16 years ago my husband died. This is how it transformed the way I live.

November 9th marked sixteen years since that beautiful Monday morning when I kissed my husband goodbye as we each headed off into our day. Unbeknownst to me, it would be the last time. Shortly thereafter, he tragically died in a car accident.

When I replay that time in my life, it feels like watching a surreal movie I can’t quite believe I was in. And though it’s been many years, this day still arrives quietly, like a wave from a distant shore.

This is the day everything changed.
It shattered my world, brought me to my knees, and broke me open — and eventually, it taught me how to really live.

There are many lessons that have unfolded through the years. Here are a few of them:

1. Life is unspeakably fragile.
We wake each morning assuming there will be another — but nothing is promised.
That awareness, once terrifying, became sacred.
It taught me to savor the moments — the sunrises, the stars, the conversations, the experiences — to savor the gift of being alive.
And to remember that we don’t have time to f*ck around.
It made me say yes.

2. Love is what remains.
When everything else is stripped away, love is the only thing left standing.
Possessions — all of the “things” we value so much — become meaningless.
What remains are memories, feelings, and experiences. The positive marks we have left on people’s hearts. 
Love is the eternal thread that connects us.
Love is why we are here.

3. Grief is a teacher.
Grief is not something to “get over,” but something we learn to live with. It becomes part of your tapestry.
The experience of grief is unique to each person, and there are no rules or “should be’s.”
It has been one of my greatest teachers. It softened me, strengthened me, humbled me, and transformed me.
For the gifts it has given — and continues to give — I am grateful.

4. Courage is born in the aftermath.
In the months that followed, I realized I had a choice — to collapse, or to create.
His death gave birth to who I have become — to my business, and to my devotion to helping others live more fully.
Courage, I’ve learned, isn’t the absence of fear — it’s being afraid and doing it anyway.
It’s knowing that when we love, we’re signing up for loss, one way or another, because everything and everyone is a temporary gift.

5. Beauty and pain can coexist.
The sunrise and the sorrow, the laughter and the longing, the dark and the light — they all belong.
Life isn’t about avoiding pain, but about embracing the full, vivid spectrum of the human experience, of being alive.

I remember wishing there was a “fast-forward” button — a way to skip the agony and see if joy and lightness would ever return.

And here’s the grace I didn’t know was waiting for me then:
Life gave me love again.

I am now blessed to have a partner who meets me in joy, depth, and gratitude for all that has shaped us both.
His presence reminds me that the heart’s capacity to love never ends — it only grows wider.

So today, I honor the lessons death has taught me:
How fleeting and sacred life is…
And how beautiful it still can be.

May we all live with that kind of awareness — tender, courageous, awake.

With love,
Lauren

Die, Survive, or Thrive

I have been teaching yoga for well over a decade which, as decades tend to do, have gone by way too quickly. My oldest just turned 30! WTF?! Time is a funny thing. And the most precious commodity that I know. And as present as I attempt to be, as mindful as I am of how fleeting moments are, they still pass through my fingers like sand.

If you don’t know how I came to do what I do, let me put it in a nutshell…it was born out of grief and it is what saved my life. And, as I am sure some of you can relate to, I have experienced many of my own opportunities to metaphorically die and thus, opportunities to be reborn. I am not alluding to religion here, but to the fact that we are always in transition, nothing stays the same and there are certainly no guarantees other than we are born and we are going to die. Everything in between is a series of choices, experiences, the cards were are dealt and what we decide to do with them each and every day.

Basically we can die, survive, or thrive.

In 2020 I lost my last living parent. In 2022, my youngest child went off to college. Talk about grief and ego death and trying to figure out who I am when I am no longer a daughter or a mother that gets to see their children on a daily basis.

I made a choice to create art out of heartbreak. I started to dream of traveling with amazing people to beautiful locations all over the world so that together, we could cultivate connection, joy, awe, wonder, adventure and play. So, in 2022 I met 28 of you for my inaugural retreat in Tuscany and it was an amazing post Covid experience where we got to do some of my favorite things that I missed the most—love on one another. It reminded me of how much we need one another, how much time we spend staring at our devices rather into each other’s eyes, how much we need to be in nature and swim in the sea.

Since then I have hosted 8 retreats in stunning off the beaten path locations all over the world.

I guess I feel an urgency to do the things I want to do, to say the things that I need to say, to love hard, and to see & experience as much of the world as I can while I’m here. To say YES to life. Because at the end of it, what we leave behind is the love we gave, the memories we created together, and how we impacted the lives of others.

I am therefore very excited to be returning to the Dalmatian Coast of Croatia on a private yacht I chartered just for us. For those of you who’ve been on retreats with me before, you know there is something so incredible about leaving your regular life, going somewhere far from home, and embracing a different rhythm, culture, landscape, language and history. It’s the best kind of disruptor, the kind that reminds us life is not a thing to get through, it’s an experience with so many opportunities to slow down and be present, authentically connect to yourself and one another, and to really marinate in every moment. Croatia is a stunning and friendly country with the most beautiful scenery, the bluest seas you have ever seen, picturesque villages, and a remarkable history. And we are experiencing it in the best way possible!

I have always personally valued experience over things, and this is truly an experience of a lifetime. The perfect gift to give to yourself or someone you cherish.