MY STORY
I'm Dominic and the little guy with the orange eyebrows is Carl and together we are the co founders of Bliss Yoga Retreats. Over the last couple of years we have assembled a fantastic team of people including two truly amazing yoga teachers who have helped us bring our retreat ideas to life.
I should start by telling you that I am far from a yoga expert, I have only been practicing yoga for 5 years now and I am not a yoga teacher (believe me if I was the teacher at the retreats you would be disappointed) and if you told me 10 years ago when I was busying partying and living a hedonistic lifestyle in Ibiza, that one day, I would be running my own yoga retreats, I don't think I would have believed you! So here is a little bit about my story and how I have gone from working on boat parties in Ibiza to running Bliss Yoga Retreats...
My Story
For over 10 years I was lucky enough to live on the beautiful island of Ibiza. I ran an excursion business taking people to explore beautiful secret places around the island. Five years ago my housemate who was a yoga teacher encouraged me to start practicing yoga to help with my back problems. So I initially started practicing yoga for the physical benefits that it offers. But once I started practicing I soon discovered another benefit. I found that after my yoga practice I would feel more relaxed, my mind would be calmer and I would be perceptibly a little bit happier. What I didn't realise when I first started practicing, is that yoga is effectively a moving meditation. So as well as increasing your strength and flexibility the sequences of poses and your breathing gives your mind something to focus your attention on in the present and prevents your mind from wandering. I started to make morning yoga practice a part of my daily routine and have been enjoying the benefits ever since.
At the end of the summer season I decided to try something new and went to stay in a yoga retreat for the first time. I found that I really enjoyed the yoga classes, but for me the retreat felt like it had something missing. And for me, the main thing that I felt was missing was 'connection'.
At the retreat the yoga teacher and staff didn't eat with the rest of the guests and there was no other organised activities to bring the group together to socialise. As a result the majority of the people at the retreat spent most of their free time on their own. I think in the modern world that we live in, we all live increasingly isolated lives and we are often led to believe that the solutions to our problems come from individual solutions. But I think that we forget an important fact about human nature sometimes and that is that we are innately social creatures that evolved to live in tribes and what ultimately makes us happier and healthier than anything else is spending time enjoying the company of other people.
The second thing I personally would have changed at the retreat is that I felt like there were some quite strict rules imposed, especially about what I was allowed to eat and drink. Although I was trying my best to improve my habits, I knew that I was a long way from living the perfectly healthy balanced lifestyle promoted at the retreat. I think too often we can spend our time comparing ourselves to others and especially with the rise of social media this constant comparing can be a great source of unhappiness.
I personally think that the only person that we should be comparing ourselves to, is 'me today' vs 'me yesterday' and we should congratulate ourselves and be proud whenever we take a positive step in the right direction.
On the final day of the retreat I was feeling a bit restless sat around with nothing to do and so I offered to take some of the other guests out around the island in my mini bus. We went cliff jumping at Cala Gracio, visited an abandoned nightclub overlooking the valley of San Jose and then went to watch the sunset at the islands most breath-taking sunset vista, the mystical island of Es Vedra. All of the guests who had joined me agreed that it had been their favourite day of their holiday! This is when I realised I could have an idea...
I decided I wanted to create my own retreat, a retreat that would take people on adventures, a retreat that would be accessible and open to everyone regardless of their level of experience or lifestyle choices and most importantly a retreat where people would make lasting and meaningful connections.
I decided to open my new retreat business in the spring of 2020. As some of you may have heard this year in particular turned out to be a pretty bad year for tourism! The lock down started in Ibiza just 2 days before my first guests were due to arrive and after a couple of months of living in a villa that I couldn't afford without guests, I decided to try and save what little money I had left. I put all of my retreat stuff that I had bought into storage and sadly moved out of the villa.
Luckily 14 months later, with some good fortune and a lot of help and support from friends and family, we ran out first retreat in May 2021. The Ibiza retreats were a success and so we decided to expand our retreats to winters in the beautiful island of Tenerife as well.
This is how Bliss Yoga Retreats started. We have an ethos that is unique and completely different from more conventional retreats and we hope that you enjoy being a part of it.