Souvenirs of the Soul: PYL In-Flight: Mar 19, 2025
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Welcome Back My Intrepid Passengers:
Tomorrow morning I will do my best to get the last of the sand out of my hair from stargazing last night at this beautiful cove where I spent a soul-nourishing afternoon and evening with my friends Christy and Terra, and Christy’s three-legged dog Roo. We ate. We drank. We swam in the bay (Bahia La Redonda). We watched the magical sunset together as we chatted non-stop about anything and everything. We were enthralled by the hermit crabs while Roo chased the sand and ghost crabs.
And then we sat our butts down at the edge of the water, I said to hell with getting sand all over, and laid back to marvel at the indecipherable constellations in the sky. Thus, the sand in my hair.
How did we get to this magical place?
After working all morning my work was done for the day, (Christy’s calls and Terra’s massage/facial clients wrapped up at 2), we grabbed our beach towels, sunscreen, and bug repellent and made our way to the Aqua Nicaragua Resort just 15 minutes south of Hacienda Iguana on Nicaragua’s Emerald Coast.
It was my second to last day and last chance to spend time with Terra and do a full catch up. I met and became friends with Terra four years ago when I first visited Christy in Nicaragua with my then 16 year-old second born child. During my 12 day stay in Iguana, I spent the majority of the time resisting relaxation and getting to know as many people in the community as I could since I was leaving my kid with Christy for another 3 weeks.
It was at the beginning of year two of Covid and while I wanted the experience for my kid, I was also very nervous about leaving them so far away, in a country with questionable politics. Spoiler alert: everything was fine but I sobbed when I left them at the Nicaragua/Costa Rica border where I was picked up for a harrowing ride to the Liberia airport that involved a high speed chase, evading national police, and getting dropped off at a convenient store, instead of the airport, as the driver fled for his personal safety, abandoning mine.
Hopefully my 2.5 hour taxi ride to the Managua airport is less eventful but more about that later.
Back to yesterday.
As we were chatting, I asked aloud, casually looking for input, about what I should take away from this trip. (The trip was initially built around a branding workshop put on by Christy and her colleague Thomas in La Jolla, about 30 minutes from Iguana as I mentioned in my last In-Flight Entertainment)
I settled into Nicaragua at Christy’s place for 4 nights before checking into ESC, the retreat/workshop location for 4 nights, before returning to Iguana for the balance of my two week stay. The workshop Christy and Thomas provided to me as their sole attendee was incredibly valuable despite the questionable nature of the retreat location that is under construction and requires much needed attention to attract the nomadic visitors looking for a co-working space in paradise.
So, of course, some of my takeaways are going to be from the branding workshop in how I shape my product offering and brand voice, gift, and style for Terri Hanson Mead, Piloting Your Life, and Zeke and Terri Adventures.
But what else am I bringing back besides sand in my hair and keyboard and lots and lots of photos and video of sunsets and a mama turtle laying eggs? How can I learn from this trip, this place, and the people from around the world I’ve connected with, and apply these learnings to create more joy, more ease, more harmony, and more audacity in my life? (Audacity is my word for 2025 as Curiosity was my word for 2024)
Hacienda Iguana, La Jolla, Popoyo, and Rancho Santana are bubbles, not dissimilar to the bubble I live in back in California. I don’t feel unsafe here but I do feel a distorted sense of time which Zeke and I often feel back home with our current business endeavor. It’s not unusual for one of us to ask the other what day it is just as I did yesterday with Christy.
I have a spot to work at her dining table where I look out at the golf course, feeling the breeze from the wind go through her house as the day heats up, with her dog Roo keeping me company on the cement floor by my feet. It’s the same spot I’ve worked at from around 8:30 AM to 2 PM each day I’ve been at her house. At 2, it’s generally too hot to keep working in this spot and time to take a break for lunch, a siesta, or an outing.
At 5:30 it’s sunset time at which point people here tend to migrate towards the beach to enjoy a beverage, commune with friends, and appreciate the magnificent sunset. It’s a way of life here and one that Zeke and I have talked about after our trips to Palm Springs, CA where the people we’ve met there have a similar mentality.
In our bubble, it’s been all about the hustle and the climb. I often ended my work day at 7 PM at a client site, or earlier if I had investor meetings to attend. I missed more than an acceptable number of dinners with my husband and kids as I worked one more billable hour, or made one more business connection, often returning home to get back to work after the kids went to bed at 9.
I missed a lot of our life together, their lives, and my life individually as I chased the almighty dollar and a patriarchal, capitalist definition of success.
Was it worth it? I don’t know. It’s hard to look back on a decision, or series of decisions, and assess whether they were in fact good or bad. I feel like I am doing a fair bit of clean up with our kids and I definitely wish I’d spent less time working and more time being intentional in all aspects of my life.
With all this being said, the one thought that has been bouncing around my brain for the last few days is that I no longer wish to be constrained by the artificial structure of corporate schedules. The work that I do and the life I wish to lead, requires me to align my productivity with my purpose, not a timecard.
And that may be my biggest and boldest takeaway from this trip.
I get to choose when I’ve done enough even if it’s 2 PM. I get to choose when to start my day, even if it’s at 9:30 or 10 AM after a yoga class or a coffee with a friend. I get to choose to stop work in time for the sunset and not feel compelled to be ‘productive’ after dinner to compensate for a ‘shorter’ work day.
As a child of a workaholic, as a woman molded by the constraints of patriarchal expectations, in a society where success is measured by how much you have and not who you are, making these choices is a serious act of rebellion, and will take concentrated effort to be successful.
I turn 55 in a few weeks, shortly after we arrive in Paris for our 7 week experiment of living abroad. I’m already adjusting my expectations to resist my FOMO and practice living differently, slower. I think this is a great year to do it. Put in the work, take part in the resistance in the US, and then live vibrantly, another act of resistance as a woman over 50 in a patriarchal society.
I am proudly a rebel woman with a cause.
What’s your cause and what are your rebellions? Drop me a line at pilotingyourlife@gmail.com and let me know how you are ‘acting up!’ and how I can support you!
May you find peace, acceptance, and love today as you navigate being human.
With much love and gratitude,
Terri
This week’s song: Bad Reputation by Joan Jett. Some of you may have noticed that I stopped including a song and a journal prompt in this newsletter. I didn’t think anyone was paying attention. Christy said she missed them so they are back. I was going to use Bon Jovi’s Livin’ On A Prayer just for her since I hate the song and she loves it but Bad Reputation by Joan Jett seemed much more appropriate for this week’s theme.
Journal Prompt: What are your acts of resistance? What are you doing to disentangle yourself from societal and patriarchal expectations, to free yourself to design and live a life of your own creation?
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