You know how sometimes you just want to say, “Fuck it, I’m going to Mexico?” Well, I said it, and just over a week later I was heading to Puerto Vallarta. Crazy? Yes. Expensive? You have no idea.

Four years ago, I quit my job and dedicated myself to freelance writing and yoga. Big projects have come and gone, and since the last big one went, I’ve attempted some soul-searching. My version involved wine, yoga, long rambling G-chats with patient friends, conversations with my husband, naps with the dog, calls with my parents and, finally, the realization that I want to be a yoga teacher, get a degree in social work, start my own magazine, study Ayurvedic medicine—and keep writing. In other words, I was feeling a little lost.

Just how scattered I was hit me while I flying home from my grandfather’s funeral. I bought two magazines that day: Yoga Journal and O. After drooling over photos of perfect backbends on perfect sandy beaches, I picked up O.

I started to see myself in a story about various women who found happiness by discovering their “wild calling.” Essentially, it was about listening to your inner voice. My inner voice said this: After two crazy years of heart-wrenching loss and unparalleled highs and lows, you need a break. Fuck it. Go to Mexico. I admit it’s possible that I had an “aha!” moment. And just when Oprah is leaving Chicago...

What I really wanted was to be on one of those beaches in Yoga Journal. I wanted the space and freedom to think. The next day, I entered these words into Google in various configurations: “yoga, retreat, NOW, now, Mexico, California, beach, November.” I found Three Jewels, a Boulder, Colo.-based group offering twice-daily yoga, surf lessons, an in-house chef and relaxation in the private villa, Casa Todo Bien. I emailed and was offered a discount for signing up so late. I looked at flights. Expensive. But… I had a check from the last big project, a check I didn’t really expect to see. So I cashed it and booked a flight. And then I realized my passport had expired.

As it turns out, for a fee, that’s no big deal. En route to the passport expediting office the panic set in. I don’t know these people. What if I arrived in Mexico and no one was at the airport to get me? What if I got there, got in a car and was taken to some nefarious location? What if all they had to eat was mayonnaise-based? Uncharacteristically, I decided not to worry about it—and then didn’t worry about it (much).

When I arrived in Mexico, my fellow retreaters met me at the airport. They were a nice group, some were there for soul-searching, others simply to surf and hang out.

During the long afternoon breaks, I walked up and down the beach and looked at rocks. There’s something immensely satisfying about seeing hundreds of rocks in a pile, standing there for 10 minutes and then grabbing the right one. I came home with a suitcase full of rocks, which didn’t go unnoticed by my seatmate when he helped me lift my bag into the overhead. He joked, “What do you have in here, rocks?” I must have looked guilty when I said, “Only a few.” He didn’t help me get the bag down when we landed.

At the Casa Todo Bien, hours and days ran into each other in a pleasant, easy way and when it was time to leave, I was ready. I missed my husband and the dog, but I did feel different. I felt calmer and more alert at the same time. Flying home through turbulence while clutching a rock in my pocket, I realized how many fears I faced on this trip. I hate to fly. I am hardly someone who goes off to foreign countries alone, and the surfing was new and terrifying.

I went on the retreat to prove to myself that I can do things that frighten me, assuming that I might come back committed to making a scary, life-altering decision about my career. Before I left, I envisioned myself revisiting the image of me standing on a surfboard and riding a wave into the shore to give me the strength to push through whatever change I was about to make.

But now that it’s been a few weeks, I think about the surfing and the falling and the rocks looming beneath the surface, and I know that the courage I was looking for isn’t to start something new, it is to keep going and to stay balanced. I see that I’ve already created a life based on what matters most to me: writing, yoga and spending time with people I love.

The literal translation of Casa Todo Bien is: Home All Right. What the retreat gave me was a new appreciation for a mantra I already know.