Ep. 347 Cultivating Connection and Joy: Unveiling the Ojai Couples Retreat - Dr. Riz & Maya

Dr. Rizwan Bukhari  00:00

You might get the impression that this is all this can be really heavy stuff. And oh, it's all very serious. But no, it's not. That's not. That's not the case. It's, it was about having a lot of fun and kind of enjoying yourself. You mentioned that we were given two hours for lunch. And that was great because you weren't just finishing up a really stuffy workshop and then rushing off to lunch and then rushing back to get started again. By having two hours, you kind of had your time to relax, soak it in unwind. Take a take your time and walk around.

Maya Acosta  00:32

This is the healthy lifestyle solutions podcast and I'm your host Maya Acosta. If you're willing to go with me, together, we can discover how simple lifestyle choices can help improve our quality of life

Maya Acosta  00:45

and increase our longevity in a good way.

Maya Acosta  00:49

Let's get started. All right, friends. Welcome back. It's Monday and we have another episode of Doctor in the house. And why Dr. Rizwan Bukhari is my guest on the podcast, healthy lifestyle solutions. Alright, friends, we're so excited that you're here with us. Once again. Today, we're going to be recapping a Couples Retreat that we attended in March. Now we have lightly talked about it. But there's a reason why we want to tell you more about the workshop. So you ready to talk about Ojai, California? Yeah. Oh, absolutely. All right. So part of what I'm going to do, as we talk about this experience that we had in March, is I'm going to kind of add some photos to this video so that you can follow along and see what we're talking about. So you probably have heard me talk over and over about Michelle, but I've been working with her for over two years. And she's actually worked with us when it comes to our relationship, which has been a lot of fun. And as a matter of fact, by the time you listen to this recording, Michelle and Dean Yasuda will have already done a an online workshop. So we hope that you enjoyed the online workshop that Michelle offered, where you learn techniques and ways of thinking so that your relationships are a little bit healthier. We want to tell you about the Ojai Couples Retreat that we attended, because Michelle and Dean are bringing couples workshop to Dallas on October 13, through the 15th. That's a Friday evening all the way to Sunday morning. And it's going to happen here in Dallas. So let's start. Like I said, a part of what we're going to be doing as part of this recap, is I'm going to be sharing with you some photographs, we flew into LAX and then drove up the PC. Ah, so you wanted to take the scenic route? Because you know, why not? I mean, if you're in California, you have to enjoy the beauty.

Dr. Rizwan Bukhari  02:48

Right? I'd much rather be driving up the coast on the coastal highway than driving on, you know, a four or five or six lane highway with a lot of traffic.

Maya Acosta  02:57

Right. So this is the first time that you and I attended or visited Ojai, California, and I must say is a quaint little town did not expect to see so much beauty. So talk a little bit about the surroundings, our hotel where we stayed and what we saw in our backyard.

Dr. Rizwan Bukhari  03:15

Yeah, it was a beautiful place. It was a little town in the in the Ojai Valley. And, you know, it's got kind of got that distinct downtown area where people are doing a lot of walking, and everyone's outside. And so that was that's it a lot, you know, a lot of restaurants, arts and crafts, coffee shops. So that was a fun place, because you could go back and experience it over and over again, and discover things. Although, you know, once we discovered the one restaurant we liked, we went back to that same place over and over again. And then we also stayed in a beautiful, small hotel where we had a great view of the mountains. Oh my

Maya Acosta  03:55

goodness, it was so beautiful. And the way the sun would come in in the morning through the Windows was just so refreshing because I don't have that like in the layout of where we live. So it was interesting ahead of time, Michelle was all concerned about what are we going to eat because she's plant based to she and her husband. And so she was concerned about food. And I said, Don't worry, I'm going to travel with some food as well. And then it turns out that you know what, the one restaurant had such a variety. And so the accommodations were not included as part of the package for the retreat. So that will explain that for the Dallas retreat as well. So that's separate. So meals were separate from the retreat accommodations were separate. And so we paid one price for the retreat, but we still had to get the hotel separate and we and our meals were not provided by the retreat.

Dr. Rizwan Bukhari  04:47

Right. So it gives you a lot more flexibility as far as you know, you can, you know, stay where you want to stay, and then also eat what you want to eat.

Maya Acosta  04:55

Yeah. And the reason that I bring that up is because that's the same experience. We'll have Been here in Dallas, whereas the NA che, the hotel was included. And so were the food, it was all in one place. All right, loved where we stayed. You talk about the beautiful mountains in the back, we had the day we arrived, it was rainy. And by the time we left is around the time, we would have wanted to be there the whole time. The restaurant was called hit vegan, and it had such a variety of food, everything from fried food to healthy clean, sort of like Buddha bowls. We had such a nice time there. And we traveled with other things as well, more than anything, I want to focus on the actual experience. So this happened, I want to say we started on a Friday morning. And here you see risk meditating and taking in that warm sun.

Dr. Rizwan Bukhari  05:45

Yeah, it was nice, you know, to just have a few minutes before we got started to sit outside. The sun was already overhead and felt nice and warm. And I just would like I just enjoyed sitting back and closing my eyes and feeling it.

Maya Acosta  05:59

Yeah. You know, Michelle said to me ahead of time, she said, I'd love to schedule lunch with you at one of these days. But this is really more about you and risk. This is both of you enjoying the weekend as a couple. And so I have that mindset. She said it's going to be fun, you're going to enjoy yourself, you're going to do work, but it's going to be fun more than anything. And it really was. And so we arrived the night before early enough to find that hip, vegan restaurant to have dinner, then go back to the room and rest and then we started off a fresh, well rested. Oh, well, at least the best that we can do when it comes to waking up in the morning. And then yeah, I enjoyed taking this photograph and seeing you really just meditating, taking it all in. And we had coffee. And then here's this venue that I really enjoyed is called the Ojai Valley Women's Club, very accommodating, I thought it was a perfect place, because it felt almost like a retreat, and like a real physical place for a retreat.

Dr. Rizwan Bukhari  07:04

Yeah, it was a very nice place that they had chosen to do it. I wish we had something like that, that we could take advantage of where we could hold events, but so it was it was very well suited for having events.

Maya Acosta  07:15

Yes, this particular workshop was led by Katie Hendricks of the Hendrix Institute, she and her husband, Gay Hendricks have put together this program. They've been doing this for many, many years. And Michelle and Dean, they do a lot of the same work. They also coach people through the same language that they teach. And this was the beginning, I think the first exercise was with a balloon to kind of be sort of an icebreaker and to wake us up. So I'm going to skip to the part that we started with some morning exercises. Now, the particular work that we did is not new to us. Michelle has coached us and some of these strategies in terms of doing couples work that you can also do as an individual with other people. And so nothing was new, but it was more significant that we were doing it in person with like, it felt like 30 other couples. Yeah, I

Dr. Rizwan Bukhari  08:11

think there were about about 30 couples there. Yeah. It was incredible. It was very well attended. Yeah. And it didn't feel crowded at all. No. And really what was surprising to me is that there was a tremendous variety in the types of people there and the ages. There were some very, very young couples, and there were some older couples. So yeah, and and everybody in between.

Maya Acosta  08:33

Yeah, as a matter of fact, now that you talk about the age, I was really impressed with younger couples that know that are doing this work. And there were moments where we partnered with other couples like with one other couple to do the work. And I could not believe how young they were and how advanced they were in doing this work. It's amazing. And apparently there's this whole online community of people that are training to become facilitators like this and who will also do it for themselves. And I'm telling you, I just I wish I had had this information years ago. No, like they have no yeah, like they have now. Lunch was two hours. I loved having a two hour lunch. This was extra meaningful for us. It really just gave us the time to integrate the work that we were doing and really just to be with ourselves. No other responsibility did not have Papi Chulo our dog with us. And so we found another place where we could sample other plant based meals and I had like the puzzle and we went off to explore the little towns now if you're there for the workshop, but then why during your off time want to explore other stores believe me there's so much to see the neighborhood itself is just so beautiful. Here's a book by Katie and Gay Hendricks called the conscious heart they have so many books But that he's also known for having written the big leap. That's a huge one. And that came in our goodie bag along with some of these cards. And we went back to hit vegan. And this is the bowl that I had with some fermented foods. Oh my god, this was delicious. Do you remember tasting I think that was tofu. Here's a photo with Katie Hendricks. And this was so meaningful to me to have met her her and the work. I don't know how you feel about this. But I was talking to Michelle the other day. And one thing that stood out about how Katie worked with the couples that were there and just as individuals is that someone would have a question, or give an example of something that they're going through. And Katie would stay with that question until the person felt complete.

Dr. Rizwan Bukhari  10:51

Yeah, so she, she really answered everything they needed. Yeah, gave them everything they needed.

Maya Acosta  10:57

She She answered until they felt like their their question had been fully, fully answered. And so that's one thing that I enjoy about coaches and how they work with us. You know, Michelle never rushes me through a session and she's not like, Okay, we're coming out on the hour, you have to hurry up and wrap it up. She doesn't work like that with me, she actually takes her time. So here we are, here's a photo with Michelle. And I want to touch a little bit on this photo of the fear melters because this is something that Michelle is going to teach other people this is one of the first things that she taught us when she started working with us is that whenever a couple faces conflict, we intuitively want to react a certain way. And we have a tendency to be a certain way people like myself, when there is conflict, I immediately want to flee, I want to run away, what's your tendency

Dr. Rizwan Bukhari  11:56

tends to be more of a fight. Okay.

Maya Acosta  11:59

So usually when there's conflict, especially in a marriage, we have a natural way that we react, and that's based on programming and other things that our coaches work with us on. So you might have a tendency to want to fight and defend yourself, I have a tendency to want to run away and flee. And so she teaches us fear melters, which are things that we do with our bodies to try to get us to be more present and to not allow that. Because it becomes it becomes a physiological reaction that we're having. So the body wants to run away. Instead, what she teaches me to do is to ground myself through movements, almost like a sumo wrestler that puts one foot down and then one foot down. And, you know, hunker How do you say stays in place and hunker down? hunkers down? And then what do you what did what does she encourage you to do?

Dr. Rizwan Bukhari  12:58

So if you're, if you're kind of there, you know, if you if you kind of in that aggressive fight mood, where you're just in there people's faces, it the they encourage you to kind of just wiggle in who's and relax so that you just kind of, instead of being all tense and ready for a fight, you're just kind of relaxing.

Maya Acosta  13:14

That's right. And I'm going to move over to where it says love scoops out of faint. So a lot of times I find that I actually do feel like I want to faint. And it doesn't have to be in a relationship and conflict. But if something happens that terrifies me, because I'm the person that I have these tremendous fears associated with past traumas. So if something comes up, I automatically want to faint. And even when I'm working with Michelle, and something comes up, that's overwhelming me. And I can tell because my voice starts to drop a little bit. And I want to thank she encourages me to do these love scoops where I received this love from the universe that's taking care of me and it's always geared towards my belly and my heart, and just encourages me to take in the love and the support that life is giving me and so that makes me feel safer. It makes me feel like I don't want to feign anymore. I also freeze I don't know if that ever happens to you when you're being confronted by someone? Do you ever like freeze and you just don't know what to say or what to do?

Dr. Rizwan Bukhari  14:23

Well, I think that we all regret. We probably all react with all of these reactions at different times in different situations.

Maya Acosta  14:30

Yeah, yeah. When I fly, because I do talk about my fear of flying, I tend to freeze. And so she teaches me to wiggle myself wiggle and get that energy that's going through the body. And really, it's all associated with our vagus nerve. But she even encouraged me to go into the laboratory in the plane and just kind of wiggle and wiggle and get some of the attention out of my body. And so these are the kinds of things that you learn through these workshops. And of course I'm not the expert. I'm Just simply sharing some of the things that I remember. So our workshop was all day, I want to say, all day, Friday, all day Saturday, and then a little bit of Sunday, so it's really full. Is there anything that you remember that stood out for you that weekend?

Dr. Rizwan Bukhari  15:16

Well, I, you know, you might get the impression that this is Oh, this can be really heavy stuff. And oh, it's all very serious. But no, it's not. That's not, that's not the case. It's, it was about having a lot of fun and kind of enjoying yourself. And you know, and I thought it was also you know, so it was some talks, and then some interactive stuff, and a lot of things where people were doing stuff together, either as a couple or in groups. And, but I also, I thought it was broken up quite nicely, too. You mentioned that we were given two hours for lunch. And that was great, because you weren't just finishing up a really stuffy workshop, and then rushing off to lunch, and then rushing back. To get started. Again, by having two hours, you kind of had your time to just relax, soak it in unwind, take a take your time and walk around, find a place to eat, you weren't rushed. So it didn't, you know, it didn't add to anxiety. It contributed to a more relaxed, PACE atmosphere. So that's something that stood out to me that, in general was a very nice, relaxed pace, there was no anxiety, it wasn't tense. And so that really stood out. And then I mean, just something that I wish I had done differently, which was, I wish we had spent more time there, either before or after. So we could have also enjoyed the area.

Maya Acosta  16:38

Because I remember, we wanted a hike during one of those days. And we just thought, Oh, we I didn't do any research about Ohio at all, before we

Dr. Rizwan Bukhari  16:46

flew there. In fact, on one of our lunch breaks, we had enough time where we ate that we were able to just take a really, really long walk up to the base of the mountain and back. And so, but no, I really wish we had had, you know, an uninterrupted time there to actually enjoy the area as

Maya Acosta  17:03

well, right. And, you know, anytime we fly to a workshop, or conference or retreat, whatever it may be, we always end up being extra tire just from the traveling portion of it. What I'm looking forward to with Michelle and Dean come into to Dallas is that we can just be in our own home, and we can get rest, we'll feel rested, we'll wake up early in the morning, get the workshop going, we don't have to travel. Again, lunch can be on our own,

Dr. Rizwan Bukhari  17:34

but everybody else who's coming probably is doing some traveling. So what I would say is build a little bit of downtime into your travel plans. Because traveling is stressful and makes you tired. And sometimes these you know, travel days take all day. And so build in a little bit of buffer time so that you can have time for recovery.

Maya Acosta  17:53

That's right. So the location is to be announced. It'll be here in Dallas, but I will announce that later when we actually start to release a lot more information. So you you know when I've asked you about your experience, you said it was fun, nothing intense. So I don't know if you recall that there was a moment where we were outside of the Women's Club, doing an exercise with another couple. And they were coaching us on how to express appreciation to remember. Yeah, yeah. And I remember it was very powerful. And I in in you were just showering me with beautiful words about being thankful that I was in your life. And do you still feel that way?

Dr. Rizwan Bukhari  18:37

Yes, absolutely.

Maya Acosta  18:40

Anyway, there were there are moments where we're taught how to speak our truth to one another. And there are moments where and that could be, can be rough sometimes in terms of like, because one of the things that couples do and we all do it with loved ones with everyone is we withhold we withhold all sorts of information out of fear of being rejected out of fear of being judged, out of fear of jazz, you know, being vulnerable. And so we're encouraged to speak our truth, whatever our truth is in arguable truth. And, and so you're learning how to communicate. That's the most important thing about going to these retreats as you're learning. You're given tools that you can practice and learn how to check in but also just learning how to appreciate each other because we don't do that.

Dr. Rizwan Bukhari  19:34

Yeah, and I think getting on the same side understanding that you're allies that you're in this together and you're trying to accomplish the same thing.

Maya Acosta  19:41

That's right. I'm recently I'm, I've been revisiting the big leap by Gay Hendricks and you know, he goes on and talking about the upper limit and our coaches have taught us that you have a coach now in Hawaii that's gone through all of this training, so feel free to share if you'd like about that. But, you know, we're taught that there's where we have what is called an upper limit, to love to success to happiness. It's like these things that were set in place very early on. And the way that Gay Hendricks explains it is almost like this thermostat that we have inside that says, Okay, you can only have this level of love or success or happiness in your life. Up to this point, if you go over, I'm going to find a way to bring you back down. So when we're going through experiences of expanding and growing, like doing, you know, we're X amount of happiness and success, we always find a way to sabotage that and bring it back down. And so I recommend you read that book ahead of time, if you're if you just want to apply this to your life. So it could happen in things like you have an accident, after a wonderful gathering that you've had, or something good that has happened, good news happened in your life, boom, you have an accident, or you start fighting with someone or you get sick, there are things that we do to bring our that level of happiness and success and love back down. So these are some of the things that Michelle and the couple's retreat bring to the surface is that they talk about how in a relationship, when you're going through a growth phase, you actually you're expanding, which also means that you're more likely to fight and the big league talks about all that. So I really recommend you read that book, I found a copy at the half price bookstore. And so that was it, I had a really good time, I came back really happy. And I just want to share that after we left Ojai, we returned down the scenic route once again. And we went to a restaurant that we had never been to. Oh, yeah, crossroads where we had some vegan foods appetizers had a really good time, I had a non alcoholic, Bloody Mary, because I liked the tomato base. And just a really good time in Ohio. I was really grateful for this. I know that when we first met one of our goals initially had been to do a couple's kind of workshop once a year. And I feel like this is given us a reminder an opportunity to maybe do that every year.

Dr. Rizwan Bukhari  22:23

Absolutely. I think that relationships are not static, they're dynamic. And people are always changing and, and so the relationships have to change with people. And so by doing ongoing work,

22:38

yeah,

Maya Acosta  22:39

you can keep up. Yeah, so many different things affect a marriage. Everything from the kids moving out of the house to new members moving in, I know that our My mom has been in and out, you know, staying with us. And that changes the dynamic when you're in that sandwich generation. losing a loved one can change the dynamic, a new job, relocating all of that all of that changes the rules, the things that you initially signed up for suddenly, live causes changes, which means that tension happens, this disconnecting happens. And so when you have a coach like Michelle really helps a lot to kind of get back on the same side and learn to see each other like you said, our allies and remind remembering, hey, we're on the same team, we're both on the same team, we both won love and happiness. And so we're very excited to tell you about that. Michelle is going to come on the podcast to talk about the couple's retreat, very excited. And so anything else you'd like to share,

Dr. Rizwan Bukhari  23:46

you know, what I would like to share is that these skills that you learn about, you know, relationships with your significant other, are also the same skills that apply to relationships with everybody else. And so, uh, you know, it's, these are very meaningful because they apply to all aspects of life. Yeah. And so you know, you can you can take the same things and, and apply it to your, your work situation to your relationship with your boss, your relationship with your employees, your relationship with your friends. Yes,

Maya Acosta  24:15

as a matter of fact, like the coach, like the leaders, there are ways that you can look at things like are you at the effect of something, or are you looking at like, this is happening to me? Or I'm creating this?

Dr. Rizwan Bukhari  24:29

I think the book is called the 15 commitments of conscious leadership. Yes,

Maya Acosta  24:33

yes. And I've been reading it and for me, I have to revisit things to really internalize I have to write some notes and reflect and see how this applies. But as I'm learning to be a leader, I have to you know, these tools are so effective, and it's more about understanding that you're creating the reality that you live in. You have more control than you then you know, and so anyway, I I'm just really excited to talk about this make sure that you listen to my interview with Michelle ending Yasuda and then, you know, revisit the call that she had about this webinar. As always, just want to thank you for being a listener. Goodbye. You've been listening to the healthy lifestyle solutions podcast with your host Maya Acosta. If you've enjoyed this content, please share with one friend who can benefit. You can also leave us a five star review at rate this podcast.com forward slash H L S. This helps us to spread our message. As always, thank you for being a listener.