Podcast Transcript – Wellness Travel w/ Blisstopia Retreats

NOTE: below is a generated transcript from Season 3, Episode 1 of the Lifelong Health and Fitness Conversations podcast. Episode title: "Wellness Travel: Blisstopia Retreats"

In this episode, I speak with Lana and Mark, founders and owners of Blisstopia Retreats in Peoria, Arizona. We discuss their many wellness services and offerings on their property designed for immersion into holistic wellness experiences. Blisstopia Retreats hosts their own retreats and collaborates with other wellness, health, medical, and professional practitioners to host retreats on the beautiful Blisstopia property.

Blisstopia Retreats is 5-star rated on Google and highly recommended on Alignable. Their mission is to encourage people to embrace empowered, creative, and vibrant living through Yoga, Fitness, Meditation, Ayurveda, and various wellness activities. They do this by providing a nurturing environment, holistic practices, and community support.

S3. EP. 2 – Discovering Holistic Wellness at Blisstopia Retreats w/ Lana & Mark

Podcast Transcript:

Sylvia Petro: Welcome to season three of the lifelong Health and Fitness Conversations podcast. And last season, I hinted at something exciting that all listeners can dive into. Now, after much research, learning, and a bit of adventure, I’m ready to share what this new offering is. Wellness travel. To kick off this new offering, I speak with Lana and Mark, founders and owners of Blisstopia retreats in Peoria, Arizona. We discuss their many wellness services and offerings on their property, which is designed for immersion into holistic wellness experiences. Blisstopia retreats host their own retreats, and they collaborate with other wellness, health, medical, and professional practitioners to host retreats on their beautiful property. Blisstopia Retreats is five star rated on Google and highly recommended on Alignable. Their mission is to encourage people to embrace empowered, creative, and vibrant living through yoga, fitness, meditation, Ayurveda, and various wellness activities. They do this by providing a nurturing environment, holistic practices, and community support. To learn more about Blisstopia retreats and to view their latest retreat events, see the links in the podcast description. Now on to our conversation.

Sylvia Petro: Well, Lana and Mark, thank you for joining me today for this podcast recording.

Blisstopia Retreats: Thanks for having us.

Blisstopia Retreats: Thank you.

Sylvia Petro: And I see your beautiful retreat background.

Blisstopia Retreats: There with Tokyo retreat. Yes, we’re right here in Peoria, Arizona, and this is the sunrise mountain preserve behind us. So it is a preserve. And there’s hiking right back, outside our gate.

Sylvia Petro: Wow. And that’s why I wanted to interview you both, because I saw your retreat on Facebook, and I’m always looking at wellness retreats. So can you tell listeners a bit about the genesis of your company?

Blisstopia Retreats: Yeah, we started, we opened Blisstopia retreats in July of 2021, so three years ago now. And, I held our first retreat in October of 2021. And we’ve been hosting many, retreats since then. We’ve hosted over 40 retreats in that timeframe. And, we’re growing and expanding and hosting more and more. But the journey really came from Minnesota. We moved down from Minnesota, in 2021 after selling our fitness centers that we had in a yoga studio up in Minnesota, sold her home, moved here and said, it’s time to open up a retreat wellness center so that we can help more people in a deeper level.

Blisstopia Retreats: It really was a calling. everything that we’ve done is like, it shows itself and we just take action because we believe that if something shows itself, it needs to be tended to. Like, if your intention is, awake and active, the only other step is to do it like that. You’re supposed to do like then that’s what we do. It’s like, okay, I guess that’s what we’re gonna do.

Blisstopia Retreats: We apologize for the background noise of our chickens. We have several chickens and they’re. It’s that time of the day for them.

Sylvia Petro: Yeah, that’s actually, that might be appealing to listeners, actually. So they can interact with the chickens when they get there. Absolutely.

Lana and Mark started Blisstopia together eleven years ago

I did see on your website, you have 20 years that you’ve been in business. So can you tell me a bit about, your services and what offerings you have at Blisstopia?

Blisstopia Retreats: Well, together, Lana and I started with our fitness centers. That was about eleven years ago. We opened our first fitness center together. It was a boxing fitness center, a franchise location. Then we purchased a second one. And, then we opened up our boutique yoga studio, custom built. We designed it ourselves and then built it out and opened our yoga studio and ran that. And then we opened up a third boxing fitness, center, franchise location. So we were pretty busy and, we weren’t able to work together any longer because we had so many businesses that we had to run back and forth to. So that was one of the reasons that we decided, well, it’s time to downsize and go back to what we originally planned was to work together in one location. And that’s why we downsized from that. Ah, moved to Arizona, opened up our retreat center.

Blisstopia Retreats: Before that, both Mark and I had been in the health, wellness, spiritual realm in some shape or form. I was a psychotherapist for a long time, active doing, employee assistance and psychotherapy. And through that journey early on,

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Blisstopia Retreats: I knew that there had to be other things to help people besides just talking, which is, it’s good, but you only can get so far in that. So I started diving deep into different modalities. I was drawn to be a doula for a long time. So I attended over 400 births over 20 years. I got certified in hypnotherapy because I thought that would really help, people go into the subconscious mind. And then also energy work, healing touch and Reiki I found to be a really amazing modality as well. So, with my background and also martial arts have just kind of integrated. And then Mark and I, together with Mark’s background and you can talk about your background and integrated those modalities.

Blisstopia Retreats: Yeah. I’ve owned and operated several, martial arts schools over the years. everything from karate schools to mixed, martial arts centers, training centers for fighters. And, it’s been a passion of mine. I’ve been involved in martial arts for almost 45 years now. And, so we try to incorporate even a little bit of that into our retreat business. we offer self defense training and boxing fitness classes for fun and also just to break up a retreat from. It may be yoga based, to have a little bit of the yin and yang built into the retreat as well.

Sylvia Petro: And just listening to you both talking about, your journeys and your legacies, because even though you don’t do those things anymore, you’ve contributed to people’s lives. And when you put that all together now, one of the things, and, this podcast focuses on lifelong health and wellness is you can put all that together to create like a holistic experience for people who visit Blisstopia. And maybe when they visit more than once, they can enjoy different aspects of your services. So do you kind of get repeats so they can experience? Because there’s a lot to experience.

Blisstopia Retreats: It sounds like we do get repeat guests to come. we actually had one guest, come about six times in a year. Yeah, she ended up moving here and she ended up moving in with us to help support us for the retreat.

Blisstopia Retreats: She’s now an assistant of ours for our retreat site.

Blisstopia Retreats: And we also, have had retreat guests that have come for retreat for the healing process, but have also come back for yoga teacher training and energy healing training, for certifications, for them to pass on the wisdom and the knowledge of their community. So they worked on themselves and then they started to be practitioners of the work. And that’s what we love is like, if they’re called to do it, you know?

Blisstopia Retreats: But we offer so many different avenues, for healing and different themes, depending on what someone might be going through, whether that’s grief or loss or just feeling stuck, or they’re in a light life phase where it’s like, now what? So it depends on what they’re working through, and then we work through the workshops that most will benefit them at that time, depending on who we’re calling in for that specific retreat. So, like, I just talked to a gal yesterday about our warrior goddess retreat in September, September 13 through the 16th of this year. And she, was recently divorced. she has three children, adult children, and she’s in her early fifties. And she was, just recently diagnosed with a brain tumor. And so she went to Greece on a retreat and said, that was great. I’ve always wanted to go to Greece, but it wasn’t a retreat that dived into who you are as a human being. It was about the environment. Yeah. Right.

Blisstopia Retreats: Which is awesome.

Blisstopia Retreats: I mean, gosh. Yeah. And she said, now, though, the point in my life right now with what she has happening, she said, I want to learn more about me and what’s next for me and dive deeper into who I am and heal. So.

Sylvia Petro: Yeah, that’s a good point, actually.

Blisstopia offers a variety of retreats to help people heal

because there are a lot of retreats out there, and, a lot of them focus on the destination, and so they think the destination

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will heal you. So can you tell me a bit about Blisstopia Retreats? And, we did speak before. You also have retreats for facilitators. Can you explain the features of each type of retreat?

Blisstopia Retreats: Yeah, yeah. Destinations are great. And everybody, you know, everybody wants to go to a beautiful, incredible, inspiring location. And our facility in our location is that it’s, you know, it’s not a tropical beach, it’s not somewhere in Europe, but it’s in, in the desert here in Arizona, which has its own, you know, mystique about it. And it’s also. The beauty of the desert can be a lot more than people realize. People think that Arizona is 115 degrees year round.

Blisstopia Retreats: Yeah, it is right now, though. But you can see it’s comfortable. We’re sitting outside and it’s.

Blisstopia Retreats: And I have no sweat dripping off of me sitting outside in 100 degree weather.

Blisstopia Retreats: Yeah.

Sylvia Petro: And the sun is therapy. The sun is therapy wherever it is on earth. So, yeah, it is.

Blisstopia Retreats: It is such a great healing modality that people need to not be afraid of the sun. They need to embrace it because it does heal. And you know what we do here that I like to brag about Lana, because Lana has such a vast background in helping and healing people. She’s a psychotherapist, she’s a hypnotherapist, she’s a Reiki master, she’s a yoga teacher and a yoga teacher. Trainer. All of those things are all about reaching people, touching people, helping people, and healing people. So it really comes down to retreats. Come down to not just the location, but who’s running it? How are they running it? and why are they running it? Do they have the path to run that retreat to help people? It might be great just to go there and just to get away, but you can do that. You can do that on a beach vacation yourself. You know, go to Mexico and have a great time. But do you get much out of that? Spiritually, physically, emotionally, mentally? We try to get all of those things covered.

Sylvia Petro: Yeah. And sometimes they might be trying to get away from the problem. And then they don’t know how to fix the problem when they get back because they didn’t do anything while they were away. And they had the time to think about it, to figure out how to deal with a problem when they get back. So it sounds like your services offer that.

Blisstopia Retreats: Yeah. Yes.

Blisstopia Retreats: And we always try to, we always try to have them leave with something that they can take with them to work on themselves so that they kind of an aftercare program, so to speak, you know. Cause if you just come and then bye. See, you know, never see them m again. we tell them once they leave, once they’ve come here and be part of our retreat, they’re like family. And, ah, I’m Italian, so once you join the family, you can never leave.

Blisstopia Retreats: Plus, it’s, it’s about relationships. It’s not just like a one and done and bye, good luck with your life. Like, we develop a relationship so we care about what’s happening to you. And we get calls from people, three months later, six months later, a year later. And they love sharing with what’s happening in their life and how much it’s changed. And they’ll say, we just want to let you know what an impact that has had on my life and how transformative it was. And that many of them will say, I didn’t realize how much impact it had till I started living in my usual world again. And how things like would come up and be like, they would respond differently and listen to their intuition differently. They would manifest things differently. Because when you’re here at, Blisstopia, every single cell, we’re tapping into every single cell conscious subconscious to help you be all you can be and do it more effortlessly. I think so many times people are working so hard to heal and do something. And it really doesn’t have to be that hard. Yeah, it doesn’t be hard.

Each retreat is theme based. Some of the themed retreats can be annual

Sylvia Petro: So what, what is the day to day for people who go to one of your retreats?

Blisstopia Retreats: Let you explain kind, of the schedule.

Blisstopia Retreats: Yeah. So typically, a, ah, retreat would, be 3456, even seven days. And the morning is. We honor the morning in silence. Just like nature. Nature wakes up quietly. It’s not just like, boom, there it is. The sun rises slowly. We wake up slowly with that. So silence

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Blisstopia Retreats: for the first hour. And then we move into a nourishing ayurvedic breakfast. And typically there’s some morning movement either yoga, hiking, that type of thing. And breath work. Mark will, walk him through a guided breath work. or meditation. And then by that time, there’s some free time, free space. It’s so important on a retreat to have integration time for people just to be, we don’t stack activity after activity. There has to be that time just to sit with what it is or to journal or to take a nap, whatever you need to do to integrate the information or the healing that’s happening. And so then we have a, beautiful ayurvedic lunch in the afternoon. Depending on the weather, it might be a boxing class or a workshop of sorts. The workshop is typically geared towards an interactive type of thing. It’s not lecture. So it is a very much a sharing time for people to share their own experiences based on the information that we’re talking about.

Sylvia Petro: Okay. So it’s not regimented. Things are kind of optional for them.

Blisstopia Retreats: Yeah. And each retreat is theme based. So apple, like, we have the warrior goddess retreat coming up here, September and September. And that’s about it. A lot of it’s about empowering women. And so there will be some, some self defense and I boxing added into in there, but they’ll also be yoga and meditation and breath work, and it’ll be about, you know, lifting women up and helping them find their own power from within.

Blisstopia Retreats: And sometimes, there, there has been a couple women that they just didn’t feel like it was right for them to box, so they just watched. That’s cool, right? And we did, we did a hike one time and one of the guests, she came out after we all got back and she said, thank you guys so much for creating a space for me to not feel judged or bad or anything about not choosing to go because I just wanted to sleep. And that’s the space that we create. But we also want to help people know when there’s resistance, so there’s avoiding things.

Sylvia Petro: Yeah, right? Yeah. Yeah.

Blisstopia Retreats: So that balance between the two of, and whatever people choose, it’s your retreat. We’re not going to judge you for where you’re at because you’re just, we only can meet you where you’re at and then also put where you need to, you know, get a little nudge with your retreats.

Sylvia Petro: Are they annual? So the warrior goddess retreat, is that. Warrior goddess, is it in you?

Blisstopia Retreats: Yes. Some of the themed retreats are annual, or even twice, a year. warrior goddess we have been hosting twice a year. some of the other ones are one off. And we’ll only host it one time because it’s a special, specialized one. but like we have, in November, we have the 1111 retreat coming up. It’s a breakthrough retreat that is an annual one held over 1111 special numbers for a breakthrough.

Blisstopia Retreats: And we get into the mystique of the universe, really, the mysterious of numerology, the mysteriousness of different creative abilities within and people that maybe need to be tapped into. So the mystique of how you can create a breakthrough around that.

Blisstopia Retreats: we have a sole vortex retreat that’s coming up. Soul vortex. of course, we have sol vortex energy right here on the property. But within that retreat, we also do a day excursion to Sedona, which is only 90 minutes from our door to uptown Sedona, and we take them out to the red rocks so they can visit, the vortexes there. And the energy and beauty of Sedona. A little shopping experience for the shops and everything, and souvenirs that are in Sedona itself, crystals, all of those things. So each retreat is unique and different, and we want it that way because maybe one will reach, one person one way, another one will touch another person another way. And that’s really what we like to do.

Sylvia Petro: That makes sense.

How do you help facilitators when they host a retreat on you property?

So, with facilitators, when they host a retreat, say, there’s a facilitator who would like to host a retreat on your property. How can they go about that? And how would, services or accommodations be set up

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for them? And what options do you have available?

Blisstopia Retreats: We love working with other collaborators. Like, it’s. It’s one of the things that we really enjoy doing, bringing people that have skills and talents and gifts and showcasing them. And then they don’t have the worry and the stress of some of the back end stuff of hosting a retreat. So, Mark, you can probably.

Blisstopia Retreats: We host, you know, probably eight to ten retreats of our own, Lana and I, together per year. And that’s there. It’s a lot to put together, to put together a retreat all by yourself. We do it all. We prepare the meals, we prepare all the sessions, the workshops, all the activities, and so marketing, the marketing. So we have to handle all of that. So when we work with collaborators and other retreat facilitators, we love that because they’re going to handle a lot of the back end stuff themselves. They’re going to take care of that, and then they can contract with us. Besides renting the facility for their retreat, they can contract with us if they want the meals taken care of, because Lana’s an ayurvedic chef. She prepares incredible meals, nourishing organic meals. so that’s one option, and then a lot of the services, the one to one services or the small group services that we offer. And it’s a long list of things that we offer. Everything from breath work to yoga classes to her, Reiki sessions, her healing touch sessions, and, past life regression, things like that. So there’s many different things that we have. We basically have an a la carte menu that we offer to do it. It’s really a simple process. They either call us, text us, email us, and say, hey, I’m interested in hosting a retreat at your place. The next step is we jump on a zoom call, get to meet each other, get to meet, know each other a little bit, see if we’re a right fit for each other. Usually that will determine whether they want to. They already saw the property through the website, but we might take them out live like this with the zoom call and show them a little bit of the facility. And then, you know, once they decide on, on the retreat that they want to do that, it’s picking dates, put a deposit down, and we’re flexible on all of those things. We were nothing because we know the business, we work the business, we live the business. We’re not just a. We’re not just about the business. We’re about actually helping, making sure that their retreat is going to be just as successful personal ones are.

Blisstopia Retreats: Yeah, sorry. Not everyone is a good match with us, too. You know, just because of the vibration, the frequency. But when it is, it’s like magic. It’s like. Yes, because everything just like, is so natural. we really look for super authentic people. Just like, just.

Blisstopia Retreats: Retreat facilitators. I mean, we have doctors, we have a traditional medicine doctor who left the traditional field to go into natural health field, and she came and she hosted a gut health retreat here. Just all about learning about your gut microbiome, which was just beautiful because it’s one of my passions as well. And then we had doctor Tanya Gilbert here. She’s from California, clinical psychologist. She’s a clinical psychologist who brought her group in, and we prepared the meals for that. We also did some of the modalities.

Blisstopia Retreats: Such a fun group.

Blisstopia Retreats: So having doctors having know, yoga teachers.

Blisstopia Retreats: We’ve had business coaches.

Blisstopia Retreats: I mean, so many different types of people.

Blisstopia Retreats: Corporate retreat.

Sylvia Petro: Oh, good. So you do everything, even maybe, writing retreats as well?

Blisstopia Retreats: Yes, yes. Art retreats. There can be many different.

Blisstopia Retreats: We do have one coming up who, we have a collaboration. Well, she just rented out the property, and then we’re contracting food services, and I’m actually going to do the retreat too. Like, I’m going to be a participant. That’s good. I don’t know the name of it, but it’s like, she’s doing artwork and soul oracle cards. So I’ve been developing my own soul oracle cards. And that’s one of her specialties is to help people bring the art, writing, drawing, painting within them, to bring it out in a way that is like tapping into the soul. So we’re so excited to work with her.

Blisstopia Retreats: And even like, next month in July, we have a retreat that is being hosted by the school of meditate, which is a. They do sound bowl healing certifications, and they’re bringing their group of people in to get certified here on site. And we’re, we’re also taking care of some of the

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Blisstopia Retreats: meals on their retreat as well. And Lana’s going to go through a second certification for sound bolt through their program.

Blisstopia Retreats: I know, I’m like, I’m already a certified sound healer, but what they provide is so expansive and I’m like, I have to do it. I mean, they’re right here.

Sylvia Petro: Yeah.

Blisstopia Retreats: So I’m so excited about that.

Sylvia Petro: I haven’t done any sound healing, anything yet. I would like to experience it. Right now I’m just spa level. And I do, I have worked with, someone who works with manifestation. And it’s kind of surprising how much she interacts with my higher self. She does a better job than I do, but she’s accurate. So it’s very interesting.

Blisstopia Retreats: Beautiful.

Blisstopia Retreats: And give yourself grace. Right? Give yourself grace. That the answers are really there and she’s just a guide for you. She’s just a mirror. Sometimes we just need a mirror. Uh-huh to actually see ourselves. That’s all.

Sylvia Petro: I hope that’s all.

Uber is easiest and most affordable way to get to the retreat from the nearest airport

So with the logistics of getting to your retreat, say someone is somewhere else in the country. what would be the logistical side of getting to your retreat?

Blisstopia Retreats: We are about 35 miles northwest of the Phoenix sky harbor international Airport, which is a large, easy in, easy out airport. most of the people that fly in there will Uber it to our location. It’s just easiest and probably the most affordable. There are shuttle services. There are, you know, limo services and things like that if you want to get first class all the way. But affordability wise, Uber is going to be the best.

Blisstopia Retreats: And most of the time, people don’t need to rent a car because you’re held in this container here. And we actually disturb people from, going out in between, because when you go out, a lot of times when you’re in a healing mode, that can interrupt the process. So we really want people to stay within the container of the property. same with, you know, use of social media and all that. We really encourage them to set that aside.

Sylvia Petro: Yeah. A digital detox, kind of.

Blisstopia Retreats: Yes.

The drive from Phoenix to Sedona is about 90 minutes

Sylvia Petro: So when you do go to places like Sedona, you said Sedona, correct? I don’t want to.

Blisstopia Retreats: Correct.

Sylvia Petro: Okay. do you have, like, a van on your property that you use to transport?

Blisstopia Retreats: No, we rent one. We rent from a van service company that we’re contracted with. We do this on a regular basis. They have beautiful vans that are no more than two years old. So they’re really. They’re really nice, modern. They have all the facilities and all the conveniences within the van itself. But, you know, it’s a nice thing because I’m the driver, so I’ll drive group, and, that time is about 90 minutes to get there. And it’s a beautiful time to. Lana will incorporate different journaling type questions within that timeframe discussion. Yeah. So it’s not just that during that time of anything and everything, because you get enough of that in the day to day life. Try to escape a little bit from that and keep your mind on the retreat itself. And then, we take you in and do a little mini tour of Sedona. And it’s a beautiful excursion.

Sylvia Petro: Yeah. And I think it shows your experience, because even the drive to Sedona, you’re maximizing that time, and it’s not in an exhausting way. I’m pretty sure it’s journaling. And people can take that time to think. And also because, like you said, they deal with driving in their everyday lives. They finally have a chance, while they’re in a vehicle, to do something else, which maybe many people don’t have a chance to do. So.

Blisstopia Retreats: And the drive itself is a beautiful, scenic drive. So there’s, you know, if you’ve not been to Arizona before, the drive to Sedona from. From north Phoenix, where we are is. It’s incredible. I mean, we’re in the valley, the west valley, which is low and hot, and you can go from here to Sedona, and it can be a 30 degree temperature difference. So it’s, just, an amazing thing because you go up so high.

Sylvia Petro: Like a transitional kind of journey.

Blisstopia Retreats: Yes. You go from cactus and desert to pine trees and beautiful red rocks and rivers and all kinds of things. So it’s just the scenery can be literally overwhelming with your mind of how beautiful it is.

Sylvia Petro: What is the name of that particular retreat?

Blisstopia Retreats: The sole vortex that we have coming up in October

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Blisstopia Retreats: 1. And I think we’re also doing it. Yeah. The breakthrough in November. So October and November will both have Sedona day trips built into them.

Lana and her friend Margaret have a podcast called “The Nurse and the Psycho”

Sylvia Petro: Okay. So, you did mention upcoming retreats and the feedback you get from some of your retreat goers. What are some of the. I know, Lana, you do a, podcast, I believe, and, other things online.

Blisstopia Retreats: Yeah. So, we haven’t. We’re on a little pause, but, my beautiful friend Margaret, who is the one that actually came to those six retreats and then ended up moving in here. Mark said one day he goes, why don’t you guys have a podcast? And I’m like, yeah, why don’t we? Because we’re both very conversational and passionate and, like, we’re intense about what we love. And, I think you suggested it.

Blisstopia Retreats: Lana’s a psychotherapist, and Margaret is a RN, so a registered nurse. So the two of them, I just said, let’s just call it the nurse and the psycho show.

Sylvia Petro: The nurse and the psycho show.

Blisstopia Retreats: It’s catchy. And it’s, Once they get talking, the two of them, about whatever topic or subject, it just flows and it comes out and it’s informative but fun at the same time.

Sylvia Petro: Yeah. It’s important to have those credentials because there are people who are naturally gifted, you can say, at certain healing arts, but it’s also good to have those other credentials where you can. Because someone like me, I’m more of a. I’m a facts based person. I’m starting to loosen up on that a bit, but I need to know why. So it’s good to have those credentials in your back pocket and that experience as well.

Blisstopia Retreats: Thank you.

Sylvia Petro: Can you, remind listeners you’re in Peoria, Arizona? This, is the one property that you have currently. And can you tell me a bit about the property? So at the beginning, you said you can do hiking out there. What other features are there? The property that retreat, goers can expect.

Blisstopia Retreats: Yeah. So we are in the northwest suburb of Phoenix, Peoria. We’re in the very north end of it. Literally, if you go drive 2 miles north of us, you’re in the desert wilderness all the way to Sedona. And it’s just beautiful. we are located on a, you know, a beautiful off grid property that is two and a half acres. So we have plenty of space. Our backyard is completely enclosed with fencing all the way along the back, viewing there and then block walls on the side so it’s completely encased in the backyard. But then we also have ample space outside of our wall. So two and a half acres. The facility itself is a two story villa that’s almost 7000 sq ft in space. So very large. It consists of five large bedrooms that, we’ve built them out for, you know, shared accommodations with 18 total beds.

Blisstopia Retreats: So we can sleep 18.

Blisstopia Retreats: Yeah, so we can sleep up to 18 guests. Six, bathrooms in the home. So plenty of bathrooms. Large, ah, gourmet kitchen. That, that’s where we’ll. Most of the meals are served as, buffet style kind of in that large kitchen because there’s so much room. And we can have 20 people in there comfortably in the kitchen. a large family room. So there’s, it’s a great. The family room area is a great area for hosting, workshops and sessions. and if someone wants to use a media center, we have a 65 inch smart tv that you can plug your laptop in and do PowerPoint presentations, videos right there. we also have a dining room, a formal dining room, and a front foyer that is also another area that’s used for sessions and workshops because it has 20 foot high ceilings. It’s just a beautiful, comfortable setting there.

Blisstopia Retreats: we have two massage tables. So if facilitators need, massage table for energy work, massages, doing that type of thing, we have that available for them.

Blisstopia Retreats: Yeah. On the upper level, we have a full yoga studio.

Sylvia Petro: Oh, I was just going to ask about that.

Blisstopia Retreats: And that can host up to 20 mats in the studio itself. Next to the yoga studio is we have a two person infrared sauna that can be used at any time in a private room. So that’s, that’s pretty much the interior of the home. And then where we’re sitting right now, we’re sitting on the patio area listening to our rooster. we do have a full outdoor kitchen as well. dining area and then a beautiful pool with a waterfall, four person hot tub. we have a large volleyball deck that serves as a second outdoor yoga deck

00:35:00

Blisstopia Retreats: with synthetic grass. It’s hard to grow regular grass here, of course.

Blisstopia Retreats: Yeah, there would be a lot of water usage here.

Blisstopia Retreats: Yeah.

Blisstopia Retreats: An outdoor fire pit. We have two, kind of more, nice fire pits. And then we have like a wild fire pit for burning, burning fire ceremonies.

Blisstopia Retreats: Yeah, lots of quiet sitting spaces. We have a gazebo out front that is for sunset views because on this side, right out here is where the sun rises, so on the east, and then on the west side, we have a beautiful gazebo. You can sit out there. There’s a actual fireplace out there for burning fires when it is cooler evenings. M. And, you know, we have. We have some additional games. If anybody wants to play, play a game of cornhole bags or horseshoes or bocce ball, things like that. And then the other thing, we live in our casino that’s separate from this or off to the side.

Blisstopia Retreats: So we’re on the property.

Blisstopia Retreats: So we’re on the property. Even for the facilitators that rent our place. The nice thing there is, is that we are professional hosts as well. So if they did have a question that they did need some help. If they need me, the maintenance guy, which is me.

Sylvia Petro: Yeah.

Blisstopia Retreats: Right on site that, you know, they have to. They don’t have to call a number, you know, and hope for some maintenance guy to come and fix something if there was something going on. And then we also have a large double sized RV garage. That’s where my boxing gym, my boxing and fitness center is. So that’s where we go over. We do the boxing classes in there.

Sylvia Petro: Okay, so it sounds like you have everything. I was waiting to hear the pool, because I. I know it’s hot out there, so I’m glad you guys have a pool.

Sylvia Petro: Do you ever get any high profile retreat goers? And the reason I ask is because, some people want to know if it’s gated or secluded in a way where they can feel, secure.

Blisstopia Retreats: Oh, yeah. So it is not gated, but we are very. We’re secluded. We’re secluded, but not secluded, if that makes sense. So we’re so tucked away, even people in Peoria, and they come here for our shorter events, they go, I didn’t even know there was anything back here. Okay, so, yeah. And all of our property is in block wall, so it is very secure. Mark’s background is security as well.

Sylvia Petro: Okay. He had a security, and he knows martial arts.

Blisstopia Retreats: Yes. And I’m a fourth degree black belt in Taekwondo, too, so, yeah.

Blisstopia Retreats: Oh, that’s how we originally connected.

Blisstopia Retreats: Yeah.

Sylvia Petro: Oh, really?

Blisstopia Retreats: Yeah.

Sylvia Petro: That’s another story to hear about.

Blisstopia Retreats: Yeah. So people can feel, assured that this is a very protected area, and we don’t have, like, a bunch of traffic going by or anything like that.

Blisstopia Retreats: We’re actually off.

Blisstopia Retreats: Tucked away.

Blisstopia Retreats: Yeah, we’re actually off the road. So we have a shared driveway that’s about a quarter mile long off the road, and with our. With our neighbor to the north. So we come up in the driveway, splits and come to our place. No one’s coming up and down our road, except really the only other people that come up and down our road is maybe the, Amazon delivery guy.

Where can listeners find information about Blisstopia Retreats and your podcast?

Sylvia Petro: Well, I know you, you both probably have a busy day ahead of, so I wanted to find out where listeners can find you online. I will be sharing, information about your upcoming retreats and I will be posting information on your upcoming retreats. But where can listeners find information about your company online and your podcast?

Blisstopia Retreats: Thank you.

Blisstopia Retreats: Yeah. Social media, Blisstopia retreats on Facebook and Instagram are probably our two most popular sites. We’re on Twitter, we’re on m LinkedIn, and several of the local ones like Alignable and Nextdoor. Our website is www. Dot Blisstopia Retreats, uh.com. so really easy to find. Our contact information is all on there. A call, text, email, contact form through our website, messenger through Facebook or Instagram, you can reach us any of those ways. And we are, and people say this to us a lot. We are very responsive. We don’t, it’s not going to take 24 hours, 48 hours, three days or a week to get back to you. You’re going to probably hear back in most cases within the hour.

Blisstopia Retreats: And if you call and we’re available, like Mark pretty much always picks up if he’s available, you know, like we, that’s our best way that we like to contact or to

00:40:00

Blisstopia Retreats: connect with.

Blisstopia Retreats: People as phone owning phone.

Blisstopia Retreats: Like, we want to have a phone conversation.

Blisstopia Retreats: Previously owning martial arts schools and yoga studios. Customer service is so important, so we understand. And that, if we miss a call, we think, oh, well, if we missed a call, they might have called somebody else now. So we don’t want to miss any.

Blisstopia Retreats: And we’re in the relationship business. And to us, relationships are about this, like, let’s communicate like directly.

Sylvia Petro: Yeah. And I can attest that you both are very responsive. So it was great speaking to you both today. I do want you to state whatever retreat you might have coming up for the open, you know, open to listeners. What retreats might you have coming up this year or maybe early, next year, so they have time to kind of plan.

What retreats do you have coming up in 2024 and 2025 or annually?

Blisstopia Retreats: Okay. So the next event is a training. If anybody’s looking to become a yoga teacher, instead of doing an online program where you’re going to get this much of experience and knowledge through someone that put together an online program, an in person, eleven day, ten night, yoga teacher training program that’s held but hosted by Lana.

Blisstopia Retreats: It’s an immersion.

Blisstopia Retreats: I’m actually going through the program myself this time. She’s been trying to push me to do that for a long time and I finally broke down and I’m going to become one of her teachers. That’s August 1 through the 11th. so that’s coming up pretty quick. And there is a deadline by the 7th, of July. You have to register it no later than that because there’s online preliminary before that. So that’s the first event. And then there’s, another in person training. It’s just a weekend training for a healing touch practitioner. Energy and energy. Energy. Healing energy work. that’s coming up. what are the dates for that?

Blisstopia Retreats: That is August 17 and 18th, 17th.

Blisstopia Retreats: And then we have the warrior goddess retreat in September, the 13th through the 16th. It’s a four day, three night retreat. And then, soul war attacks the soul in, October. And then the breakthrough, 1111 breakthrough over November 11. that’s coming up. Five day, four night retreat. And we have a heal your heart retreat. that’s all about the heart in, That’s in the first part of December. And all of this listed on our website. Really easy to see. And additional information. You click on a button and it’ll give you the full descriptions of each.

Blisstopia Retreats: 1 January 2025. We have five hire or trade. So I freakin so those people have. That have already been doing some work that have been on this path for a little bit to even raise their frequency even higher.

Sylvia Petro: Okay.

Blisstopia Retreats: And then we’re constantly upgrading the website and adding additional events, services and retreats.

Blisstopia Retreats: February. Love yourself retreat.

Sylvia Petro: That makes sense. it’s the beginning of the new year, so yeah, that makes sense.

What advice do you have for listeners?

And do you both have any final inspiring words for listeners?

Blisstopia Retreats: You know, the big thing I always say to people is you can go on a vacation anywhere, anytime, and it’s good to do that. There’s nothing wrong with going on. Like, a lot of people will go to a beach, tropical beach to get away, and, you know, you might sit on that beach and sip on mai tais and cocktails and things like that, and you’re escaping and there’s nothing wrong with that. But when you come back, it doesn’t really. You’re not really energized to go back to work. You almost have to recover from your vacation. The difference between that and coming to a retreat like this, that is focused on you, on you getting better, healing, energizing you, nourishing you with not just healthy, incredible food, but nourishing you with knowledge. You come back to work the following week, you’re fired up, you’re energized. You are ready to go to a whole new level. So that’s, that’s the really what I like to, get out to people.

Blisstopia Retreats: Or if you’re retired, because we work with a lot of retired people, too, is that might not be going back to work, but you might have found our renewed purpose.

Sylvia Petro: Yeah.

Blisstopia Retreats: What the rest of this life has for you. So, I guess my words of wisdom are, you’re worth it.

Sylvia Petro: That’s good.

Blisstopia Retreats: Worth taking time off for yourself.

Sylvia Petro: And they have a new perspective when they come back, that perspective shift.

Blisstopia Retreats: Yes.

Sylvia Petro: Well, I want to thank you both for

00:45:00

Sylvia Petro: joining me.

Blisstopia Retreats: Thank you so much.

Blisstopia Retreats: I appreciate it.

Blisstopia Retreats: Yes, we appreciate it a lot. We’ll have to talk about that retreat, too.

Sylvia Petro: Thank you, listeners. I hope you enjoyed this conversation with Lana and mark of Blisstopia retreats. Please see the links in the podcast description to join one of their many retreats and to learn more about their company and offerings. Until next time, stay strong and well.

END – 00:45:25

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