses because I kept just choosing not to continue them. And now I look back and I go, thank God, because I just actually, at the end of the day, even though it was coming from sort of an un— not the total, you know, like enlightened confidence part of myself, I was saying no actually to these things. That were not actually— even though in looking back, you know, with all of the ups and downs of those years, I had a very clear idea even then. And I just kept knowing what was not— what was taking me too far for this way or taking me too far. And, and somehow I was able to stay somehow on some sort of path to be able to get to where I am now, which which is creating a physical space that has these things in them. And so I think that there was a lot about that where I saw it perhaps as a failure or this frustration of not finding, you know, this. And I still believe that there should be, you know, like a new curriculum, you know. And, and I, and I believe people are creating them. I actually almost started, uh, started public health, I remember, as well. And I just remember thinking, there really needs to be something you know, educators, and it needs to come together and create a new curriculum, you know, on training people for what is wellness. Because I think it needs to be much more at the forefront of everyone's mind, you know, especially when we look at the impact it can have on our health long term. And so, you know, I became a health coach and I was working as sort of a health coach, or I would— but I just kept feeling like it was like a little bit of this, a little bit of that, a little bit of this. And I was like, this sort of frustration of I'm not finding, you know, that one thing. And that's actually because that one thing was an integration of different things. So I think that, that probably looking back would be the answer to the many, many failures along the path.

Well, the perceived failures, you can almost say, because looking back now, and as Steve Jobs rightly says, it's connecting the dots, you know, in retrospect, it actually makes complete sense. And you probably, you know, you take always something with you. And that's all contributed to the person you are now and what you're creating and what you're giving back with the wellness center. So really, really beautiful. For people who want to dig into yoga for longevity and general well-being more, what resources or books would you recommend they start with?

Oh, that's a good question. So I always first tell people, you know, to just find something that's convenient, like whether— so this was always more when people would ask, you know, where they're here for a visit or a stay, and where can practice in New York or in Buenos Aires or in wherever they live. Who do you recommend? Where can I go? And my response would be, go somewhere where you can sustain it over time. So with resources in terms of, you know, books or anything online, I think it's something that you can click with and that is easy. It has to— it really— there has to be ease in the process of connecting. It can't sort of be a complicated process in the beginning. I set yourself up for success, right? Exactly. And so I always loved, you know, for example, Yoga Glow is an online platform where they— you sign up and it's something like, I don't know, $10 a month or so. Actually, probably more at this point. I think they started at something like that. Yeah. But you have access to so many classes, and I love how they separated. They go heart, mind, and body, right? So you can click, and it's just a plethora of classes geared around those. And, and click, you can click and it's there. And there's a 20-minute class, there's even like a 5-minute class and a 90-minute class and all different levels and all different types of teachers. And a lot of them are some of the real heavy hitters in yoga that are out there and alive now. And boom, they have really good audio recordings, you know. These. And so it, it would just— it's just simple. And you can ask Yoga Glow. There is a Yoga Glow, G-L-O. There is a payment to it, so, you know, subscription money. Yeah, yeah, subscription-based. One of the highlights in this very challenging, complex, and difficult time of COVID is that all— a lot of platforms have shifted online. So a lot of things, especially yoga— I think the yoga world maybe was more reticent to move online. I mean, I'm sort of speaking for the whole yoga world, which I think a lot of people had online practices before, a lot of virtual studios and so forth. But there was a really big shift of wellness-type resources that are now online. And I think that that was a boom. The wellness industry boomed online during COVID And I think that we have yet to even see all of the things that have been created and resources that there are. But there are a lot of people who before were only in person are communicating online. And that people who say, oh, I don't know, like, about online, it's, you know, it's a transition, it's shifting out of your comfort zone. But give yourself the time because you can access so directly some of the most powerful teachings that are happening on the planet now. And people are doing it. They're there. They're offering their classes, they're offering their services and encouraging a lot of people. I have a lot of sort of older students as well, and sometimes they can just say, you know, you can tell that it's the same mental construct. They've been saying, oh no, I don't do things well online, or something like that. Yeah, I'm like, okay, so let's just pause there for a second, you know, rewind. So this is something you believe, it's a belief system about yourself, you're not good at this. And then so to just shift and say, you know, just because we, you know, at this point we can be blocking ourselves off from something that's so special and meaningful, and, and then the simplicity of it is actually, you know, can be taught and learned of how to access it. So I think that's something exciting to see, and that there are more and more resources. I also— my meditation teacher who I've been working with, she's a dear friend and meditation teacher who does does incredible online things in South America. She's American, she's half American, half Chilean, and she had moved to Chile a few years ago, around the same time I moved to Uruguay, and started a meditation school. And she's from a lineage of, you know, her guru in India, and she's devoted her life to service. So she's— and she's just, I mean, a ball of sunshine and love and she's teaching online classes and meditations and spiritual coaching. And she has wonderful also mini, you know, daily meditations that she does. Her name is Shri Devi. You can also put that there.

Sure, I'll put it in the show notes. Shri, S-H-R-I? S-H-R-E-E.

Okay, Shri Devi. D-E-V-I. So Shri, and then another word, Devi, Shri Devi. MAA. So 3 words, Shri Devi Ma. And she has Vida Alineada, is her business essentially. And we've had her do retreats at the shack last year on our opening. She was there. Incredible. We're actually planning another one. And she can do bilingual retreats. And she's so much of like these powerful sort of energy meditation healing, you know, affirmations or changing the way that we're thinking and stuff, a lot of that is so much from the support of Sri Devi, of, you know, the work that I've been doing with her and the work that she's doing. And it's really incredible to witness everything she's doing. She has a lot of resources as well online. So yeah, those are the two right now that pop into mind. Yoga Glow, Sri Devi's online platform, which she— Perfect. On Instagram.

And, and I know there are so many more, but those are two really good places to start. And where can people And of course I'll also put this in the show notes, but where can people learn more about what you're up to and what you'd like to share with people, what you're doing with the wellness retreats? Where's the best place to find you?

I would say to follow us on Instagram. We're always updating with our programming, some things that are happening. It's The Shak Yoga altogether. Shak being S-H-A-C-K, uh, the Shak Yoga and the website as well. We— is, uh, www.theshakyoga.com. You can find us there for our online— so we're going to be launching online practices as well as the retreats and intensive courses that we'll be doing for the next year. Oh, excellent.

So people can find out about that and sign up. That sounds really great. As a closing comment, and this has been really wonderful conversation touching on so many inspiring and amazing parts. Do you have a final ask or recommendation or next step suggestion, whatever it might be, for my audience? Any parting thoughts or, or message?

I think something that has been sort of so prevalent to this conversation and also others we've had together, as well as sort of a continuing theme as well in my journey, is that adverse or more challenging or traumatic or difficult experiences can end up being our best friends. I mean, they can end up being the most profound and important experiences that we have. And that I think almost as, as an advice to give a friend or to give a class that I'm teaching or to the audience listening is to not shy away, you know, is to greet adverse moments front on, full on, invite them in, sit with these difficult things, sit in your discomfort, because the process of transforming, or which happens after we first invited in, of transforming challenge that we feel in our life is what ends up deepening the purpose purpose of our journey, and that we begin to cultivate so much of who we are, why we're here, what this self-knowledge— it happens through the process of moving through these challenging or difficult things that can happen in our life. So to not avoid it and to greet it and meet it and almost love it, invite it and sit with it because they will be your pillars. They will be those moments, and they are what will allow you to evolve essentially as a human being. And so I, I just, you know, I try to even remind my young girls and myself when something challenging is happening is this is— this can be the— this can be an amazing moment. Just right now it's going to feel so hard, and to just bring it and let it in, let the tidal waves come in and whatever it has to offer. And that moving through this moment will end up providing so much meaning to your life, essentially. So I think those might be my parting words.

Isabella, thank you so much. This has been so wonderful and inspiring for, for myself and for listeners on their journey to longevity and lifestyle. So thank you so much for joining the podcast. It was a real pleasure speaking with you.

Claudia, it's so inspiring to see what you're doing, that so many people can reach these conversations, such important human conversations about this such an important subject. And I just love what you're doing and so excited to see more. And thank you so much for having me as a part of it.

Hi everyone, this is Claudia again. Before you take off, thank you so much for listening to the podcast today. I hope you learned as many valuable insights on living better for longevity as I did. I'd love you to join our Longevity Tribe so we can learn and grow together. Together, as well as hear your feedback. So please subscribe to the podcast and leave a review to let me know what you thought. Thanks so much and take care.