Navigating Human Consciousness With Jill Wilde, Wilde Big Sur Retreats

This week on the Mindful Miri Podcast, we talk with Jill Wilde, host and guide of Wilde Big Sur.  We talk about creating rituals, embodying love, stewarding land (and vice versa), as well as creating the community we want to be part of together.

Listen to the Mindful Miri Podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts.

About Jill Wilde:

Jill is a believer in elevating human consciousness. She is on a journey of self-growth & learning her capacity to love. She's a music maker, poet, growth facilitator, embodiment coach, and a light being sharing her personal human experience.

Her dream of curating meaningful retreats to help others venture on their spiritual paths has been 27 years in the making. We have arrived.

Connect With Jill:
On Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wildebigsur/

Transcript

Welcome back to the Mindful Mary Podcast. Today on my show I have Jill Gutierrez Wild. She is a believer in elevating human consciousness. She's on a journey of self-growth and learning her capacity to love. She's a music maker, poet, growth facilitator, embodiment coach, and a light being sharing her personal human experience.

Her dream of curating meaningful retreats to help others venture on their spiritual paths has been 27 years in the making. We have arrived. Welcome to the studio, Jill. Thank you so much for having me. in my bio it says, the sharing my human experience, and oftentimes I'll say it's really a human experiment, you know, successes, failures, and in between  for sure. Just like the other podcast you were on, Ms ha's Magic and Mayhem, right? There are all of the above, right? Absolutely. And I love that podcast, so yeah.

Yeah. It was fun to be on there and talk to Tyler. Yes. That's a great one. Everybody should check out. So Jill, tell us a little bit about where your story starts. It sounds like 27 years in the making. Let's start from the beginning. That's an interesting one. It really starts, I would say, my dream of having a retreat center.

that's what we're talking about. It was 27 years in the making starts at Cal Poly. And I was a speech communication major transfer student, transferred to Cal Poly and then was looking for a, an elective to take, and I ended up taking a recreation. And then once I took that class, ended up changing my major completely to recreation administration, which is now experience industry management.

Which is like such a better name for that that department because it is much more about the experience and it just opened ear experience, opens the door to all kinds of avenues and all kinds of different types of industries. Whereas recreation, it feels really pigeon hole. And in my career I've been, yeah, I've worked for Technic companies and I've also, had a spa and I've, worked as a swim instructor and I've also, my own business as a marketing company.

So All over the place. But so my experience though was that I ended up doing the challenge course back in the day at Cal Poly. There was too much challenge that Rob Neubert was the creator of, and he was an amazing visionary in that field, in the experiential education is the field that it is.

And myself and my dear friend, joy Blanding she and I worked for Rod and we were able to lead groups on, in this team building and personal empowerment in these workshops. And that experience on it was actually out on Center Creek Road that's where the challenge course was. And, we put   power poles in the ground and, there were cables all over 'em.

And they call it high ropes courses and low ropes courses. And so we were leading those groups and it was at that time I realized like that was where my passion lied in personal growth in both the team building. So understanding how teams work together, what their pitfalls are how listening is critical and communication's critical.

And then the personal empowerment side too, which is how do we talk to ourselves how do we support ourselves and physically you're seeing how you support yourself when you're out there standing on the top of a telephone pole and jumping off.  into the abyss, and yes you're tied in with ropes, but it's a real clear visual representation of what it takes when we're challenged.

So yeah, so that's where it starts. Okay. And that was back in, 1994 when I started at Cal Poly. So 27 years in the making. Here we are. Wow. What do you think the physical, act of doing a ropes course or conquering your physical fears, how do you think that dovetails with leadership and team building?

So there's two parts of this. So there is the physical part that is the challenge because some people are more physically fit and some people are less physically fit. So there is a physical part to it. But more than anything In these high end rope, high end, low ropes course activities.

What you notice more than anything, what holds us back is our mind and our mindset. And when I learned that it was a huge shift for me in understanding myself and also understanding others and how I wanted to operate in the world. So it was a shift for me personally. But then you go through life and you have these challenges that show up that you don't plan for, and it's not, it's really easy to lean on these techniques.

When things are going well, it's how do we respond when things don't go as planned, and can we still bring forward the knowledge that we have? And the skills that we've learned in the most challenging of times because that's when we're really put to the test. And I've had it multiple times in my life for different, various personal reasons that that I've been challenged.

And they are the times when I forget to lean on my skills and I start getting into old habits, replaying old stories and get into old paradigms and beliefs stay in these belief systems. And that's when I notice my ego getting the better of me. And yeah, I would say in the past I was doing these challenge courses and doing those kind of leadership groups that was very good for the external world.

But it's when our internal world gets rocked, that there is another level deeper. And when our internal world gets rocked, we need an even more diligent level of commitment to ourselves. And so I've had multiple times in my life also where I've been pushed to that point. And I would say for me, that's been a spiritual journey and that's when the stories that the ego likes to share of the, I'm not worthy I'm not good.

I'm not capable enough. I'm an imposter. All of these things that we have, or the other side of the coin, I'm better than. Why are they doing it wrong? I know what I'm doing. Why is everyone else screwing up? Why do I have to work with these people? pride side of it, the better than either one of those are these pitfalls to the human spirit because we all know the truth  Absolutely right. And we know the truth is we're all equal and we're all working with what we have at the time and doing the best with what we know at the time. And the only thing we're really here for is evolving human consciousness. That's really what we're here for. So getting in these pitfalls stumbling through these challenges is in the design.

It is part of what we are here for. And we tend to think that we're not supposed to be having these challenges, right? My life is supposed to go swimmingly well all the time. And the truth is, without these challenges, there is no growth. So it's recognizing now that growth, every time a challenge comes, it's oh, what is this teaching me?

What is this here to teach me? So two different levels. That's, I'm like, I've been talking a long time. . Beautifully said. it sounds like you've come a long way and had a lot of different challenges personally, and been able to overcome them or learn from them, or, just have growth.

Tell us a little bit about. Your maybe upbringing or those pivotal moments that you were talking about that really were growth opportunities in the end? Sure. So I grew up in Fremont, California. Now it is home of the Tesla. which is sounds really cool, but growing up there I would say there wasn't much going on.

It was really close to a lot of cool places, like close to getting to San Francisco, close to getting to San Jose or Oakland and like there close to these urban hubs. But Fremont itself didn't have much going on. And when I grew up there it was a lot of pasture land. Now it's changed very dramatically.

And it is in, I would say it's in the hub of a technology, of Silicon Valley. And that's where I grew up and it was. For me, the schools were good, not great. My effort was good, not great. And it was really about my nuclear family, my parents my parents did an excellent job in terms of teaching us we were loved and teaching us to love and respect ourselves and others.

And so I think that, my brother and I show that. And we were really blessed with the parents that we grew up with. And then also, As you said, life moves on and challenges arise. One of the biggest challenges that happened in my family was fairly early on in my twenties and my brother went through a very difficult car accident where I was the first on the scene to the car accident and he sustained a traumatic brain injury.

And so he's doing very well now and lives in Paso and I'm here in Atascadero. So all is well and we play music together and yeah, and he's an important part of my life. But that challenge in our family was humbling because there's a point at which you realize you're not immune to situations happening, and sometimes you need help.

From family, from friends, from social security administration, from the S D I these social systems that are built for situations like this that we hadn't used before. And it was really helpful to our family to know that there were these systems in place that were helping my brother and helping our family.

And then also so many amazing family and friends that we leaned on during that time for emotional support, spiritual support, financial support. I had friends reach out and see if they could help do my car payment just for a few months while we were really like showing up for the hospital because he was in the com in a coma for 17 days.

there was a time when our family just really wasn't working. We were just showing up for my brother. And that was the first big challenge that showed up in my life. And it created a lot of other choices that I made in my life at that time that I would say were a result of that trauma. And it took me years to actually deal with that trauma.

And right now, Krista Ray Pacheco is one of my teachers and she's in San Luis Obispo, and I dearly admire her work. And it was until I found Krista had not really gone through the process of dealing with my brother's traumatic brain injury. And I didn't do that until so many years later.

So that accident happened more than 20 years ago now. that was the first real trauma in my family. But there's been many other situations and I think what I've learned more than anything when these traumatic events happen in life, Is we learn how to ask for help and we learn how to understand ourselves and what our needs are if we're willing to be real with ourselves.

And it's easy to bury ourselves in work and to ignore our needs. And that's what often it's easy to do that and to go that route. And I was just blessed in life that I had enough people around me that were open to and suggesting that I get the emotional support that I needed. And so I've had different coaches and teachers in my life for years and years, and when I struggle in life, I know that I need to reach out for help.

and even sometimes it hasn't been somebody I've paid to do it. Sometimes it's been that I've created multiple times in my life. When I had my daughter, I created a mom's group because I knew I needed the support of other mothers. When I started my spa, I knew I needed other entrepreneurs, so I started a lean in circle.

So sometimes we might not be able to pay for that support, but we can create this, the community that we need support from. We have the agency, we have the tools to be able to reach out to others and not just get what we need, but give to others. When we show up for each other, that's when community building happens and it's magic.

That's when the magic runs free. And so with my current venture, that's what is really exciting is being able to create this community building with. The groups that come up for retreats, that's beautiful also. But also to help people understand sustainable practices, because that's what we need to use up on the property in Big Sur and create a community around those ideals.

So community building is the thing that gets us through the challenge and then our own inner work, we have to have both pieces, that external support and the internal support. Absolutely. Tell us more about your retreats. And wanna circle back to mom group later on. Oh, fun. Okay. that's a good story too.

So the retreats that we're doing now the retreat property's called Wild, big. And this is a part of my story that I guess I'll share. So my last name was Gutierrez. I've been married twice and divorced twice, I just recently took my own last name. And I changed my last name to Wild because I realized I wanted to name myself after something that was my first love the Wild.

it's w I l d E. I added the E on it. And that was a venture in my independence and another growth period for me. So that was important for me to be able to own my own name and not be named after anyone else other than myself.  my retreats are at Wild Big Sur and there's a part of that too that I recognized in this last transformation of myself. My last name used to be Steyer, which is associated with mind body. And I was married to Rick Steyer, who was the c e o and founder of Mind Body.

And so in this transformation of separating myself from that name it was important to me that I didn't take anyone's name and that anyone knows my name is really unimportant. And what I would really like to do is just get people to know the wild, the nature of being wild within themselves and seeing the beautiful wild land of Big Sur.

So it's not about people getting to know who I am, because that's really unimportant. It's them recognizing the wildness within themselves, and that's what makes my heart skip a beat go beyond really get excited because there is something that happens when we reconnect ourselves to nature.

There is a physical connection, and it's. I've seen it time and time again and feel just very blessed to be able to offer retreats in the space that we do because it is pristine. I like to call it magical, beautiful fairy land. And so I feel very blessed to be able to steward the land for that time.

But often people say to me that, oh, I'm so glad that you owned this land. And I look back at them and I say, no one owns this land. Or in fact, we all do. I am grateful to be the steward for this time period of this land's long life. And it's for me, a true pleasure and joy to be there So you talked about you wanted me to share about the retreats and we've got some coming up, so I don't know if you want me to share about the exact Yeah. Dates yes. And what's coming up, but, sure. Okay. So this first one was an inspiration because I had gone to a sacred feminine retreat and it was a beautiful retreat in Belize put on by some very dear teachers of mine that I love.

And while I was on that retreat, we had the lunar eclipse. And during that lunar eclipse and the days that followed, I recognized that I felt like I was betraying myself. And what I was betraying was that I was steeping myself in the myths and the stories and the archetypes of my feminism. And completely ignoring the other half of my story, the masculine, because we all are feminine and masculine and there has been a time this, we've been growing through this patriarchy for some time on this earth.

And it's been necessary for us to succeed in this patriarchal society, for us to focus more of our energy toward the masculine. And there are many people now saying that now it's time for feminism to rule time for fe feminism to come back and basically take over and take control. And I disagree with that completely because until we heal the original wound that told us the lie that we are separate.

That because I have feminine genitalia that I am supposed to only identify with feminine ideals, archetypes and stories. Until we and men the same that they are only to acknowledge, adhere to believe, trust their masculinity. That's not true either. What we need to do, it became clear to me is heal the wound within ourself and to honor both of these parts of ourselves.

Because both of these parts of ourselves are where the genius comes in when we trust that feminine intuition and guidance and that knowing, and then use our masculine part of ourselves to plan, prepare, and execute. Then that's where we come into our beautiful, brilliant self. And until we heal that original wound within ourselves, the external world is gonna look like it does right now.

And if we were to say, yes let's all focus on the feminine and let's let the matriarchal society take over, we would have another imbalance just to the opposite side. So aren't we looking for balance? Isn't that what we really need? We don't need to turn the tables all the way to the other side and have this other out of balance, society, economy all of the things that come with it, their social statuses.

Let. Turn our lenses within and look within ourselves to heal ourselves first. And then once we show up as balanced humans that are using the best of our abilities, our right and left brain skills taking both of the best of those in ourselves, then we can show up as the best partners, as the best business partners, as the best students, as the best teachers.

And that's our first retreat, and that's coming up January 20th through the 22nd. We're calling it Becoming Harmony. And it's the first of, I think that we'll be doing four retreats this year that are focused on that integration of the masculine and feminine energies. . And then I've got other people.

There's people that are doing retreats on the property and doing it under their own names. Melinda Kincaid is a beautiful poet and yoga teacher and therapist, and she's doing a retreat for her group in October. And Sarah Malini has a beautiful yoga group that's coming in June.

And then I have another beautiful retreat that's coming out in March, and that's with Laura Nussen and Adam Levine. Not to be confused with Adam Levine on The Voice, but Adam Levine is a local amazing guitar hero, I would say. And so we're doing a singer songwriter retreat in March. That's really about finding your voice.

Finding a way to write your music and then I'll be focusing on how to find your voice in the lyrics. Laura does a beautiful job of finding the voice in your voice, in the actual practices of your voice, and she does a beautiful job of that. And Adam's gonna show how to actually write a lead sheet so you can give it to a band and say here's my song for you to play.

  it's gonna be really exciting. So some very exciting things coming up this year. That sounds really great. All of those things. Tell us a little bit about the property and the amenities. Sure. So the property is about 40 acres and we are nestled in the heart of the redwood.

In Big Sur on the Southern end by Pla Creek Campground. So we're at the Southern end, so it's just 90 minutes away from San Los Obispo and walking through the property, it's just a jewel and it's really right on Pla Creek. So there's this beautiful creek sound. There is a beautiful redwood forest canopy that you walk through all kinds of wildlife, including butterflies, of course, our beautiful banana slugs all kinds of squirrels and deer and you name it.

But what I love most, I would say right now is we have this beautiful lady bug hatch that's happening in the meadow. When you walk up to the house, you go over the creek several times and there's some beautiful overlooking, over the waterfalls. And then when you finally get up to the little red house across from the little red house, there's this beautiful meadow.

And in the meadow we have this beautiful heart-shaped fire pit and some Adirondack chairs around it. And right now sitting in the Adirondack chairs is a little challenging because there's a ladybug hatch And so the ladybugs have decided to sit in the chairs. And so they're covered in ladybugs as are the several ferns that are.

Around like in closing the meadow. And so if you pick up a leaf of the fern, the entire thing is just coded in hundreds of ladybugs. And what I learned this year is that, like a murder of crows, what do you call a plural of an animal, the plural of ladybugs when you have a large group of them is called a loveliness, which I think is so absolutely perfect and sweet.

So we have a loveliness of ladybugs in the meadow. And then you continue up the creek and you can do this little switch pack trail that goes up to the yoga deck, which is a beautiful spot for movement and meditation. We've also done some ecstatic dance out there. And then if you continue on the trail Over toward back to the west, toward the ocean.

There's a spot called Puma Point. That's a really special point for us. And that's a beautiful place to see the sunset. It also has a little grassy area, believe it or not, on top there. And it's overlooking sand Dollar Beach. So it's just a gorgeous area with really pristine views and an incredible overlook of the Pacific Coast.

then you can head back down the trail and get back down to the house. The house is on solar and gas, so it's really, and the water that we get comes from the creek itself. So it really is off-grid. It's off-grid living, which means that when we charge our phones at the house, that charge is coming from either the solar.

We only have one solar panel working right now. We're reinstalling new old solar, I'll say old panels, but new to us. And so right now we only have one panel that's working. We had some damage that in the last rains we had actually, we had a few blow down the hill. It got really dicey up there.

When we charge your phones the way it's happening, if the generator's on means that we've brought gas up the mountain, which is a quarter mile hike to the house, we've carried that up the hill for you to charge your phone. So it really is a lesson in sustainability. We have, like I said, our water is off-grid.

 power is off-grid, and then we have a septic system out there, and we have two composting toilets. So it really is about packing things in and packing it out and really taking care of the land because it's only as pristine as we.

Yeah, that sounds amazing. All of that sounds amazing. And ladybugs are my favorite. They're like my spirit animal. Yeah, I know. I'm on the right track when I start seeing ladybugs. Yeah, I just had one on my car the other day. . Oh, sweet. And then I didn't talk about the beds, but basically the house sleeps nine, and then we have Lotus Bell tents.

So we have these beautiful white tents that look like a little bell that we, that you actually physically blow up. That's the structure that holds it erect. They're re yeah, they're really neat. And so these two Lotus Bell tents we can place anywhere on the property and so we can fit up to 19 guests.

So we've done everything from yoga to ecstatic dance, to hiking, to dipping in the creek. And then we also have groups that go down to the ocean too.  and do some of their activities down at the ocean because the walking across the road to the ocean is really only a 15 minute walk from the house.

Awesome. Yeah. So let's circle back to your mom group. I feel like that's something that I continually want is that community and I've been talking about it with multiple people about how, in the US it's so individualistic and really we as humans evolved and survived by living in villages in community and helping each other.

And a lot more communal kind of support and. The fact that we hesitate to reach out for help, like you were talking about earlier, and there's so much shame about not being able to handle your shit, whereas, nobody, everybody has more than they can handle at some point in their life.

And it's wonderful. It's a, it's, it can be life changing if somebody reaches out and supports you. And it's so difficult for us as women to reach out for help. We always think that we have to be martyrs and handle everything, but I love this idea. Tell me about your mom group. Sure. let me preface this.

My daughter's 18, so this happened a long time ago. But I'm really good at understanding myself when I need help. This is what I've learned about myself over these years.  and when I need help, I get really motivated to get the help that I need, and I'm blessed in that way. And what I found at the time when I had my daughter was I wanted to find a mom's group and I found one, and then I went to that mom's group and I didn't jive with the people really.

I was like yeah, this exists. But I feel like I would like to choose the people. If I'm gonna hang out with these people. The mom's group met once a week, which was what I felt like I needed. I felt like that timing was really good, especially my daughter was just a couple months old at the time and I was like, oh, this is a whole new world.

This is way out of my element. I felt very alone and isolated, and I was willing to admit it. . And I think that's where things need to start is as soon as you're willing to be vulnerable enough with yourself and say, I don't know what I'm doing here. I would love it if somebody would even just tell me, recommend, a certain product.

Or I would love it if somebody would tell me how they're doing this cloth diaper thing. I would love it if somebody told me, I don't love breastfeeding, right? Like, all these things that come up that are no-nos to say like that this isn't going well for me and I am challenged.

And so I was willing to do whatever it took to get the support I needed. And so what was beautiful was going to that group helped me understand and discern what I wanted and what I didn't want. And In that knowing, I decided to start my own mom's group, and it started with two of us, and it was the woman that I used to see when I used to take my daughter to the doctor, and I would take her to the doctor to get her baby checks.

And the woman who was at the front desk, she and I would chat and she had a daughter that was a couple months older than my daughter. And so it started with the two of us, and then I was like, maybe I should put a flyer up. And she said, I'll put a flyer up for you. So I put up flyers there and then around a couple places, and that group ended up being probably at the end of it, we probably had 16 moms and not everybody would be there at once usually, unless it was like Halloween or something.

But there was probably 16 moms with their kids there. And to this day, Two of them are dear friends of mine. Some of them I still know, but they're not like, I don't see them all the time. But two of them are dear friends of mine. One of them, my daughter is literally at her house right now. 18 years later, they're still best friends.

And actually they became cousins, which is a weird thing. That's another story for another time. But my, that's one story. The second one is the other person who is a dear friend of mine. She's leading this retreat with me January 20th. Oh my gosh. That's amazing. So the people that you reach out to and are vulnerable with during these really transitional times of your life, they become because you've been through something together and you've shared at the deepest level.

and when you share at the deepest level, you have made friends for life. And it doesn't matter that Erin moved to Australia and lives in Michigan, we're doing a retreat together in Big Sur in two weeks time and space does not matter when you share at that deep level. it's beautiful. So going in, what was your agenda or what, how did you get women, you, you said, okay, show up at this place, we're all gonna meet up.

And what How did you start? I'm a freeflow, so what I started with was feed them and give them beverages. So I started with coffee, tea, and treats, so everybody was gonna come and get fed. And also I had treats for the kids. So treats for every. And then the babies were there with us.

It wasn't like mom's group and the kids weren't there. It was a play date, basically. So we would meet at each other's house, so it would rotate at different houses. And then at each house, whoever was hosting that week would be the ones serving all the foods. So none of us was stuck with the bill for serving everybody the food.

But that person would host and they would take care of it, and then it would be at the next person then and the next person. So it was really easy. And the things that we talked about was really whatever came up, we didn't have a, formal agenda. We didn't have dues. That's what bothered me about the first one that I joined, is that they had dues and they had all of these bylaws and all, and I was like, it can be so much simpler.

Let's just get together and talk about what's challenging us and also our joys. Let's talk about all the things you know, we're humans in the world. And then I took that model into creating my lean in circle. When I started my business, I was like, I need to be around people who are building businesses.

And that's what I did. I reached out to women who were either building a business for themself or building the business of an organization they were working for. And it was beautiful. Those friends from that circle are some of my dearest friends that exist because we shared about our personal lives and our business lives, and now we're even considering going into business together with some of them.

Yeah. that group we met once a month for eight years. I love it. you can build your village. , you can, it just takes choosing to do it and not feeling like they all, they have to be there to begin with. You can start with two.

And I promise you, if you put your focus on it, it'll grow. it'll grow. Beautiful. I started a book club with some dear friends of mine and we did it for years. It was wonderful. And we did the same thing. We rotated houses it was, great. It was like, not only was this something, to get us out of the house and like just talking, talking out talk therapy, but just with friends. But there was an expectation, among the husbands. And so it was like, oh, I'm going to book club.

That's just the way it is. And it was on the calendar. It's expected there's no surprises. It's I feel like women need more permission to do things like that No one's going to give us permission, but ourselves. That's what I'm saying. Is Exactly.

And so if you don't take, you feel like it, they feel like they need that permission. If you think someone else is going to give you permission , you're wrong. And if you, this is a quote I just heard recently. This is a Brene Brown quote. . She says, if you keep looking for evidence of not belonging, you'll always find it.

You'll always find evidence of yourself not belong.  and until you, I would say, so that's her quote. Mm-hmm. And adding on to that. Until you decide to belong somewhere. Until you make the commitment to yourself.  To belong to yourself or some something else. Commitment looks like showing up.

So if you're not showing up for yourself or showing up for that group that you're creating, no one else is gonna respect it either. Powerful. So start looking at that. Where are you showing up for yourself? What do you wanna show up for yourself for? And I do some talks out in the world and I do some speaking.

And one of the talks I do is about core values. And it's important to me because, this is how we started my business while Big Sur. . And it's the bus. The other businesses I've started in the past, I used to own East Wellbeing in T-Spot. And basically we have to create our own core values first, our personal core values.

There's the core values for your business. Yes, that's important, but if you don't have core values for yourself as a human being and know what you stand for, how can you know whether you're aligned with any other organization and whether you wanna get on board for theirs. So I urge people to look at their own core values and create those for yourself.

And not only that, but to go even one step further and create vows for yourself. We look at vows and it's only surrounding marriage. What are our vows to ourself? Because ultimately the most important relationship you have in your life is the one with yourself. So let's start there. Let's start with managing ourselves and choosing our commitments to ourselves.

I, I coach women on how to carve out time for themselves and feel amazing their bodies just as they are. And I cannot tell you how difficult it is to get to have them allow, to empower them to allow themselves 15 minutes a day for themselves. And,   it really comes down to they have to want it.

Yes. If you can't find 15 minutes, then there's a bigger problem in terms of your, like you said, your core values because you're not valuing yourself at all. I lived in that world for a very long time, so I fully identify with these women. I don't see myself outside of them. I see myself as them a few years ago.

And there is a point in our lives, and oftentimes it'll come with a divorce, it'll come with a death in a, in the family. It'll come with this impending grief and loss. When we experience very significant loss, we reprioritize and oftentimes it takes that to prioritize the self. And there is a book called Intimate Communion and it talks about the different stages of a woman's life.

And in the first stage of life, for women, we prioritize finding love. Outside of ourselves. So we're looking for a man and we're looking to find the clothing that we like and that we love and that we makes us feel good. So it's really about finding the thing to find the love outside of ourself.

And that could be from a man, it could be from work, it could be from kids, like all external validation. The second stage of life that we go through is the love of self. And it's when we have these challenges where we've done all the things to get everyone else to love us, and now we're not experiencing that we're feeling loved.

Oftentimes it's when the kids go away to college, right? They're not around anymore to, validate, maybe you're, you go through a divorce and you don't have that person that's validating that you're loved. So that second stage is about self-love and understanding the value of self-love.  and understanding how to do it, understanding who we are and what we want and what our needs are and how we tick and what makes us feel good.

All of those things is learning about oneself again. And then that third stage is past that point in life. You already have the self-love. And finally, it's not about trying to acquire love. It's about being love. So that's the third stage of the feminine journey, and that is being love itself. And that's when I say when challenges arise.

And in my bio it says, I'm learning my capacity to love having the most difficult experiences show up in your life, the most challenging circumstances, and how do you continue in those circumstances to show up as love? Because inevitably, those times in life will come. And That is the challenge at that stage is continuing to show up as love, regardless of whatever story is going on.

Beautiful. I'm gonna check out that book. That sounds great. And , he's got some other stuff. Enlightened Sex Manual. I love it. Yeah. Awesome. Now, you said you were in, your bio it says you're an embodiment coach, right? tell me about that. so one of the things I've learned in my journey is In the past year, I have learned how to embody my emotions like I never have in my. And my entire life, up until this last year of my life, I would say I was hiding my emotions. I didn't feel like I had the agency to experience them or to show them, and I felt like I was expected to not have emotions.

And that put me in a very small box. And I think a lot of us live in that box. And when we hide our emotions and don't express them, then when they do come out, they become very big and it's very hard to manage them. And so what I learned is when I have anger, there are perfectly healthy ways to express it.

And one of the things I did was go to the batting cages. Literally hit something, right? But batting cages, guess what? You're supposed to hit something that's perfectly acceptable, and that means you're managing your anger in a really healthy way, right? Lots of sports do that for us. Lots of people who are involved in sports do that, but also it might be chopping wood, right?

Might be chopping wood in your backyard and other emotions that might come out, right? Tears. How often do you notice when someone starts crying, they apologize. What are we apologizing for? Are tears not a natural human emotion? If they weren't a natural human emotion, then why do we have tear ducks and why do they come out when we get emotional?

So I think that we have lived in this society that. That tells us that our emotions aren't acceptable. So I have learned over the last, I would say year and a half now, probably, I'm like, it is January. I have learned how to express my emotions healthily and through not only the things I just shared, but also through dance and through voice, right?

Chanting, singing, et cetera. There are so many ways to embody the emotions that we feel to express them in a really beautifully healthy way because we need to actually get them outta the body. And then one of the things I also say to anyone who comes out to the land in Big Sur is that if you don't think, if you don't believe, if you don't trust that the land knows.

That you are having any kind of energy on it, you are mistaken. The earth feels all the energy of all of the animals, of all of the humans. It knows what to do with that energy. This is all vibration. We know this is vibration. So if you don't think that the earth can feel your vibration, you are mistaken.

And once you know that, also know that the earth has been taking the vibrations of every animal and every being on this planet for so long. It knows what to do with that energy. It knows how to process that energy. We are here for each other. there is a reason that when we go out into nature and we go look at the ocean or we go into the forest, That when we're there and sitting with these challenging feelings that we feel better, we feel renewed, we feel cleansed.

We feel whole, we feel centered. This energy exists. We like to pretend it doesn't exist or that it's not connected to the earth or the cosmos. We're all connected. It's all connected. So just know that the land needs us and we need the land. It goes both ways. So whatever emotions you have, give those to the earth, she knows what to do with them.

How would you give those emotions to the land? How, what would that look like? So for me, the way that I do it, I'm like, I do several different things, but I'll often go to the bluff, sy bigg sur above, the beach and just sit there. And really just sit with my emotions, with my body grounded on the earth, feel it, and then feel the earth holding me.

Literally feel every single day that you are alive, the earth is holding you. She is the original mother that never lets you go even after death. You will always be held in her bosom and that is eternal.

That's beautiful. You know that movie fantastic fun guy. Have you seen this? I love that movie. I love that movie. That's so amazing. mind blowing and I just saw the second avatar recently and it just really resonated with me in terms of the whole, everybody's connected, the earth is picking up on everything that's going on, and if you think of it as a living being, there's a reciprocity there.

There's a, there's care and concern and compassion that we need and I love that you kept saying you're the steward of your land. That's beautiful. That's exactly it. We're stewards of this land and maybe stewards of the people around us, and we have an obligation to leave everything better than we found it.

Yeah. And if we wanted to go even one further  than in that thought, I said I'm a steward of the land, which is true because I am hosting other people there. So like you said, I'm stewarding the people really. Who's stewarding who?

I think it's more that the land is stewarding us. Touche,

Put. You're right. It's allowing us to be here. It's giving us nourishment, oxygen keeping us fed. Watered Hydrated grounded. Yes. Giving us space Yes. To exist in Rome and Right. And.  seeing ourselves in the land and the land in ourselves. It's important. It's an important piece that the Native Americans knew.

, right? Yes. Because they had such a deep experience with nature every day. And because we build houses and we can live within these four walls and really never touch the ground in a day. Think about that. Some Native Americans lived every single day touching the earth. How often are we touching the earth?

And I'm not talking about the concrete or the black top of your driveway or the deck in your front yard. How often are we touching the earth? Absolutely. It's easy. It's easy for us to live in these boxes and forget that we are a part of all of it.  and there's something, there's a movement, I think it's called Earthing.

where you walk around barefoot and there's some scientific evidence behind it. Like you d you're discharging ions. Something that, really I know there was an NIH study, national Institute of Health looking at the Earth's surface the body and something There was an interaction that was really powerful and explained, for those who need that, that scientific explanation to be a proponent of it. there is scientific backing to the earth movement. there's the earthing movement, and then there's also forest bathing.

Yes. And both that, both of these things Are worthy going down the rabbit hole with Yes. Because the more that we do these experiences in nature, the more our brainwaves get to a much more workable state, a less excited state, and a much more relaxed state. Absolutely. This is a great place to come full circle, Jill, in we haven't talked too much about your body, but we have talked about bodies in general and how we're all connected.

And one of the things that we talk a lot about in my community is body freedom. And body freedom to me means feeling light, healthy, confident, really free, liberated, , can walk around in a burlap sack and feel great. And I think that really, the essence of the wild, wild Big Sur is all about that.

So tell us what body freedom means to you. Ooh, this is a fun one for me. So I would say the last two years of my life before, I should say three years ago and moving forward two years from there, I was feeling a lot of body shame during the covid years. And I was, that was being expressed to me.

So I was feeling shame from the outside. And it was the first time in life that I ever actually dealt with that. I never had an experience where I had anyone telling me that my body wasn't what they were wanting or expecting. And that for me, Was really cutting. It was really hard and it gave me such a empathy for people who've experienced that for many years of their life because it was new to me.

And what's amazing is in this last year of my life, since I've had this transition, I really knew it was an important part of me taking my power back. And when when I decided to go through this process of spiritual transformation, there were a few things that I did. Number one is I started doing hiking really frequently and I love hiking, so I was hiking with my dogs really frequently.

So that just hiking for myself is like such a grounding exercise and it doesn't feel like exercise. It just feels like being in nature. It's what makes my heart happy. So it's easy for me to do it and not feel like, oh, I have to go to the gym. It does, so there's two things that, and then yoga, both of those for me are feed my soul and I do them because they feed my soul.

I don't do them to lose weight, but the benefit of doing them is, it's like a side note. Also, it helps me stay in, in fitness, but it's not the reason I do them. The second thing is understanding the stories I was being told about my weight. Were not. Stories I had to keep repeating to myself and I was repeating them to myself.

And so I had to learn, oh, there's the ego again, telling me that story, which isn't true because guess what? All of these bodies, all of this stuff that we got here, all of this isn't even real, right? All we really are is love these and our souls. And so this is like a oh and you're gonna have this one this time you get to have this one.

What are we talking about? What I care more about is the way I talk to myself and the way I care for myself. So if I'm feeding my spiritual soul, then that's all that matters and spirit. You're feeding your spiritual soul may mean that you're playing a lot of guitar. That's what it means for me, or that I'm drumming a lot.

And those two things are feeding my soul. So that's what I wanna focus is not on what I'm eating as much, although that's important. But I really need to look at how am I feeding myself and how am I feeding my soul? And then the second part of it is on the body itself. I feel like I had to do an initiation.

And the initiation was I went to Lightning in a bottle, and Lightning in a Bottle festival. That is like just a fun time. And I went with my best girlfriends and all of that. And at that event I knew, I felt that I needed to show my body in a way that I would never show my body to get it past of it, past it in my head.

Because there's a story about what Jill would do and what Jill would not do, and what's not acceptable. And so at that event, I wore a very skimpy outfit and outfit. It's like lines that are outlining the parts of my body and then had a thing in front and a little thing like and girlfriend's painted my nipples.

That's all that was covering my nipples. Yeah, I it was a really, it was way out there. Way out there. And then my friend did my hair in cornrow, so not, I didn't even have my hair to cover me and to hide myself. And at that event I wore, and it was a peacock, like my theme was peacock. And so it was like I was dressed like a peacock and I had these peacock feathers behind me, but like my body was pretty much on display and.

I wasn't in the best shape. I didn't plan for months ahead to get myself in really great shape to do this. And there was part of me that wished I had, and part of me that knew it was perfect because it isn't really, at the end of the day, it isn't about what your body looks like. It's about how you feel in your body and whether you feel confident enough to wear it, whatever it is.

And then that step in choosing to do this, I just knew I needed this. I needed this for to build my confidence back. And so I wore this outfit at the event, wore it all.  and it was a step forward in again, taking my power back, knowing that my body is perfect as is, and also that our bodies are constantly, every single day a work in progress and they're gonna change.

But knowing that I'm worthy and I'm loved and I don't need anyone else doing it for me, I don't need to look for external validation on what my body looks like or what's acceptable or  someone else wants. It was perfect for me. Beautiful. I love it. I love that you had an initiation ritual.

I have a lot of initiation rituals. I've got If you wanna do a podcast on rituals. Yeah. I've got a lot. yeah. Awesome. Because I love that. For me, ritual is us taking these moments in our lives that are important initiations in life, and making them a physical manifestation.

It's choosing, it's showing the world, it's literally showing the world with a symbol of whatever kind. And that ritual is showing, this is an initiation, this is happening. I've made a choice. And the choice might be for yourself, for someone else for coming. For going. , for starting. For stopping.

whatever it is. But those initiation moments in life when we have a vehicle, and the vehicle for me, Is ritual. The ritual is what makes it real. And then that commitment that we've made, we've really committed to ourselves. as soon as we make that choice, the ritual helps us make the choice that physical manifestation.

Jill, this has been such a pleasure learning about your retreat, about your history and just connecting. where can we find out more about you? I don't have a website, so right now what you can find out about me is all on Instagram and Facebook.

So my Instagram handles Jill Wild, it's j i l w i l d e. And. I also have Instagram at Wild Big Sur and it's w i l D E, big Sur. And then I'm on Facebook too, so you can find me there. So wild. Beautiful. We'll have all of those links on the show notes. Thank you so much. This has been such a pleasure.

Everybody follow Jill and her experiences, check out her retreats and make a difference in the life of yourself and others. Thanks so much. Thank you.