Where Is The Joy In Your Life?
Ramona Soriano in Joshua Tree
You are successful, exhausted, and quietly empty. You smile for clients, but snap at the people you love.
My friend owns her private holistic practice and successful business. She works night and day. When you own your own business you are the CEO and you are the IT specialist, and you are the marketing director, and you are the janitor that takes out the trash.
We were having dinner at Father’s Office on Montana Ave in Santa Monica one day, and she began to tell me how she doesn’t remember the last time she had dinner with a friend like this. She works weekdays and weekends, 24/7. She attends to her back to back appointments with her clients in her office. Then she goes to UPS to ship packages. After that, she drives through LA traffic to her private clients’ homes, comes back to the office, organizes, answers phone calls, and schedules new appointments. Then, all night, she posts on social media and markets her business.
I didn’t hear anything about fun in this conversation. I asked her, when do you make time for pure pleasure? Where is the joy in your life?
She paused. Shocked. Completely unaware, as if I was speaking a language she didn’t understand.
When you were a child, play was natural to you. Joy was natural to you. You played with friends, you played with your toys all by yourself, you even had imaginary friends. I even remember as a child, when I used to play with the shampoo and conditioner bottles in the bathtub, pretending they were characters talking to each other and creating an elaborate superhero storyline.
But as you grow older, this sense of playfulness and joy begins to be stripped away, and life becomes serious. You work hard to build yourself and build a life, and you delay fun.
It becomes easy to snap at your loved ones, at your spouse, at your kids, yet when a client or your boss calls, you cheer up, smile, and become the friendliest person on earth. When did you learn to mix your priorities in that way?
Life is not guaranteed
When I was smacked in the face with my cancer diagnosis in 2024, this became real to me. I was so busy building my yoga school Yogi Maha Method, and following my calling. I loved what I did and I believe in what I do, but I was doing the same thing. I was delaying joy.
This has become the silent epidemic, one people are ashamed to admit
After a long, hard day of work, all you want to do is order Uber Eats, turn on Netflix, and binge watch meaningless reality shows. I can relate. I was guilty of doing the same before my diagnosis. You feel exhausted because you have no energy left for anything that takes even the slightest effort, even meeting a good friend that you always have belly giggles with. Yet you never regret it once you are there, and you feel so full of life when you return home. You even have more energy the next day at work. It is just making that decision and getting off the couch that is the hardest part. Similar to working out or going to a yoga class, you never regret it once you are on the mat inside the yoga studio, and you always feel calm, clear, and centered afterward. You know that feeling after a good yoga class or nourishing sound bath, you know exactly what I am talking about, that serene feeling words cannot do justice. And you ask yourself, why am I not doing this every day? Because just getting to class, making the decision, is the hardest part because your energy, you vitality, your life force is so depleted.
We live in a fear based culture
If I hear one more time that we are living in such a difficult time, I will politely hand someone a history book. Tell that to the people who lived through World War I and World War II. Tell that to the people centuries ago who died from a simple fever or from not having access to clean water.
Tell that to the people who lived during the Middle Ages, when public executions were common, when people were hanged or beheaded in town squares, when torture devices were used to extract confessions, when women were accused of witchcraft and burned at the stake during the witch trials, when the Black Death wiped out entire communities, and when religious wars devastated whole regions.
History has seen darker times
You forget how far you have come. You forget how much access, choice, and privilege you actually have, not only women or minorities, but as human beings in general.
You live in a time where you have freedom, options, and more abundance than most generations before you. You have access to technology, AI, education, books, information, travel, clean water, medicine, and opportunity. That was not always the case.
This is not to dismiss real challenges. It is to remember perspective. You are not powerless. You are not trapped in the dark ages. You are living in a time of infinite possibility.
The question is not how hard these times are. The question is what you are going to do with the freedom and access you have right now.
This is your invitation to lay down what may be heavy, restore what may be frayed, and reconnect with your true inherent joy and unstoried self
This is why my dear friend Ramona Soriano, a highly regarded yoga teacher and master sound healer known for powerful, transformational experiences, and I created Sacred Joy Retreat. An invitation for you to pause, reset and align your self with what really matters.
If you are drawn to the rhythm of the moon, ancient yogic wisdom, sound and experiences that feel deeply medicinal, this experience is for you.
Guided by lunar energy, Sacred Joy weaves master power yoga classes, sacred healing sound baths, healing hot springs, and intentional ritual into a transformative desert experience. We start with an opening circle to set our intentions, Sankalpa, and close in sacred healing ceremony, creating space to manifest intention, movement, and stillness into joy, vitality, and deep inner alignment.
Joy is not created. It is uncovered when pressure and distractions dissolves
Yoga teaches that our true nature is ananda, inner joy, not excitement, not stimulation, but a steady, living aliveness. Joy is what remains when the mind stops pulling you away from yourself. Most people do not need more intensity, they need space. Space to feel. Space to hear. Space to return.
The Science
When the nervous system shifts from survival into regulation, the body restores rhythm. Breath deepens, inflammation lowers, perception clears. In this regulated state, the brain releases chemistry associated with safety, openness, and connection.
Joy is not created. It is uncovered when pressure dissolves.
Twice daily practice, mineral hot springs, silence, sound vibration, and nature immersion regulate the body at a deep biological level. This is why people leave the retreat different, clearer, softer, more alive.
Did you know that your body is a map that is constantly guiding you to your highest path?
Expand your awareness to find all the answers within to any questions that you struggle with. Whether it’s questions about your relationships, your career or any dilemma you are facing.
In this unfolding mystical experience, you will stunning discover the not so hidden vibrancy, passion and joy for life.
Learn how to listen to the messages that your body is constantly sending you, and how they influence your thoughts and behavioral patterns and get the answers you are looking for.
A Living Experience
Sacred Joy takes place under vast desert skies, in the mineral waters of Desert Hot Springs, Joshua Tree, May 14 to 17, 2026.
This is not escape. This is return.
Each day begins in stillness. Desert light, nourishing breakfast, breath settling into the body. Morning Master Power Yoga activates the joy centers of the body and deepens embodiment. Afternoons open into spaciousness, mineral hot springs, spa, journaling, solitude, integration. Evening Sacred Healing Sound Bath recalibrates the nervous system through vibration and frequency. Night closes in connection, presence, and quiet joy.
In this field, people lay down what feels heavy, restore what feels frayed, and reconnect with their inherent, unstoried self.
This is why our retreats sell out months in advance. People feel the shift.
What Begins to Change
Clarity emerges where confusion lived
Energy reorganizes and stabilizes
Stress dissolves from the body
Mind, body, and inner awareness integrate
The nervous system remembers regulation
Joy returns without force
Who Comes Here
Those drawn to depth, rhythm, and inner alignment
Those navigating change in relationships, life, or direction
Those seeking clarity, renewal, and quiet transformation
Those who feel called toward something deeper but cannot name it
The Body Knows
Yoga teaches the body is a map. When you step away from the loudness of life, you learn to listen, answers begin to arise from within, not from noise, not from pressure, but from clarity.
Many arrive tired, uncertain, searching. Many leave clear, grounded, alive.
The Experience
4 Day Soul Nourishing Yoga and Sound Healing Retreat
Desert Hot Springs, Joshua Tree
May 14 to 17, 2026
All inclusive nourishing meals
Daily Master Yoga and Sacred Sound Healing
Healing mineral hot springs and desert stillness
Integration, journaling, silence, and renewal
Accommodations
Azure Palm Hot Springs Resort & Day Spa Oasis is an award winning wellness resort in Desert Hot Springs, recognized by Newsweek’s 100 Best Wellness and Fitness Resorts and Spas of America Top 100 USA Spas. Perched on Miracle Hill overlooking Mt San Jacinto and the Coachella Valley, the resort offers natural hot mineral springs, mineral pool soaking, Finnish sauna, Himalayan salt room, spa therapies, and nourishing café dining in a serene desert sanctuary designed for deep restoration and renewal.
A Simple Practice Until We Meet
Tonight, sit quietly for five minutes. No phone, no music, no stimulation. Feel your breath without changing it. Notice what is heavy. Notice what is tight. Do nothing. Just observe.
Joy begins in the space where effort stops.
An Invitation
Sacred Joy will fill. It always does. When people feel this experience, they return again and again.
If you feel the call, trust it.
Secure your place inside Sacred Joy, May 14 to 17, 2026.
In the next letter, I will share why silence and sound together create profound transformation in the nervous system, and why ancient yogic science used vibration long before modern neuroscience understood it.