Ep 141: Running an Alcohol-Free Retreat Center in Costa Rica with Jake Sasseville

Oct 13

Beautiful, I want you to have all the confidence in the world to explore and lean into your alcohol-free life! Today’s guest knows SO much about the power of creating alcohol-free wellness spaces, and I’m thrilled for you to meet him.

Jake Sasseville is the CEO of Imiloa Institute in Costa Rica, which is an intercontinental institute for the education and advancement of human beings. This retreat center is also entirely alcohol-free!

In this episode, Jake shares his journey of ditching alcohol at just 21 years old, and how it opened him up to creativity and abundance. His perspective as a bold, sassy, and compassionate human will give you the confidence to wear your alcohol-free identity with pride. We’re so glad you’re here!

Ditching alcohol and a spiritual awakening.

All of us are shaped and learn to navigate the world through the experiences we have growing up. But part of that is how we observe others coping and moving through struggle. When Jake Sasseville was just 17, his younger brother passed away from leukemia.

A loss like this is of course devastating, but Jake had learned from a young age that it is not safe to feel his emotions or to be his authentic self, which was an outgoing, gregarious, happy, joyous person.

He moved to France and began drinking at the young age of 15, and years later moved to New York City, working in the entertainment business. Around 21, Jake was at the premiere for his newest show, and as he took the train home drunk, he felt an overwhelming sense of emptiness and loneliness.

Jake was exploring spirituality, meditation, and the Baháʼí faith, which calls for the oneness of all. He asked a very important question, often avoided by modern wellness and transformational culture:

How can we live the life we envision for ourselves, if we are in an altered state?

So Jake decided to ditch alcohol. He lost his friends and community, but in his own words, “I found my life… and I started to create from a place of sobriety, rather than a place of dependency to create.”

I strongly believe that going alcohol-free is one of the absolute best things you can do for yourself, your personal growth and your spirituality. If you look at the leaders of personal development and spirituality, they aren’t drinking!

Just like Jake, we get to choose who our role models are and, like Jake and I, you might notice the folks who choose to be alcohol-free are deeply in tune with their intuition and higher self.

Losing everything and finding purpose.

After going alcohol-free, Jake began to experience incredible success in his career, and he attributes it to no longer having the distraction of drinking. He could focus on the path he was on with a new sense of clarity.

He learned that when we take something harmful and numbing like alcohol out of our life, the world opens up in a whole new, wonderful way. But then at 27, he lost everything to Hurricane Sandy.

Moving back to Maine, he found refuge in his Grandma's basement. But in the midst of Jake’s losses, he also found comfort in being alcohol-free because it can be very tempting to soothe and numb the ache of loss with alcohol. Instead, he focused on how to move forward.

It took a couple years and failed attempts to get back on his feet, but ultimately he found new success through a podcast and a beautiful home in Maui. With so much space, he would invite people to come stay with him regularly and this led him to create his retreat center, Imiloa Institute, a place for deep spiritual transformation and connecting to higher consciousness in a plant-based and alcohol-free space.

If we are open to what life has to offer us, we will find ourselves living exactly as we were meant to. Alcohol is just a hindrance to accessing this incredible potential!

Transformation through safe space and nature.

Jake runs a world-renowned retreat center that is entirely alcohol-free. Jake is a very upfront and honest person. When he books events, retreats, or celebrations, and hears hesitation about the idea of it being alcohol free, he will challenge them, or simply say that this isn’t the right place for them.

There is so much power in creating a safe, welcoming, and comforting space to cultivate deep transformation and clarity. He creates possibility for people who are simply willing to show up and be open to something new.

Jake invites us to ask, “how do we all come together in our shared common humanity, and act like human beings for each other?”

It’s in spaces of shared humanity, nature, and safety that we can access our deepest, most authentic selves. Jake has witnessed first hand the incredible grounding and healing power of nature. In his work, people enter the retreat space, and come home to themselves, transforming in the most beautiful ways along the way.

“You surrender because it's the flow of the universe, you surrender, so that you can actually be empowered by higher consciousness. You surrender because it's much sexier to be in the eye of the hurricane than twisting around with the lightning in the clouds. That's where you surrender, you don't surrender to get something.” Jake Sasseville

LINKS/RESOURCES MENTIONED

Find out more about the Imiloa Institute and be sure to follow them on Instagram!

Karolina’s book is available in hardcover, Kindle, and as an audiobook. Be sure to get your copy of Euphoric: Ditch Alcohol and Gain a Happier, More Confident You today and leave your review.

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