Finding my way home in the heart of the jungle.
I know I’ve said it before, but something has changed. Something deep inside me has shifted, taken root, and begun to grow in ways I’m only now beginning to understand.
Living in Costa Rica, surrounded by the endless, chaotic, magnificent spectacle of nature, has seeped into my very core.
The birds that announce the morning before the sun has even cleared the trees. The iguanas sprawled across warm branches, lizards darting through the undergrowth, insects conducting their nightly symphony, frogs calling out in the darkness, and, of course, the snakes that remind us we are sharing this land with creatures that have been here far longer than we have. And let’s not forget our favorite tree, NatGeo, standing watch over our little piece of paradise.
This isn’t nature viewed through a screen or admired from a comfortable distance. This is nature all around us, all the time. It creeps beneath our doors, climbs our trees, flies through our gardens, and occasionally reminds us that we are not nearly as much in charge as we might like to think.
Here, nature doesn’t ask permission to enter our lives. It simply does.
And somewhere along the way, I began to understand that this was exactly what I needed.
Walking barefoot in the sand, feeling the Pacific wash over my feet, or sinking my toes into the grass in our own backyard has grounded me in ways I am still uncovering. There is something ancient and instinctive about feeling the earth beneath your feet, about being present in a moment that requires nothing of you except that you experience it.
No agenda. No hurry. No need to be anywhere else.
Just me, the earth, and the extraordinary privilege of being alive.
There is something to be said for reconnecting with the natural world. Something that reaches beyond the mind and settles into the soul.
When we bought this house in our little village, close to the sea and sand, we both felt it. That inexplicable pull. That quiet knowing that this place was different.
For almost six years, we had roamed. We had lived a life without anchors, without a permanent address that meant home in the traditional sense. We collected experiences instead of possessions, memories instead of roots, and learned to be comfortable with the uncertainty of never quite knowing where we would be next.
And then we found this place.
A little home tucked into the lushness of the jungle, where the air hangs heavy with moisture, the afternoon skies gather into great dark clouds, and the rain comes down with a ferocity that makes you stop whatever you’re doing and simply listen.
Here, we could settle. Nest for a while. Nurture our souls in a place that felt less like a destination and more like a homecoming.
We didn’t know then just how deeply this place would change us.
Since 2019, so much of my journey has been inward. Years spent trying to understand the voices that haunted me, the fractured pieces of a life shaped by things a child should never have had to navigate. Learning to recognize the parts of myself that once kept me safe but eventually became part of a recurring cycle of destruction. Learning that survival mechanisms can outlive the dangers that created them.
It has been hard, painstaking work. Not the sort of transformation that happens in a weekend retreat or arrives wrapped in a tidy little package of enlightenment.
It has been messy. Uncomfortable. Sometimes heartbreaking.
But slowly, I began to find a way to live alongside those parts of myself rather than be ruled by them. To listen without surrendering. To understand without being pulled backward. To integrate what once felt impossible to reconcile.
Today, for the most part, those voices are quiet. They remain somewhere in the background, observers rather than directors, as I learn to experience life as it unfolds instead of reliving the past.
And here, in this wild, untamed corner of the world, something inside me has finally begun to settle.
Perhaps it is the rhythm of the tides, the moon pulling at the ocean, the daily arrival of rain clouds over the mountains. Perhaps it is the way the jungle refuses to be hurried, how everything grows, decays, transforms, and begins again without asking whether the timing is convenient.
Or perhaps it is simply the gift of being fully present in a place that demands your attention.
Because make no mistake. For all its beauty, life in the jungle is anything but tranquil.
From the outside, our life might look like paradise. A little house near the ocean. Tropical breezes, lush green mountains, colorful birds, and the soothing sound of waves rolling onto the shore.
But step into the middle of it, and you’ll discover that paradise is working its ass off just to stay alive.
The heat is relentless. The humidity wraps around you like a warm, wet blanket. Everything grows, crawls, bites, rots, or sprouts again before you’ve had time to catch your breath. The rain can turn a peaceful afternoon into a thundering spectacle of water, wind, and lightning that illuminates the entire sky.
And everywhere, life is fighting for its place.
Butterflies flutter through the garden, delicate wings catching the sunlight, while tiny hummingbirds dart past with astonishing speed, competing for nectar in a world where even the smallest creature must defend its share.
Iguanas bask in the trees, alert to the movements of snakes that are themselves hunting to survive.
Tiny sea turtles emerge from the sand and make their desperate dash toward the ocean, navigating a gauntlet of predators and obstacles before they ever reach the water. Those that make it face a whole new world of dangers, with no guarantees that they will ever return to the beach where their lives began.
Everywhere you look, something is growing, hunting, hiding, reproducing, adapting, or trying desperately not to become someone else’s dinner.
Every living thing is negotiating its existence.
Sunlight. Water. Food. Shelter. A patch of fertile ground. A safe place to ride out another torrential downpour.
There is no guarantee of tomorrow. No promise that being beautiful or small or strong will be enough.
And yet, life persists.
The jungle doesn’t stop to mourn what has been lost. It doesn’t apologize for the storm or question the arrival of another season. It absorbs, adapts, and carries on. Fallen leaves become nourishment. Dead branches make room for new growth. What ends becomes part of what begins.
There is a brutal honesty in that. A kind of beauty that has nothing to do with perfection and everything to do with persistence.
Here, living is dynamic. Challenging. Unpredictable. And profoundly fulfilling.
It reminds me that life was never meant to be static. That peace doesn’t necessarily mean the absence of struggle. Sometimes peace is learning to exist within the struggle without losing yourself to it.
I watch the jungle, and I see the same complicated dance that has played out inside me for years. Different parts competing for space. Old defenses responding to perceived danger. The constant work of adapting, finding balance, and learning when to fight and when to simply let things unfold.
And I realize that perhaps healing isn’t about making every part of life quiet.
Perhaps it’s about learning to live with the noise.
To recognize the storms for what they are. To understand that not every uncomfortable moment signals disaster. To trust that we can bend without breaking, change without losing ourselves, and find our footing even when the ground beneath us feels uncertain.
The jungle doesn’t promise an easy life.
Neither does healing.
But both offer something far more meaningful than ease.
They offer the opportunity to be fully alive.
This connection to nature has been with me since I was little. Somewhere along the way, through the years of growing up, surviving, traveling, and trying to make sense of the world, I lost pieces of that connection.
Or perhaps I simply forgot how deeply I needed it.
Now, surrounded by the living, breathing, untamed world of Costa Rica, I feel it again.
In the first birdcall of the morning.
In the earthy smell of wet soil after an afternoon storm.
In the thunder that rolls across the mountains and rattles the windows.
In the frogs that sing through the darkness, the insects that fill the night with their electric chorus, and the impossibly green world that seems to grow before my eyes.
In the feel of warm sand between my toes and the ocean washing away whatever I thought I needed to carry.
I find peace here. Not because life is simple, but because it is real. Because nothing in this jungle pretends to be anything other than what it is.
There is struggle, but there is also beauty.
There is uncertainty, but there is also wonder.
There is loss, but there is always the possibility of new growth.
And there is a profound comfort in knowing that I am not separate from any of it.
I am part of this great, messy, extraordinary web of life. Another living creature finding her place beneath the sun, learning to adapt, learning to grow, learning to simply be.
Maybe that’s what this natural progression has been all along.
Not becoming someone new, but returning to something I always knew.
That peace can be found in the simplest things.
That healing can happen in ways we don’t always recognize.
That we don’t have to control every moment to feel safe within it.
And that sometimes, the greatest gift we can give ourselves is the freedom to put our feet on the earth, open our senses to the world around us, and remember that we belong here, too.
Not as observers.
Not as visitors passing through.
But as living, breathing participants in this magnificent, relentless, ever-changing world.
The jungle doesn’t just surround me anymore. It lives in me.
And somewhere between the tides, the storms, the creatures, the chaos, and the quiet moments in our little backyard, I think I’ve finally found a little more of myself.
Grounded.
Calm.
Comforted.
And more ALIVE than I have felt in a very long time.
