We had the good fortune to stay in one of Puerto Rico’s most prestigious wellness retreats – Casa Alternavida. Casa Alternavida is a wellness retreat in Puerto Rico that focuses on alternative, healthier ways to balance work, life and yourself. Leo Tolstoy began his 1877 novel Anna Karenina with the words: “All happy families look alike, but each unhappy family has its own unique way of being unhappy.”
This is true whether you believe it or not. The way you brush your tooth is directly related to your deepest fears, hopes, and desires. This is both a terrifying and liberating realization, because it means you don’t need to dive into your soul in order to discover what’s stopping you from reaching your goal. It’s possible to map your psyche by examining your oral hygiene in depth, but that would be both tedious and difficult. Casa Alternavida offers a beautiful and fun environment for discovering healthy living, reconnecting with nature and a sense of discovery.
We invite you to join us for a tour of Casa Alternavida. You will learn how the staff can help you to clear your mind and create new opportunities for enlightenment. They also offer you insights that help you to unravel unconscious commitments and stories that are holding you back.
Set Your Waking Intentions
As soon as you awaken and open your eyes, you’ll notice the many intentions that surround you at Casa Alternavida. Some are the ones you have set before arriving. Some of them are the sounds that come from the surrounding gardens. Some, such as the artwork on walls, will guide you through your journey. Each of the seven sleeping room features a matching, beautiful mural painted by a local. The Bashful Butterflies was ours, and it symbolized growth and transformation.
You’ll also find thoughtful touches and magical spaces throughout the entire house. The furniture has been repurposed, resurrected and reused. The coffee you drink in the morning is strong and fresh, with no added sugar or diary. Here, a beautiful peace fosters the intention to become a bashful butterfly.
Mindful movement to start your day
Casa Alternavida’s mornings begin with a yoga/mindful movement class. This is usually held on the roof patio. Sitara, the instructor at Casa Alternavida, is a trained intuitive teacher with a formal background in Kripalu techniques or caring. She seamlessly blends yoga, breathing work, meditation, energy therapy, and other modalities to help guests connect with their natural states of love, joy and peace.
Morning movement is beneficial, even if you do not believe that you should align your chakras and cleanse your aura. In a 2012 study published in Medical & Science in Sport & Exercise, morning exercise was associated with increased activity during the day. You know that you cannot arrive to Sitara’s class groggy or late. The first thing you do in the morning is to be present in the moment. This state will last throughout the entire day. It’s great if your chi flows better, or a trained professional addresses your unspoken and spoken needs.
Eat a Healthy Breakfast
Breakfast is important, but it’s not just about eating. It’s also about eating well. Casa Alternavida offers dairy-free, gluten-free meals without added sugars. They were still delicious, and even perhaps educational. Yancy’s gluten-free homemade waffles are the best I have ever tasted. But, do you know about reading chia soups?
We began with a freshly prepared dish of chia, and a table of fresh fruits, seeds, and nuts. We then ‘decorated our chia’ however we liked. Before we ate, we read. Jenn’s bowl was symmetrical, with no toppings touching each other. This showed off her meticulousness. My bowl was loaded with everything and showed that I love excess. The readings at the table were surprising accurate, and revealed how much one can learn about themselves by observing the smallest of actions.
Take a morning rainforest excursion
Casa Alternavida, located in the eastern part of Puerto Rico in the small town Rio Grande just off Highway 3, is about half way between the El Yunque Rainforest Reserve and the beach. It may seem strange to have a retreat that focuses on rejuvenation and reconnecting with nature so close to the highway, but the universe has a way of working in mysterious ways.
Yancy had originally planned to build in the forest, but a series of strange coincidences brought him to Casa Alternavida. The building and grounds were in need of a lot more work, but the project that Yancy undertook was much greener than any construction he would have done in the forest. The retreat is located in a convenient location that allows guests to access both the forest and beach on the same day. It’s also easier to get there from the airport.
Nature excursions are important because they help us to clear our heads and expose lessons in a concise manner. Yancy transformed a mud puddle into the mud that we have encountered in our lives and asked us to describe how we dealt with it. Do you walk? Do you trudge around? Refuse to continue? I felt clever for holding back and letting other people find their way before I entered the mud. This is a strategy that works well in real life as well. We also observed the different layers of sounds we heard in the jungles and practiced silence. Silence was harder for me than trudging in the mud.
Cleanse your Mud
You get dirty but your mind is opened by climbing waterfalls, splashing through rivers and trudging in mud. Yancy left us with just enough time to clean up before lunch. Even in this mundane task, there are magical touches.
The shower head was equipped with a rainfall that gave us the feeling of being under a waterfall at El Yunque. Yancy offered full bottles of sustainable, organic hair and body care products instead of commercial, single-use toiletries. These small touches demonstrated that you can clean your skin without losing touch with nature.
Fill up with a hearty lunch
Ivonne’s lunch at Casa Alternavida proved that you don’t have to be hungry to eat healthily. Catering for Casa Alternavida changed her life in many ways. She was originally a baker and pastry chef. She met Yancy’s challenges to make Puerto Rican traditional food gluten-free, healthy and natural. Last one was a challenge for a pastry cook, but the results speak for themselves.
We enjoyed Chef Ivonne’s cooking and lunch was our favorite meal. We know from my chia-based bowls that my favourite meal is lunch. A large, healthy meal fuels your body and brain. It was also the first time we had the chance to reflect on the morning activity and absorb it as a class.
Relax with Afternoon Time Off
Yancy provided one-on-one coaching on request after lunch. Yancy’s coaching was fascinating. It all began with highly tuned empathy and perception. Remember how everything is interconnected with holistic principles. Imagine how much data an empath would collect by observing you when you are put in situations that will push you outside of your comfort zone.
Yancy has a lot of empathy. He does not recite or preach any positions. He asks you insightful questions and makes observations to help you assess how your beliefs are serving you, and how you are serving your beliefs. He only asks that you be honest with yourself. You are responsible for the conclusions and actions you make.
Take a Beach Trip in the Afternoon
We went to the beach every afternoon because Casa Alternavida was located half way between the mountains. The Reserva Natural Rio Espiritu Santo was our destination. This is where the Espiritu Santo River empties into the ocean.
The estuary is one of the most beautiful spots on the island. Swim in the river or ocean, stroll on the beach or simply enjoy the view. Yancy has also created a series lessons based on the ocean and beach. Although we have never seen any of these things, it is easy to imagine the shifting sands, the views that stretch to the horizon and the other world beneath the waves.
Savor a Light Dinner
Dinners are unique and different from lunches. Lunch must provide energy to get through the day. Dinners should be light so that they do not interfere with sleeping. Chef Ivonne’s creations are a masterpiece within these restrictions by involving your mastication through different textures. A medley made up of Puerto Rican roots vegetables was one of our favorites. Chef Ivonne did not chop everything into cubes, and then boil it like English mashed potato. Instead, she added the ingredients as the recipe progressed. Some bites were soft as butter, while others had a more resistant chewing texture. Instead of focusing on the amount of food consumed, you focused on the other aspects of the meal.
Dessert is also part of the dinner menu, and this is another area in which Chef Ivonne excels. Her formal pastry chef education was evident, even when she used healthy ingredients without added sugar. Her dairy-free and gluten-free versions of cheesecake and chocolate tortes were superior to their more sinful cousins. In a previous life, she might have owned a healthy dessert store in Southern California
Get to the core of the matter with an evening speciality lesson
Casa Alternavida provides some unique services including a rooftop ceremony of cacao at sunset, and an evening ceremony of fire. We participated in the evening fire ceremony where we explored how fire is an element within us, and can be used to let go of things we no longer need.
It is a simple ceremony, but it has a profound meaning. Yancy explained the fire cycle to us, which involves more than burning. It is important to build the fire using appropriate materials, provide it with oxygen and fuel and then harness it for a specific purpose. If you fail to follow these steps, the fire will not start or it will flash and burn quickly before it can serve its purpose. The ceremony went beyond theoretical lessons. On paper, we wrote down what motivated us, what the fire was meant to purify, and what direction we hoped this would take us.
We then built a fire using our notes on fuel and cleaning, along with some supplies Yancy had provided. It’s harder than you might think to make a fire if you’ve never done it before. This struggle is a necessary part of the process, because it’s harder to harness your inner fire.
A Day at Casa Alternavida
After the fire ceremony, we shuffled to bed. With all the activities and a light meal, you’d think we’d drift off to a restful and deep sleep. It’s possible that some people have experienced this, but it wasn’t our experience. Yancy met with us in advance to discuss our goals and intentions. We decided to go on a couples retreat that focused on issues such as running a company together, finding a work-life balance and how much money is enough for retirement. Yancy is flexible and can offer everything from corporate team-building to personal deep dives like we did.
Lessons and discoveries from the day continued to dance through our heads, searching for a permanent home in our consciousness. There was a lot of information to process, and much to unpack. We needed the retreat at Casa Alternavida much more than we thought. We finally managed to calm our whirling thoughts because we knew Sitara was waiting for us tomorrow morning for yoga. We knew we would be going on a more traditional vacation to the El Conquistador resort, in Fajardo. This allowed us to focus on our work.