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Women wellness


Welcome to our Newsletter!

A behind-the-scenes look at Terranam Wellness & self-care tips for taking better care of yourself.

BY MARIA GARRIDO - 4 MINUTE READ


Reconnect with your dreams and let your imagination guide you through life's challenges.



THE DRAMA OF IT ALL

When I was in my early 20's, I experienced one of those gut-wrenching heartbreaks that leaves a young girl wallowing in the drama of it all. You know, the kind where your tender inexperienced heart thinks you've lost the only prince charming you'll ever meet, it's the end of the world, you'll never know true love again so you cry and cry and cry....more over the shock than the boy! 😉

 

It makes me laugh today to think of the heartbreak frenzy l stirred myself into at that age. But listen to any young female artist like Olivia Rodrigo or the millions of Swifties belt out "Bad Blood" and you'll sympathize with the drama of my (or your own!) younger years.



THE GREAT ESCAPE

At the time,  I swore off men forever. To protect myself from future heartbreaks, I did what any incredibly creative and conflict-averse young person would do, I escaped into a fantasy world of my own creation.

 

I pictured myself in a perfect future existence where my life was amazing- at least by the standards of a 20 yr old ambitious college student in the early 90's. I saw myself as a future successful and fiercely independent career woman, of course.  But that wasn't enough for my wild imagination.  To render the dream more tangible, I had to add plenty of bells and whistles!

 

As a product of Gen X, I was keen on prioritizing career success and wanted nothing more than to excel. At the time, the show thirtysomething was popular on television so my generational context and that tv show became my reference; I conjured up a dream of a yuppy middle-aged life with lots of material success. My proudly single future life came with an adorable westie as my loyal companion, a convertible navy 325 BMW to whisk away to weekends on the coast and a cello (!) because no self-respecting multitalented woman would be complete without the ability to play classical heartwrenching music as her life's soundtrack!

 I needed a good setting for this highly colorful life so a walk-up brownstone in the Beacon Hill neighborhood of Boston became my imaginary home.

 

Don't even ask why I chose Boston!?  I hadn't grown up there and didn't know much about the city. I'd visited a college friend once and had strolled through the Beacon Hill neighborhood. At the time, I found it so charming that I purchased a pretty watercolor sketch of a brownstone in Beacon Hill.  The picture hung in my room for years. It felt pretty yuppie-ish to me then so that made for a perfectly pleasant backdrop to my imaginary future and fiercely independent and successful life.

 

You might think I'm making this all up but to make sure this became a self-fulfilling prophecy I wrote it all down in tremendous detail and embarrassingly still have the journal entries to prove it 30 years later 😀.




EXERCISING THE IMAGINATION MUSCLE

It's funny how I let my imagination run wild like that but in hindsight, I know it was a coping mechanism. Escaping into your own imagination is an incredibly entertaining and effective way to move through life's challenges. After all, what are people seeking when they go to the movies or read a novel? A few moments of escape from their own realities.