#258: Colleen Mariotti - Learning to Let Go and Live Plantstrong
Colleen Mariotti, author of Livology
We often talk about how living a Plantstrong life is an adventure if you let go of expectations, allow yourself to be more free, and learn to embrace imperfection!
On this episode, Rip talks with Colleen Mariotti who, along with her family, have done this in spades when they sold most of their possessions over 10 years ago and started a nomadic life together.
What did she find when she learned to let go? Joy, pleasure, and beautiful people who are willing to help at every turn.
And, the best part? She has also remained Plantstrong - even in the tiniest of villages where you can’t just pick up a product from the shelf!
(In fact, we even found out that she first heard of the Esselstyn family in Slovenia of all places!)
She chronicles her family’s journey on her blog Livology, where they offer stories and mindfulness practices to inspire you wherever you are.
Episode Highlights
2:54 Having the Courage to Live Differently
7:34 Questioning Social Norms and the “Shoulds”
10:14 Involving Teens in Decisions and Making it a Family Affair
11:53 Shifting Perspectives on Money
20:19 Discovering Dr. Esselstyn’s Work in Slovenia!
21:27 Bartering and Immersive Experiences
25:01 The Beauty of Food and Connection
29:33 Starting Small to Embrace Change
39:41 Sensory Experiences in Travel and Being Present
44:34 Leaving a Legacy for Her Children
50:46 Detoxing from Social Media
56:35 Finding Time for Love and Adventure
1:01:37 Gratitude for Strong Women, Including Ann Esselstyn
1:12:31 Navigating Life Changes and Rediscovering Balance
1:18:22 Become More with Pattern Practice
1:28:59 Expressing Gratitude and Hope for Future Meetings
About the Mariotti Family and Livology
Their mission is to have an intentional and deliberate life by continuing to live it ourselves!
In 2013, the Mariotti family of five sold all of their belongings and hit the road with their three young children and five carry-on bags. After traveling to over 30 countries, 20 states, and counting, the real adventure continues to be following our inspiration and being mindful about appreciating each day together as it unfolds.
After learning of of Dr. Caldwell B. Esselstyn’s work (because of a parent illness), the Mariotti family adopted a whole food, plant-based diet rich in flavor and vegetables wherever they happen to be!
Episode Resources
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Full Episode Transcript via AI Transcription Service
[0:00] I'm Rip Esselstyn, and you're listening to the PLANTSTRONG Podcast. Adventure awaits in today's episode. You'll get to meet Colleen Mariotti and learn how her family set off on a nomadic life with almost zero Zippo possessions and how they're still able to keep it PLANTSTRONG, even in some of the most remote parts of the world, right after this message from PLANTSTRONG.
[0:35] We often talk about how living a PLANTSTRONG lifestyle is an adventure if you let go of expectations allow yourself to be more free and learn to embrace imperfection today i talk with colleen mariotti who along with her family have done this in spades when they sold most of their possessions over 10 years ago and started this nomadic lifestyle together. And what do you think she found when she learned to let go? Joy, pleasure, and beautiful people who are willing to help at every turn. And the best part, she also was able to remain plan strong even in the tiniest of villages. In fact, I even found out that she first heard of the Esselstyn family while in Slovenia of all the places. She chronicles her family's journey on her blog, Livology. So let's meet the person behind the beautiful words, Colleen Mariotti.
[1:44] All right, Colleen, I want to welcome you to the PLANTSTRONG podcast. Where in the world are you located right this second? First of all, I can't believe I'm hearing your voice because the Esselstyn family is like, you guys are household names for us, but we've listened from all different ports, and I just feel like you're right in front of me. It's crazy. We are currently in Trevenia, which is a village of year round population, about 700, 600. And it's in the Italian Alps. If you go out our door, you'll see the Matterhorn. Okay. All right. So you are living in the shadow of the Matterhorn. Is that correct? We're living in the shadow of the Matterhorn and we can ski to Switzerland from our front door. Um, but it's, you know, it's, it's a lot of elevation between here and there, but you can ski into Zermatt or Italy or down to the next village, which is called Valternage. So I want you to know that I have been so.
[2:54] Anticipating this conversation with you because you and your family have done something that my wife and I dreamed of doing with our three children, but we really never had, we never got up the courage to actually pull the trigger on it. And you, you guys have. And, and so I cannot wait to dive into all the lessons that you guys have learned over the last 10 years and some of the adventures that you've lived. But first I want to let you know how, how I got tuned into to you and your Livology blog and Instagram posts.
[3:34] And somebody on the team basically sent me this little excerpt, and I'm going to read it for you right now. And I want the audience, everybody to know that Colleen does an amazing job on Instagram, on her social media, on your blogs that you do very, very regularly of usually, you usually start and end with some sort of a really profound quote. And then in, in between is a nice sandwich of information. So I'm going to be throwing out quotes for you. I'm going to be, I mean, Colleen, I'm going to be making you work today. So like, please do get ready, right? Those armpits are going to start It's it's it's nighttime, too. So I'm going to have to like, oh, OK. All right. All right. Great. So I want to read everybody. This is this is how I first got introduced to.
[4:29] To Colleen and your family. Your husband's Ron, your sons are Max and Henry, and your daughter's Bianca.
[4:39] Yes. Wow. Thank you. That's amazing. Oh, yeah. So we are a nomadic family of five, and for over a decade, we have lived in many different countries and cultures. Currently, we are living high up in a small village in the Italian Alps where meat and cheese reigns supreme. For our vegan Thanksgiving, we walked slash skied to three villages before we found celery. It is an added challenge, but I wanted to share a story. I've been telling our grocer in our village market about sweet potatoes for months and how much I miss them. He presented me with a bag of sweet potatoes on New Year's Day as a gift. He ordered them especially for us and and asked only that we share something that we make with him so he can taste the sweet potatoes for the first time. It took me a few more days to collect these veggies, but I made a sweet potato, chickpea, smoky sheet pan dinner to share with our grocer. As a sauce, I made hummus with roasted red peppers. Our neighbor gifted us, and everyone loved it. Food creates connection and belonging, longing, even when there is no shared language or palette or culture in common. I wonder what plant-based gifts tomorrow will bring. Ciao from our village to yours. And I read that and I was just like, oh my God, this woman has got a real gift for writing and expression.
[6:06] And that's when I decided that I wanted to reach out to you and bring you on the podcast to discuss this nomadic family of five that has been basically jumping from one incredible adventure to another, one city, one country, because I am drooling with envy, really, truly am. Well, I think just hearing, you know, those words come from your mouth that you heard our story and that, you know, I just feel so honored to have this invitation, truly. It's an amazing moment for us. So why don't we, like, go back to the beginning, because I don't even know. So what you and your, you and your husband, Ron, what, you were school teachers. We were, um, and then we had three kids in five years and we, we did little league. We did everything, you know, Starbucks run. Like we didn't stand out like from the crowd at all. It was just like, we weren't like, we're going to go do this crazy thing. We just, and then one day, And we were looking at schools and tuition and all of these things. And my husband and I had both been very nomadic leading up to getting married. We were both just wandering souls.
[7:24] And everyone had said, you know, it's time to settle down. You know, you have three kids. They need socialization. They need, you know, all these social connections, all these sports, all these organized activities.
[7:35] And we were on a hike in the North Cascades one day and we're like, do they? I mean, maybe we could take all this money that we're going to spend on tuition and we're going to spend on activities and we're going to spend on three automobiles or two automobiles or whatever, and we could just go and use the world as our classroom. And there's a perception that we were, you know, tired of our life or angry with America or, you know, sometimes people throw all these different assumptions. And I'm always like, we weren't tired of our life. We were inspired by our life. We, you know, as a species, we've been nomadic far longer than we've been stationary. And to me, you know, there's a few people still that feel more comfortable as nomads. And it's not, we, when we set off, we didn't really know anyone else doing what we were doing. now after post pandemic, there's words for it, like world schooling and all these different words. But for us, it was just like, let's just see what the world has to teach us while our kids will still have us. And that was, that was what happened. And from decision to departure, it was four months, like house gone stuff. Oh, and we, and we sold everything we own. Um, and we packed five carry-on bags. That's it.
[8:58] That's all we, that's still all we have. That's still it. Well, that, that, that really epitomizes the whole less is more motto, doesn't it?
[9:08] Yeah. I mean, we really don't like, there were times when it was laundry day and we're like, yeah, we can't, we can't leave the house this year, this apartment, we don't even have a washing machine. So laundry day is really tricky because you know, you can't walk through town naked. So we we really have very few possessions. Were the kids behind this decision or were they young enough where they're like, yeah, it sounds good to us.
[9:31] Well, Bianca was five and then Max Max and Henry were eight and nine when we left. And now Max is 20. Henry just turned 19. And Bianca will be 16 next week. And we are, you know, I write about this a lot. So, but we're not a democracy. Our family is, it has to be anonymous or we don't move forward. So we have a whole decision-making process we go through with core values, with our core purpose, with our vision. And we just keep generating paths until everyone's on the same page. And that's how we ended up going back to the US because the boys really wanted to try, you know, high school after seven years of world schooling.
[10:10] And we went back and then the pandemic hit and then lots of things happened. But we, we really, yeah, we really don't ever do. And I think, especially with teens, the voting was crucial and it wasn't majority. It was like, okay, we still have two people that are not on this, are not on this path. And so let's go back to the drawing board. Let's create more paths. And I know it sounds crazy.
[10:35] We've been doing it for so long that it's kind of the air we breathe. But I feel like our teens, we have really good relationships with them. And there's conversations are deep and they're meaningful. And it's about like, okay, mom, you know, I'm trying to figure this out, this part of my vision out. And this piece doesn't really seem to match my core values. And this piece does. Those are the conversations that just, I get so excited. Like if I can help you, you align with your path. That's to me, it's not about our path. Like everyone should do this. Everyone, it's about helping you align with your path. That to me is, that's, that's the stuff.
[11:15] So if you decide, or if somebody throws out there, Hey, I think we should, it's time for us to move. We've been here for three months. I'm getting a little, little itchy here. And somebody throws out an idea you have to have, it has to be unanimous that you guys You guys are all going to, okay, okay, wow. Yeah, and we don't take, you know, someone's grumpy day as like our new path. It's like, okay, Ron and I usually bring it up and say, okay, you know, going back to the United States is a big deal. Like we don't own anything there anymore. Like, okay, let's think about how does this work for everyone? What does your path look like? What does your path look like? If we can align, then we go.
[11:53] And I mean, it's led us, you know, when we left, we had no...
[11:59] Idea how long we would be gone. We didn't set any timeframe. We just said, I mean, everyone was saying, Oh, you're going on a gap year. And we're like, okay. Um, but 10 years, 10 years later, you know, a gap decade, a gap decade. Wow. And it's still going. It's become our, it is our life. I mean, we're, we're a nomadic family and, um, you know, the boys were anxious when they were starting university this year in a country we've never lived by the way. Um, and they were like, Like three years, I mean, three years, like how do you stay in one place for three years? So there's whole new skill sets that we're developing now, but it's not, um, they, we don't really look at any places. It's about global community. It's about global connection. It's about, you know, the fact that these borders that are in our world don't really separate us. That was the goal. Hmm.
[12:52] So you mentioned that you have very, very little possessions, which I am, again, I'm super jealous of that as well. I just want your refrigerator that's behind you. Yeah, yeah, yeah, there it is. It's so big. So ridiculous. I love it. There's probably ice in there, which we don't have. Yeah, that's great. There is, there is. But I just feel like these possessions just kind of, they really, they weigh us down and bind us. So, so incredible what you've done. What is your perception after being a nomadic for 10 years of being?
[13:31] Of money? So we look, we look at money completely differently than we did when we were leading like a, our American dream, you know, path. We, you know, barter is, you probably know this from, but barter is alive and well in the world. It's just that I think in our culture, the more capitalist, you know, we always expect to get something directly for something we, but we've noticed like in a lot of these other cultures we live like we might barter for ski passes we might give social media there's not but it doesn't have to be a direct agreement it's kind of like it's more of a contribution to the village contribution to i i don't know we use barter a lot but the other piece is our our for example we eliminated our number one expense which was mortgage when we left by or, or rent or anything we've, we've done, we've housed that in.
[14:33] Both hemispheres in 20 plus countries, um, where we go on, you know, and we say, we can take care of your pets. We can, um, we can take care of your flower farm. We can take care of your, um, your vineyard. And then we have this really immersive experience in the South of France, putting the grapevines to bed whatever and we're not paying any we have no you know expenses we're we're working we're working for it like we're we're doing something but then also it taught our kids like how to take care of animals because we don't we you know we don't have them and how to take care of other people's places how to be a steward of the land how to be a steward in the community like all these things that you know in our I don't know we would have done it to to some extent in our traditional American life, but this was like, oh, okay, you're in a.
[15:25] You know, a village in Indonesia and you're now you're living here and you're going to take care of, you know, these animals, or you're taking care of an alpaca farm in Southern Portugal and you're, you know, and we're like, sure, sign us up. So that was huge. Six out of 10 years, you know, over time. I mean, sometimes it was three months, sometimes it was one month, but, but overall, you know, we've been house sitting and, um, living in other people's spaces and walking in other people's shoes. And I mean, what an incredible opportunity. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's funny. I see that working both ways. I see it being like, wow, this is so incredible. And then I also see it as, wow, I'm in somebody else's place.
[16:11] And at some point, does it just kind of feel like home and you're okay with it? I know when I've I've been someplace for more than like three weeks or a month. Sometimes I get itchy to like get back to my things and whatever, but I guess that's just not even entering your mind because it's not a, it's not even, we don't have anything to go back to. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. If I had your refrigerator, I would definitely be wanting to get home. But I feel like for us, we are truly now it's a muscle just like any muscle. It's a muscle. So we've been exercising every few months for 10 years. And of course, we slowed down as the kids got older because they became teenagers. They wanted to date. They wanted to work. They wanted to be important community members. Our daughter's now on a competitive snowboard team.
[17:03] So we've been wintering more in this place because it is a place that feels like home. When we dropped the boys off at university, we said, oh, we'll see you at Christmas. And they were like, yeah. Where do you think that'll be? And we're like, we will let you know as soon as we know. But where do you want that to be? And they said Trevenia. And so here we are. And your boys, they're now off to university. Is it in Holland? Where are they? Yes. One of them is in Honinga. I probably butchered that. But it's the northernmost tip of the Netherlands. And he wanted to be like sun, warm. That was his only criteria. So that didn't work out because he can literally, you know, he's, it's freezing. But he's doing sports and exercise science. And then we have another son who is in Tilburg, which is more central Holland. And he is studying entrepreneurship and global innovation. But we never, you know, we never pushed university. If we know anything, it's that there's teachers around every corner. And we truly were like, you know, I mean, we found you when we were in this little Slovenian village and we're like, what is this? You know, and we started listening to Jane and Ann and Essie and we're like, oh.
[18:23] So, I mean, I think, you know, you can find what you're looking for anywhere. But university was a great opportunity for them to now build their community. I have a couple of follow ups on that. what you, what you just said there first is, are the universities there free or greatly like reduced? Like, it's not like here in the States, right? I'm so excited to tell you this because 75,000 a year, right? This was the other piece that I, um, so my husband and I both, we, you know, we were paying off student loans for, I mean, it felt like forever. I think definitely after our first daughter was born, cause we were both teachers and, um, you know, Seattle has very very high cost of living. And, um, it was, you know, we both had master's degrees in education and it took us forever to pay for those. And so one of the reasons for going for dual citizenship, um, with, through my husband's lineage in Italy was that someday, and Bianca was only five. So we said someday if they choose, you know, university in Europe will be an option. So the boys tuition is 1100 us dollars a year. A year.
[19:35] So how do we look at money? You know, it's totally different because you know, that the things, if we had sat at home and tried to plan this, it just, we never, we never could have seen it. And it was just taking that leap of faith, which I know is so true for so many people looking at whole food plant-based. It was just like, you just got to jump, you know? And And once you jump, then it's so much easier from the other side. And so for us, that's how it's been with the beginning too. But then I think some people jump, but then they stop and they need everything to be. So for us, it's like, we're always jumping because change is like life.
[20:19] That's what we live for. How did you happen to find the Esselstyn family in Slovenia of all places? Oh my gosh, such a long story, but I'll try to give you the short, but we really, my, my father, um, had a massive heart attack, uh, 20 years ago. Um, and he went through, you know, five to seven years of his cardiologist, just upping statins, upping statins, upping statins. And finally, he was at a naturopath because he was like, I can't take any more of this. Like the side effects were just debilitating for him. And he was in the naturopath's office and your dad was on the screen doing an interview. And he left there, went to Barnes & Noble, bought Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease and said, okay, this is what I'm doing. And his cardiologist said, if you do that, you're going to be dead in three months. And my dad said, well, thankfully, he's like a Harley riding three tours in Vietnam. He's like, I'm just going to listen to Essie and I'll get back to you. So he did.
[21:27] And but at that time, we were still traveling and we were, you know, we we we spend time.
[21:35] Extensive amounts of time with our family. Our families are from different coasts. We have family in New Zealand. A huge part of this journey was family. People always ask that, how can you leave your parents? How can you leave? But this journey has given us such intense time with extended family. So he, we kind of thought of it as a disease reversal. We didn't really think of it as because there was no education around it. We didn't really, at that time, we didn't jump into to it the way that he did, but it was always a really big part of our lives. But then re-entering the U.S. every two years, re-entering the food system, it was like our bodies would just go, what is happening? And I mean, blood sugar numbers, cholesterol numbers, like high blood pressure, stress, everything, just thyroid, like stuff was just all over the map every time we would reenter. And so it took us a while, like it was a slow, like the first time we're like, okay, we need to eat more organic, you know, okay, we need to, you know, do zero kilometer, it's not kilometers, zero mile, whatever that is. And then I thought, and then when we went back before the pandemic, just before my husband got a diagnosis of type two diabetes, we were like, Like, I mean, he doesn't, he doesn't look overweight. He, you know, we're, we just skied, you know, 110 days in a season.
[23:05] We, you know, we, but it, it was there. And that's when we realized, and there was a, there was a quote in a magazine. We were sitting in, in the doctor's office. There was a quote in the magazine that day that said, like, you can't jump a chasm in two steps or in two leaps. And I was like, okay. So he, of course, being his lovely kind of rebellious self said, so can I eat anything I want if I go on this trip? Metformin that you've you're laying out for me and of course the doctor was like no you can have a half an orange and you can have all the usual you know yeah type 2 diabetes guidelines and he was like well I need time because I'm going to do this differently and that's when we went back to that moment in Slovenia when we listened to an interview and I can't even remember I just I mean, seriously, thousands of hours with your family since then.
[24:02] But we listened to an interview and we were like, okay, we got to find them again. And of course, my dad never has fewer than 10 copies of your dad's book at any given time. And he will hand it to anyone who says anything about their heart. He literally is like, I got the book for you. so we at that point we had a meeting as a family and we just basically said you know we need to do this for our health but what do you guys want to do and they were like we're in so we got the forks over knives meal planner next day 100 whole food plant-based and then the pandemic hit and we were like thank goodness like what a blessing it is to know all of this right now and you know We're 100% committed. It's challenging at times with our lifestyle because food is culture.
[25:02] Up here, the cows, for example, there's a whole festival in September called Dasarpa where everyone goes to get the cows that are coming down from their summer grazing, and then the The whole village walks with the cows down to the next village. And the cow that produces the best cheese and dairy has a beautiful, like, floral necklace around her neck. And the family walks with such pride. I mean, the connection to the food is remarkable, plant-based or not. It's really something to celebrate. And I just think these are lucky cows, you know? I mean, they're so valued and prized. And so, I mean, there's times when, and then you get down to the next village and there's local meats and local cheeses and there's always plants though. There's always plants. Yeah. Yeah. Always plants. What I want to do is I want to read an excerpt. This is an excerpt from you, from Slovenia. you say, because to me, there's such...
[26:18] Teachable moments in all of your writings. You say, I realize coming into an experience with the absence of expectation is a brilliant, open perspective in which everything surprises and delights. Maybe excited anticipation is the right approach because of the openness inherent in uncertainty, where expectations are laden with ideas about how something will be. Anticipation is a feeling of infinite possibility. Slovenia was my teacher. I hope to remember all that she taught me from this day forward. And so I bring that up because it's kind of where you first got taught about whole food plant-based. That's amazing. That's amazing to make that connection now because, ah, yeah. Yeah. Well, and of course that goes back to me then finding your blog post on your Thanksgiving dinner where you were trying to get the sweet potatoes, right?
[27:20] So I've got so many wonderful quotes. Some are from you, some are from Rami, Walt Whitman, you name them. But I'd love to say them because I love quotes too. And then let's just kind of riff on it and then see where it takes us. Sounds great. Okay, great. So this one here, I think this is yours, is one thing that we know for sure after this past decade of wandering the globe as a family of five, is that anything is possible. Stay open forever. So open it hurts and then open up some more until the end of your days and then do it again the next morning. I mean, wow, that just like hit me like a ton of bricks because to me, you know, It's all about being open and vulnerable and as opposed to staying, you know, closed up. And, but it's so, it's so hard to do that unless you kind of do it right and practice it like a muscle. So what, what is, what is your advice to our audience about opening up?
[28:29] I think you need to start wherever you are with everything. That's what I think. Like there's so many how-tos, so many prescriptions, so many. But I think the best way to illustrate this is when we were selling all of our belongings, wedding gifts and rocking chairs where we rock the kids and all of everything, we sold this little key stand that was right by our front door.
[28:55] And I dropped my keys for three weeks after we sold that table. And I was like, Like, what? I know it's gone. Like, what is happening? Why do I keep putting my keys somewhere that doesn't exist? And I think it's so important to just shuffle. Like, if you want to change things up and make yourself more flexible, it can be as simple as just moving the little key table. It doesn't have to be complicated.
[29:23] And I think we've taken so much data and everyone knows so, so much about what we should be doing. And I think what we've, what I've tried to say through my writing is, you know, best when you're aligned and, and if you feel stuck or if you feel it can be so simple as just taking a left instead of a right running this way, instead of this way, we don't even realize how habitual we are until we shake it up. And I think it's like, even I talked to people who in the, in the PLANTSTRONG seven day challenge community and you know.
[30:03] I, I thought of the story today where, you know, people say, I'm getting on a flight. What do I do? Or I'm, I'm going on a trip. What do I do? Or this member of my family isn't vegan. What do I do? And we had a swim teacher when our kids were little and she would, they would swim their laps with goggles and all of that. And then she would make them jump in at different times in every lesson without goggles. And I was like, what is she doing? We lived on an Island, you know? And she said, I want them to know what to do. They know what to do. Their bodies know what to do, but if they must have goggles on, they might not be able to do it. And I think that's so true about eating this It's like...
[30:48] We never have the same utensils. We never have the same kitchen. Sometimes we don't have an oven. Sometimes we don't have a stove top. Sometimes we have no vegetables if the trucks can't get up. So it's, it's like, there's always a way. And I think, I think that's a really important thing. Like, you know, goggles on, no goggles on, you can figure this out. And I think we, America is so convenient. We have, I think COVID was one of the first, the pandemic was one of the first times we We were, a lot of people were very inconvenienced, not, I'm not talking about the tragic element of it, but just stuff. I mean, we've, we were like, so ready. It was like, we've lived in whole villages without toilet paper. Like you have a hose, you're fine. Like just, you know, you don't need to worry about this. You don't need to hoard. It's an abundant universe. It's going to deliver what you need when you need it. And the best way to stay healthy is to not worry about that stuff. What, what's the longest period of time that you've been in one spot and what's the shortest period of time? So if we don't include the pandemic, because we went back to the States and then we stayed because we wanted to be closer to our aging or our parents. Um, so the longest is probably New Zealand. And we ended up there for, we stayed until the last day before our visitor visa expired. I think it was seven or eight months.
[32:18] And then the shortest time.
[32:22] Uh, well, we, we were planning on living in Bali, um, for a while. And then we, there was a lot of contrast. I mean, Bali's incredible, but there was a lot of contrast and we knew we didn't want to be, you know, getting luxury for cheap. That wasn't really our thing. So it was like, how can we make this more meaningful? And we ended up, oh, Oh, this is a good story. We ended up teaching English at the only vegan ashram slash orphanage temple in Indonesia. Yeah.
[33:00] I mean, if that's not a sign. Right. I actually have in my notes, I wanted to mention that. But you mentioned New Zealand, right, as one of the places you stayed for the longest. August, and I have something I want to read about that. You say, a few years ago, we took a house sitting assignment at an organic farm in Nelson, New Zealand. One of the reasons we travel is to have places to recall that we're full of profound learning. This farm changed us. It slowed us down as we ground the chicken feed by hand, waiting for the sun to warm the water for showers, tiptoed through the garden to see what bounty presented itself overnight and rolled the hazelnuts to dry each side in the sun we were able to learn from individuals that understood we were all accountable for our earth no exception it is earth day and we are forever grateful for walking in other people's footsteps and growing from their knowledge yeah that's so great It was... I mean, that woman, she was the one of the right-hand woman, the one that we house sat for. She was going to a bat conference in Tasmania to work on preserving the bat population.
[34:23] And she was the right-hand woman of the Green Party leader of the time in New Zealand. And it was, you know, in the name, I mean, people around them were using pesticides, were using, and she cared. But her vision was so far above tit for tat. It was like, oh, we were just caught up in that whole river of just, you know, there's always a way to make a change. There's always a way to influence the future without being combative, without being in someone's face, without disagreeing. As a matter of fact, if you do, you have a lot less, your chances of influencing that person. And you're so good at this. I mean, this is one of the things I love so much about the work that you do and your whole family does. It's not about judging the choices people are making. It's about showing them what can be different. And people will say to me all the time, well, how do I sell my stuff? How do I travel through the world? I'm like, that's not, that's not the question.
[35:29] What's your why? What's your why? you know let's figure out what your why is and see if this is the right path you know because me telling you how to do it is not gonna work and I think that's what we took from that farm I mean it was oh it was just extraordinary I have never been to New Zealand but I would love to get there one day oh it's far that's the thing it's far and we my I mean I think it's worth every.
[36:00] Second but you'll want time because the glacier is literally like i mean we're we're so high here that it makes perfect sense that there's glaciers out the window and things like that but new zealand they drop into the sea just right into the sea and it's like oh it's breathtaking and yeah yeah.
[36:18] And there's, I mean, what I remember most about that farm is there was so much that we'd never seen these apple cucumbers that were just, I mean, they were huge, like, and we would just slice them and make quick pickles like that. And we weren't vegan at the time. And we just ate everything from the garden for, I think we were there for four weeks or six weeks house sitting. And I remember sitting outside after working in the garden all day and on the property all day and just looking up and seeing a completely different, you know, different constellations, different sky. And it was like, whoa, this is amazing. You recently wrote about how, and I'm going to quote you here. We don't carry backup plans in our suitcases. They are too easy to unpack. It doesn't mean that we're not flexible with plan A. It means we give it our all. And as Emerson said, all life is an experiment. The more experiments you make, the better. Our plan B is to accomplish plan A. That is so right on.
[37:31] I'm so glad you think so. It's hard. I mean, there's times when we get to the door and we're like, this isn't right. We can't we can't stay here. And, um, it's, but we got there, you know, we got to the door and we're like, okay, we're here and we're leaving. Um, so, but there's times like, well, like Bali, where there's so much contrast and we think, okay, we need to sit in this and we need to see where our point of contribution is. And we need to see what teachers are here. And we need to see, because contrast is the best teacher. And that's, you know, I think where you see so many people come from a place of not feeling good, you know, from a place of not thriving. And then they say, okay, I need to do something dramatic, but contrast is the best teacher. And I think that helps us when things don't go as we anticipated with plan A.
[38:33] But we always go for it. I mean, and, and if, if, But that's because we work so tirelessly at what plan A is. I mean, because I said, it's, it's a non, I mean, it's, it's, everyone has to be on the same page. We've spent a lot of time on plan A. Like if I was just like waking up in the morning, like we're going to Egypt or we're going to, that wouldn't, then you're going to have teenagers saying, what the heck, what are we doing? What are you dragging me around? You know, we've never, people always say, you know, what about your teens? What do they want? What do they need? And it's like, ask them, you know, they voted for this. Like, this is their choice. You know, we wouldn't, this is all of us together made this plan. And I know that people say it's really unique and really time consuming, but I think, gosh, it's way more, way less time consuming than arguing day in and day out, than butting heads, than, you know, having all these, you know, power struggles. To me, it's like, if you own your decisions at that age, I mean, watch out world. We recently, for spring break, we went to Norway.
[39:38] I saw it. I love the cold plunges. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We did the cold plunges. We stayed right on the water on a fjord.
[39:47] The mountains and the water. I mean, I know that those are two things that are near and dear to you, obviously. And I want to get back to that. But you have a quote. Actually, it's not yours. This is Pascal Mercier. He says, we leave something of ourselves behind when we leave a place. We stay there even though we go away and there are things in us that we can only find again by going back there. And I love that quote because of all the emotions that it brings up in me because I know sometimes I leave the farm, the Esselstyn family farm and I know I won't be back for a year. Right. Yeah. And I come back and it's like, I just get flooded with all these emotions and memories and, um, melancholy and just everything that you can imagine. Nostalgia.
[40:42] And, um, so, uh, you know, you mentioned, I think it was one of your year, there was one place that you went, I'm going to see if I can find it. And you said it was like maybe in year three of your nomadic journeys and you said you know what this place has been so special we love it so much i hope that we get to return you've been so many places you probably can't remember but i'm gonna find it for you is it compo uh southern italy maybe malta malta it was malta yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah that's exactly what it was well and i think we have so So I think we, as you probably just experienced in Norway, we find a new piece of ourselves when we travel. Because you don't need to travel to...
[41:35] To experience these awakenings, but travel is a shortcut because you're like, I don't speak the language. I don't know this food. I don't know these, this currency. And it's like, you're just, your senses are, that's why it's addicting. I think because your senses are so alive in ways that you can't, I mean, if you move mindlessly crossing the street in Bangkok, you're done, on. You're not going home. So you have to be mindful. And I think we never thought about returning anywhere but home when we left.
[42:09] It's like the world is big. We all want to see it all. Like my kids text me every day, like, did you see this? We got to do this pilgrimage in Japan.
[42:19] It's like, it'll only take us seven days, but let's take 20. They're always like, and we have no way we don't know how we literally have no how when you when we thought about doing a ski season as a family of five in the Swiss Italian Alps it was like yeah well that would be nice you know I mean do you have an extra 50,000 or whatever and you know we ended up moving our residency here and our daughter's ski pass our kids ski passes until they turn 18 are 82 euros a year, like 90 bucks a year to ski in Zermatt and Trevenia for six months. It's like, you couldn't buy Nikes for that when they were, when we were in the US. So it's, it's, there's, there's no, I think we get in our own way a lot when we try to come up with, with the how we leave places and we say, I want to go back. New Zealand's one of those places because it's so far away. And you, when you leave, you think, bye. But I think we limit ourselves with once in a lifetime. I truly do. I think it's a glass ceiling we create and.
[43:23] I mean, we're not like a wealthy family with trust funds just saying, oh, we're just going to, we have, we have worked to create this, to reinvent ourselves, to grow, to attract these opportunities. It's not easy to get a house sit with three kids. People are like, yeah, thanks, but no thanks. And then I'm like, but these kids, they care and they're going to love your animals in ways your animals have never experienced because they really want animals.
[43:51] And has that gotten easier for you to house it? Once you say, look at our blog, look who we are. There's been times when you feel the pressure to sell out online a little bit, like ads all over the place and stay here in Paris or stay here in Singapore. And it's like, I just knew that that was never me. You can find that information. That's out there. But I knew that for us, it was more about what's the legacy we're leaving for our kids. And when they read this in a hundred years, when we're gone, what will they know about who they are in the world? What will they know about what's possible?
[44:32] What will our grandkids and our great grandkids know? And I'm looking at a quote that you have in one of your posts and it says, what will our children do in the morning if they do not see us fly? Rumi. So, I mean, that's, you're, you're showing your, your kids how to fly. It's incredible. incredible uh and i think there's a perception that it's about travel but it's it's really it's not about travel it's about it's about change everything is you know and falling in love with change which i know makes people really uncomfortable yeah and i and i love the fact that you guys aren't afraid to.
[45:12] Roll up your sleeves and do the dirty work. And that leads me to this quote by Andy Andrews. Everybody wants to reach the peak, but there's no growth at the top of a mountain. It's in the valley that we slog through the lush grass and the rich soil.
[45:30] Learning and becoming what enables us to summit life's next peak. So that's what you guys are doing. You guys are kind of going through the valley, up to the peak, through the valley and up to the peak. Would you say that's accurate? Oh my gosh. And it's not judging where you are. I think that's so important because it's so hard these days with, with social media, with even, um, it's so hard to take it as a comparison instead of an inspiration.
[45:56] Now, if we're around people that have seen the pyramid, something I really want to do, or the Northern lights, something I've missed a million times for some reason, or even the statue of David, I've more time in Florence than a lot lot of people. And that man eludes me for some reason. I don't, it's either closed or under construction or it's the weirdest thing, but I know that just being, where was I going with that? Um, anyway, I, I feel like you do. Yeah. That you can't judge where you're, where, where you're at in relationship to others, only where you're at in relationship to yourself. And if you do that, if you're focused on your own alignment, your own capacity to contribute, literally the red carpet of the world opens. And I'm not saying, I'm not, we try not to say what we are, you know, like if people read bios, it's like, you're this, you're this, you're this. And there's all these little emojis to kind of describe who you are. And we just try to be as open as we can, as often as we can. And when that doesn't, you know, it doesn't feel good anymore to keep going, then we'll stop. But I don't ever see that. I don't, I don't ever see that.
[47:13] Well, and that's, that's because you guys, as Ralph Waldo Emerson said, don't be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment. The more experiments that you make, the better. You guys are just connecting those experiments one after the other, after the other. And the world is so small. And I think we have a tendency in the U.S. To be, or as parents, and not just U.S., but I can't speak about other cultures because I wasn't parented in them, but we have a tendency to be like, you need a plan. You need a plan A, you need a plan B, you need a plan C, you need, you know, and you need to be thinking about this all the time. Like literally once we left the US, nobody asked us what we did for a living. Nobody asked our kids where they're going to university. Nobody, nobody cared. We've been in cultures where there isn't even a future tense in the language.
[48:12] It's like, whoa, like what, you know, or where you're learning about the history of your country from a different country's point of view. And you're like, wait, that's not how the Vietnam War started or that's not how. And you realize, whoa, it's just a story from a different country's point of view. And I think I drive people crazy sometimes because I don't there's no how to. It's like you are you're you're the map, like whatever, you know, you know, when you're aligned, you know, when you're tapped. In you know when you're tuned in and when you're not it's your work you know and for us leading an intentional life and not eventually looking at what we're eating would have been a hypocrisy right because it was like okay there's a point when you know there was a there was a point in bali when before we found the the ashram and the orphanage where we taught where there was burning burning plastic outside of our place we had rented every day. It was toxic black smoke. And we were like, oh my gosh, why is this happening? This is horrible. Why doesn't anybody do this differently? And then the next day we're coming back and my daughter says, mom, they're burning our garbage.
[49:29] And I was like, huh, okay. So someone would come in and pick things up after us. And then it was our classic. And that's when all of us went, there's no separation. We're all part of the whole. Our actions impact everything. Everything impacts us. We're all connected. What can we do differently? What can we do better? And it's not someone else's fault. It's not a culture that might not know what you know. I mean, it's so easy as Americans to feel like we have all the answers, but yeah. Yeah. Well, so you mentioned Bali and, and, um, it was there that you guys worked in the orphanage. You also, for about two months there, you decided that you wanted to come unplugged from social media. And so I'd love to talk about that for a second. And you say, you know, you were reflecting on Mary Oliver's words. This is the first, the wildest and the wisest thing that I know, that the soul exists and is built entirely out of attentiveness. When social media, this is you now, when social media feels like it is enhancing attentiveness, stay on. But when it is attracting and distracting our ability to be attentive,
[50:45] then I think it's time to log off. Sometimes we forget signing out is even an option. Do you need a break today?
[50:53] Yeah, I love that. And I can't tell you how many times.
[51:00] One of my children is just head down into that thing and he is not present. And it is, it is so, it is so, uh, upsetting to me. Uh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And so we've, we're, we're having some really powerful conversations and then you go on to say, this is what I love. This is you. There is nothing more romantic than absolute presence. And it's so hard to get that these days it is but we still have the power and i think that's what we forget because the the big companies just like in our food systems are saying oh you need this for this alarm and you need your to-do list on here and you need i'm like we you know we every time we've taken these breaks you know we have these moments of panic like i i didn't look this up or So here's the cool thing. When we did that in Bali, there was a business card of a driver, And in, in the apartment and I was like, okay, I picked that up. I used the phone, the phone to call him and book a tour. And he picked us up the next day. And after spending three days with us, he took us to this ashram where he told us later after he picked us back up that he was an orphan there growing up.
[52:26] And he, I mean, this place changed the course of our lives. Like it was the only one of the few places we've been in the world where you're just walking on pure love. I mean, people donate animals for him to feed the kids and they're just more mouths to feed because he would never eat an animal. This monk that runs this place, it's just the most incredible place. And how did you find it? We never would have, we, the driver, driver drove us there. And my, I remember calling my mom and saying, we're going to be out of touch for a while. Cause we're going. And she was like, what, where are you going? We're like, well, we're just going to trust it. She's like, okay, what? And I just said, we're just going. We have three little kids. And it's just that trusting that heart map and just knowing when it's the right decision. And the kids had their own lessons. They taught classes. I mean, Bianca was seven, I think. And they were teaching head, shoulders, knees, and toes. They were We're teaching, you know, different things that we were eating with. They were teaching English, you know, and they were young and they were right next to us and they knew they were safe and we knew we were safe. And it didn't matter how crazy the idea was.
[53:38] Yeah. It was just, and it was our first immersion. I remember our son, Henry, who's the sports and exercise on the way there. He's like, can we pull over and have some like meat, you know, before we get there? And we were like, you'll be fine. Right. And he I mean, this 97 year old lady would walk up the hill every day to get water to bring down to the bakery, the one.
[54:01] Like oven where they would bake all the bread for the village. And I said to her, like, why do you do this? And she said, I just, I love the bird song. I love the smell of baking bread. I love that the kids follow me. It makes me feel important. I love that. Um, I'm doing something that brings life to the village. I mean, karma yoga came out of that experience. Like our, And she said to me, is it true that you hire someone to mow your lawn and you go to a gym to exercise? Yeah. And I said, some Americans do that, you know? And she was like, why? When you can cut the grass, smell the grass, hear the birds, feel the wetness, you know, on your feet. Like, why would you miss that to go inside? You know? It's pretty powerful. Super powerful. And I think about that because I'm chopping all day, when you're chopping all day, because I don't have PLANTSTRONG foods, unfortunately. Right, right, right.
[55:09] You and your husband and your children, so together, moving through this decade. And I read about how you and your husband had very little kind of alone time together. And then one time he took you to this incredible trail called Narnia.
[55:33] And you said it was super, super special. But it sounds like you guys have a pretty incredible marriage. Marriage, and I've got some quotes that I have of yours that I'm having a hard time finding right now, but one of them is, I think it's Audrey Hepburn said something like, I don't want to just be married. I want to be very, very married. Very married. Right? And so what would you say to people that are...
[56:08] Are out there right now and they're married, but they don't feel very married. You have any like suggestions? I think getting out of what's comfortable in clothes, you know, not getting out of clothes, but that works too. But getting out of, you know, in dressing up, you know, going to do something, you know, going dancing, going to hear live music, going, anything real,
[56:34] going for a hike, going for a walk. Half the time our dates are, you know 10 o'clock in the morning when the kids were you know training on the mountain or doing something else it doesn't have to be date night we'll light candles for breakfast it can be just like everything i say it can be right here right now put your phone down take a bath you know go for a walk i mean last night we it was a beautiful night and it's been really stormy and still snowing here and we just went for a walk and looked at the stars and it was like yeah we have I have other stuff to do. I have vegetables to chop. I've got two kids in college. I've got to pay for that, even though it's, you know, much more reasonable.
[57:13] But it's, I think it's such a gift. You need so much less time when you're present, because you don't feel like there's this one night and it better be great. You know, we have Friday night and it better be great. And that leads to other things like maybe not taking as good of care of yourself when you go out to eat or things like that, because it's like you're just wanting it to be everything. And I think I learned this in France, actually, from French women that I kept saying, like, how do you look good all the time? Like you're wearing stilettos on like cobbles and you walk like you're, you know, walking on air and you look beautiful and you have no wrinkles and no goggle tan. And and she said, I do. We learn to do a little every day, always. And it's like that's not. That was so counterculture to me. Well, when she said that we learned to do a little, you mean for themselves?
[58:17] Yeah. Like, it's totally acceptable to, you know, self-care, to invest in those products, to invest in those meals, to invest in those experiences. I mean, there's, it doesn't need to be expensive. There's, you know, the fountain of youth running through different regions where the water is really therapeutic. So like you saw in Norway too, too. I mean, it's so important to make in a relationship, I think, to make those small deposits every day. And it can be as simple as lighting candles at breakfast, putting the phones away, you know, going for a walk. It doesn't have to be a grand gesture. And I think we get caught up in grand gestures. Just like when people, did you see the Coliseum? Did you see the Eiffel Tower? Did you see, you know, there's all these things on our list, these big things. But, you know, Did you see how everybody goes for a walk every day at four o'clock? That's my favorite time of day in Italy. Every day. It's just so magical. No one's going anywhere. There's nowhere to be. It's just about walking.
[59:18] And we tried to do it during the pandemic. We were like, okay, we're going to do Passagiata here in Bellingham, Washington. And it was always like, I should be cooking. The kids have school. We've got to do this. It was just hard. I mean, every culture has taught us some new rhythm, some new gift. It's you know i i i love hearing everything that you're that you're sharing and it reminds me you know we we love doing stuff as a family whether it's hiking down to the creek and you know looking for turtles whether it's going to the boundary waters for 10 10 days and just you know not seeing another human being and just being our family going to norway but my favorite thing as a family is when we have dinner together around the Lazy Susan table and we get to share our days. And because we very much like you guys, but not to the extent, but because we do our best to have these really special adventures together as a family. Yeah.
[1:00:26] I think when we come together at dinner, we all, I think, really look forward to it. And, you know, our lives get busy and we're doing this, this and that. So that little moment, I mean, I'd say we probably can do it for four evenings a week for about an hour is just so delicious. Love it. Love it. Because it's delicious to you. It's it does. I mean, we always talk about modeling like it's not what you say. Right. If I'm yelling at them to put their cell phones down and pay attention and I'm on my phone, it doesn't, it doesn't land. So it's because you're, you're, you're leading that charge through who you are when you're sitting around the table, because you're aligned when you're sitting around the table, you're aligned when everyone's around you that you love the most in the world, then, then people can't help but be drawn to that flame. And I think that that's so true in marriage as well. It's like, what are you doing to keep that flame going? And then people just come. People always say, how did that opportunity come? And I'm like, literally, we set the dream and then we detached.
[1:01:33] And I think detachment is so important. And then we don't have an idea. Once you decide how something's got to happen, even a plant-based meal, it would be impossible. If I thought, oh, I need a blender and I need a food processor. I mean, if I plugged a blender and I would blow the whole village circuits. So it's like, I was so excited. I bought flax seeds a couple of weeks ago and I'm like, oh my gosh, I can bake. I can make flax eggs and they're whole. I need to get like a boulder and I don't even know. So I just Just have the back of my back. So I think just, you know, just being okay with not understanding the how and not carving that out. Um, not having expectations for how people show up to the table, because if you're, if your flame is going, you're going to attract something different from others.
[1:02:30] I believe that wholeheartedly. Yeah. You, earlier you, we were talking about in, in France and the women that take care of themselves. This is an observation that you meant, met, uh, made, uh, in Italy. You said, I spent today in Italy observing women, reflecting on the women in my life that have shaped me and hanging out with my favorite young woman on the earth, my daughter, Bianca. It struck me that I always know who the strongest women are because they spend time building people up and they don't have any interest in doing the opposite. it. Thank you to all the women, past and present and future, who focus on building our global community by strengthening others one moment, one word, one decision at a time. You give me hope and fill me with courage just by being you. Brilliant. And way, way too many people try and tear other their people down. And I find women, I find women, women are so strong and so incredible, so supportive. And I just read that passage that you wrote on one of your Instagram posts. And I just, I just had to like, bring it, bring it up.
[1:03:46] Thank you for saying that. And you know, the women in your family are people I was thinking about when I wrote that post. Like I truly have been, my life is so much richer for knowing, not knowing them. But now like when you're still, when you're talking to me, it's so surreal because I feel like that's, that's another gift that you, your family has, where it always feels like you're talking to me, even though, you know, this is the first time and it's just, it's such a gift. And I think that strength, you know, recognizing that we can get that from what we put into our bodies, even for women, you know, and men, but there's so many changes at different stages through pregnancy, childbirth, menopause, all of those things. And like listening, what do I need now? How do I shift this? And I just get so many answers from, from the women in your family. Yeah. Thank you.
[1:04:44] What do you think of when I say this quote from Shel Silverstein, but this bridge will only take you halfway there. The last few steps you have to take alone. Oh my gosh. I just see us walking over so many things, Things, even when we were together where we all had our own fears sometimes, we all had our own agendas. We come into things like thinking that things are going to go a certain way and there's this perception that they're not. And I just, I think about, I also think about my teens. Like they are, that's like, I feel like in the U.S. sometimes we don't celebrate the teen years the way that we can, we should. in that teenagers...
[1:05:36] Are so full of life. And people will reply to me so many times and say, I can't believe you let them jump off that cliff. Or I can't believe you let them, you know, you're an irresponsible parent. I've heard it all. And it's like, okay, if they don't test their boundaries with me, they're going to test their boundaries without me. And the chances of that being as healthy as cliff jumping is slim to none. So let's just, you know, let them figure out what their boundaries are and take those steps alone. Those were some incredible cliff jumps that your son or your sons took, especially the one where he had to take like three steps and then he kind of did a little flip in the middle of the air and landed just right. Yeah. I can tell you that we love cliff jumping. It's super exhilarating and it lets you know you're alive.
[1:06:30] Yeah. And I think, you know, we, we, we realized early on, like Wayne Dyer used to always say, like what other people think about you as none of your business. And I love that. It's like, so true. Like, I mean, someone has an opinion, even if we're doing everything that they want you to do, there's not going to be something that's right. So it's really important. If you're coming from a place of love, coming from a place of contribution, that's enough. I want I'm going to throw out another roomy quote for you please beyond what we wish and what we fear may happen we have another life as clear and free as a mountain stream where does that take you oh right right where I am I mean I I feel like the Alps any mountains um are just.
[1:07:20] And I and I know a lot of people don't have access to mountains but if you've with the one of the things that's so powerful now with the visuals that come in at us all day long is that we can put ourselves anywhere and I think um you in your mind's eye you can go there and um when we left on this journey, there was no, there was no idea. We had no idea where we were going, what we were doing, where we were living. I mean, I remember driving around one time for like seven, eight hours going like, where, where, where do we live? Cause we went to a house that wasn't safe for the kids and it was sight unseen. And we're like, we're not staying here. Um, and just that, That like the flow of the streams in these mountains, the energy, the power, the sacrifice that they make, like it's an incredible, water is just, as you know, I mean, I know it's really important to your family. And I just feel so small in all the right ways. And I love that feeling.
[1:08:33] Did you love the mountains before you went on your nomadic journey? Or was it something that hit you when you were over there? We loved it. I remember once we drove over the border because we're really close to Whistler. And it was a beautiful day. And we were like, OK, how much would it cost for our family to ski? The kids were little, like $3,000, $5,000, and $6,000. It was like almost $2,000 to outfit everybody, get tickets for one day. And I'm like, yeah, that's crazy.
[1:09:06] I'm not doing that. And so for us, we always had a passion for the mountains,
[1:09:13] for skiing. My husband and I both loved to ski. But this was like it gave us the opportunity to make that happen. And I think I don't know if we ever would have found it otherwise. Wise if we we set the goal when we had really no no idea how to make it happen yeah we just said i said when ever since college i was like i want to do a ski season and then i'm like so many people say it's too late it's never it's never ever too late you know so we're basically ski bums because we we can ski all day and then 8 a.m in seattle is 5 p.m here so then we start working so and And chopping. Right, right, right. You have this quote about a hike that you had in Refugio del Oriande. Yes. I could see. Yeah, Oriande. Perfect. Yeah, perfect. Yeah, you say, I love the mountains and trekking in the autumn in the Italian Alps is one of my happiest places. This was our hike to...
[1:10:16] Refugio del Orellana. And you have a wonderful photo of it. And I never want to forget the tiny, sweet mountain blueberries that we picked on the way up or the sound of the mountain marmots bounding through the dry grass. The seemingly impenetrable blue sky backed the sound of the kids' breath as they napped on the hot stone at the top. The deafening roar of the waterfalls and the gentle sway of the golden pines, all moments I hope to always remember. Again, I read your passages and I'm transported there. I feel it in this visceral, very, very powerful, visceral way. And so I would say anybody that, you know, loves kind of what you're hearing right now, check out your blog, check out your Instagram. Do you have Facebook too? I have no idea. Yes. Yes. Yes. Slavology blog on Facebook too. Yes. But I mean, we don't, we're not influencers in the way that we have drones and we're, we're traveling to take, to take images of certain things. We're moving through the world, hoping to move through with, with other people that want to connect with us and our mindfulness practices and things like that.
[1:11:43] But it's not like this very packaged thing. It's like, it's really authentic, organic. You know, we post when we can, there's times when the wifi goes out and we can't do anything. So it's, yeah. And there's no ads at all on the site. It's just... Just the words. It's absolutely divine. You say here, this is a quote from Alan Watts, you didn't come into the world, you came out of it. Like a wave from the ocean, you are not a stranger here. And I think that you wrote that in your most recent blog post where you talked about the sea. Yeah, and leaving the boy. Yes, yes.
[1:12:32] I mean, it was a real separation, you know, leaving them because we've been like this unit for so long, not isolated at all, just moving, moving through the world, going with that flow and, and figuring out each other. And it was like literally losing a limb there for a few months. And then the sea just restored us back to whole. It was like, we're not, we don't need geographic proximity to stay connected. And I'm not even talking about technology. Just in our hearts, as we all know, when we've lost people and their wisdom has come to us in times that we absolutely needed it to. Or when we've fallen to our knees in reverence of something that totally took us, whether it's a tree or a crashing wave or a church. I mean, there's so much there if we're aware and alert and attentive and...
[1:13:26] Just open. I just think it's so important. How is, how is Bianca handled things without her two brothers? Oh my gosh, it was really hard, but you know, it's amazing. They've all, they're almost closer because we don't like anything, you know, you don't have the ease of dining together. You don't have the ease of, you know, bumping each other in the hallway or whatever um and so it was it was like it was excruciating but we were just all in it and we found a place to go that we knew um and I know it sounds privileged to say well we went to the Italian Riviera to renew our but that's really not it we don't own anything we haven't owned a car since 2012 like we you know we it cost us 35 dollars from here to get to the sea it's not like It's this big thing, but because we don't have a house, now that's our house. We knew we needed the sea. There was something like, okay, we just need that time and we need to be connected to nature and to each other. She had her own journey during that time. It was her taking those two steps that you said in that quote. She really had to walk that. They found their way.
[1:14:46] The kids have I've never been able to compete like on teams and things like that because we're always moving around. And this season, because we wanted to stay closer to them, we're here for the whole season. And so she was able to join a competitive team and they asked her to join and they kind of sponsored her and made it possible. And she tutors five to six kids in the village in English and she walks dogs and she has all those teenage things, dates and teenage things that are really important. And we had to kind of change our lifestyle to make that work. I would imagine at first it felt a little empty, but now you probably.
[1:15:24] Things have rebalanced and probably finding a whole new kind of, um, flow and, and, um, and life with just the three of you in, in where you are right now. Well, she says all the time, like all, you know, like all the biscotti is still here or all the, you know, it's like, like, you know, she's two brothers and, and she's super hardy. Like she'll do crashes and people are like, Oh my God. Like she's, she's, you know, two brothers, strong long crasher. Um, so she, she's really, um, coming into her own, which is incredible. And, um, she has, she's like, sometimes she'll say it's a lot, you know, it's just a lot of attention. Mom, dad, like you guys just need to, cause we're used to like, you know, five family of five, but it's been, we're so excited for the summer together and, um, to whatever it holds. I don't, I'm not entirely sure. I found what I was looking for about what I wanted to say about you and your husband, because it just, to me, is so potent. And you say, you are my home and my adventure all at once. It's hard to believe 21 years ago, our honeymoon was the first time that I stepped foot in Europe. Today, as we celebrate exploring the Croatian islands, I will repeat what I said on our wedding day. I am just at the beginning of loving you.
[1:16:52] Um, and, and then, and then the Audrey Hepburn quote, you know, and, and you get, and like you said, you've got great role models, right? Like between your parents and his parents, like 56 and 67 years together. And my, I think, I mean, thanks to your dad's book, my parents are, um, in Hawaii this week celebrating their 56th wedding anniversary. And they met there when my dad was on leave from Vietnam and my mom was teaching English. And, um, you know, there were times when it looked like he wouldn't be with us. And, um, and it's just, uh, it's just magical. I, I feel like your family has been magical for us and it's, you know, people get starstruck with Hollywood. I'm like, if I see you guys, I see Dr. Greger. I see, I'm like, Dr. Clapper is going to be on the, on the cruise. I got to go. Oh, like, I just, I want, I want to you to know how much it's connected our family and changed the course of our, our family's history.
[1:17:56] Well, you know, I think, I think that's a great segue. Just you kind of you expressing your gratitude to these mindfulness practices that have helped you move through the world with an open and grateful heart. And you have this thing there. I think you call it pattern practice.
[1:18:16] Practice, right? And, and then you also, you have, you teach this course, um, as well. So I'd love for you to, to talk a little bit about pattern practice and this, this course. Thank you for asking. I, we, it's, they're called the daily livets and are the weekly livets now. Um, but we, we, every month we, I write a blog based on a theme. Um, and this for April, it was open and And May is a surprise. And then once a week, we email a mindfulness practice with a photo and a quote because we share our love for quotes. And we...
[1:18:57] We are doing, these are our practices. It's like this, these are the things we've learned from the world. And we have, you know, we're practicing with people, anyone who's, and it's, I think it's $20 for a lifetime of mindfulness. So it's not about the money that just covers like the mail, the mail distribution and things like that. But it's basically knowing, like I've said about everything that you can literally do, even if you just read the live it, it has the power to shift how you are in the moment, how present you are, how aware you are. And we never claim to be perfect at this. We're practicing just like plant-based. It's a practice. It's growth. It's change. It's embracing what's best for us. And we stopped doing them for a while during the pandemic. And we changed the whole framework so that, and we realized we kind of lost some momentum. And i mean the world lost momentum so it wasn't it was we were mirroring but we were so used to like being able to move through things and then when we started them again we just started feeling like the mountain stream like flowing like okay here we go what's next and um so that's what it is it's just one mindfulness practice a week and we're all practicing together people from all over And also we share practices that we've learned for like the, I mean, the Balinese.
[1:20:19] You know, offerings are just this amazing thing. And I mean, there's just practices pulled from everywhere we've been.
[1:20:28] Do you, do you looking back on what you've done since, and did you start this in 2013?
[1:20:36] Yeah. Okay. So, but looking back, so over the last 11 years, do you find it to be a courageous step that you made or how do you see it? Um it shocked a lot of people but for us it was just going back to what we, what we know I mean I went to the I was when I was 14 I went to the what was then the Soviet Union um with a performing group and my husband had wandered and we just we we both like, when we found each other we did what everyone told us to do and settle down and be responsible And then we were like, we don't need any of this stuff. We just want to explore. And so I think the courageous thing was listening to ourselves over the naysayers or the people that were speaking from a place of fear, which, you know, you bump up against all the time with whole food plant-based too. You know, there's a lot of fear about where are you getting your protein? Where are you getting, you know, you have grown kids. What are you doing to them? And instead of listening to what you know to be aligned and what you know to be true, that is true of any of us, wherever we stand on the globe geographically, we can all always.
[1:21:56] Listen to ourselves over people that are speaking from a place of fear because it's never about us, right? That's courageous. courageous but I mean you run into burning buildings and save people so I would never call myself courageous only in that we're finding we're finding that we're more able to contribute and more able to make the world a better place by wherever we are uh by.
[1:22:23] Listening to those loving, inspired paths that come to us versus what we should be doing. I am so grateful for this conversation, for you being so game to come join me on the PLANTSTRONG podcast. I want to close, Colleen, with this quote that you wrote, and then there's a little poem. And then I want you to feel free to say anything you want. But I think this is an appropriate way to kind of close out this conversation that we've had. I wrote a little thing I wanted to read to you, too, for your family. Fantastic. Well, how about if you do it after I do this? That would be great. And you go for it.
[1:23:11] All right. Sometimes I look over the many autumns of our travels and I wonder where the time has gone, while also feeling so thankful for the places that we have been together. I see the little faces of our children looking up at the camera with their excited 5, 8, and 9-year-old eyes, and I can't believe they were ever that small. As the ink is drying on the boys' university applications in Europe, I am more thankful than ever for each passing day with them. I wanted to share one of my favorite poems ever with you today, written by Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. I love the autumn, and yet I cannot say all the thoughts and things that make me feel this way. I love walking on the angry shore to watch the angry sea where summer people were before, and now there's only me. I love wood fires at night that have a ruddy glow. I stare at the flames and think of long ago. I love the feeling down inside me that says to run away, to come and be a gypsy and laugh the gypsy way.
[1:24:24] I love that poem. I think it speaks for itself. She says it better than I ever could. But it is about time. Like, it's all about time. And it's funny. we used to feel a huge lack of time and we cut out a lot of the things that took our time the stuff the cars the activities we still do we do a ton of those things in a day but um there just seems to be an abundance of time and i don't meet a lot of people that feel that way um and when the kids went to university, I can honestly say when the boys left, it was like.
[1:25:11] I don't, I'm so grateful. Like, I, I remember when we signed one of them up for, um, daycare when, when I had the, my first, and we, I didn't know how much love I was capable of until I had my first. And then I was like, we went to this daycare to take him cause I was working. And she said, we won't tell you if he takes his first step or if he says mama, or if he says his first word so that it'll be a first for you. And I, I quit everything. I was like, I'm not doing anything but being with this kid. And we're going to figure it out because I don't want it to be a fake first. You know, I don't want you to not tell me I want to, I want to see it. And I can honestly say, and my husband and I too, like we have spent extenuous amounts of time together and, we're so excited for any time we spend with them in the future, but we're not delusional that we're all going to be geographically because we've taught them, you know, it's a global community and they could be anywhere. And I know that we'll be connected. Bravo. Uh, what do you have for me?
[1:26:21] That's just a little love letter to your family. The first, the first word we learn in every country is thank you.
[1:26:27] And yet those words don't seem sufficient for this letter. My first draft of this letter was about all we would have lost without the work your family has done. The final draft, however, is about all we have gained. Because of your family, our family has reversed heart disease, hypertension, type 2 diabetes, seasonal allergies, reactive airways, teenage acne, just to name a few. Because of your family, our family has celebrated birthdays, anniversaries, holidays that would have been cut short, missing loved ones that would have passed.
[1:26:58] Because of your family, our family has the joy of card games with grandma and grandpa, planting gardens with aunts and uncles, contagious laughter, as we work to transform generational recipes into PLANTSTRONG versions. Because of your family, our family has the gift of time. As Dr. Seuss penned, the alternative is someday asking the question, how did it get so late so soon? Yes, it's about the food, but it's something more. The legacy you're passing on is about the will to live and thrive and run and dive. It's about the will to love fiercely and not leave this earth too soon. It's about how we care for ourselves, yes, but also about our dedication to our family, our parents, our children, our grandchildren, and our global community. Mother Earth, it is about connectedness and how we are all part of the whole, not just for our generation, but in honor of all those that have come before and for pioneering thought and aligning action for all those still to come. Thank you for inspiring, inquiring, sharing, and daring us all. Infinite thank you, PLANTSTRONG. Even this doesn't seem sufficient.
[1:28:16] Thank you. Hey, thank you. Thank you. Colleen, It was beautiful. Beautiful. I, I, um, I've really enjoyed the last 90 minutes with you. Thank you. Oh my gosh. Oh, wow. Thank you so much. I'm so grateful for this opportunity to talk to you and to express my thanks in person. Cause I haven't had the chance to do that, but I'm sure your ears have been burning from the Mariotti and my parents and everybody. And I'm looking for, I didn't tell my parents about this, so I'm going to share it with my dad for Father's Day. And thank you for that opportunity.
[1:28:59] Absolutely. And I truly hope that our paths cross in person, not just over a computer screen sometime in the future. Me too. And it's still, it's on our dream board to go to a PLANTSTRONG event, Plant-Stock or anything. Thing like i i would just love to because the boy the kids are on their own now and they're trying different things and i think it would be such a good way to come back to what we know and um and have all those ingredients that you have in the u.s yeah well yeah if you're in the u.s in august we're we're having our first in-person live Plantstock again since covet oh that's so So exciting. Yeah. And we can eat something besides minestrone, which is what we're having tonight because it's Italian dinner time. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you, Rip. Colleen, will you hit me with a big virtual PlanStrong fist bump on the way out? Boom. Yes. All right. Hey, Colleen, keep it PlanStrong. I will. Yeah. Thank you. Ciao.
[1:30:15] Colleen's blog, once again, is liveology.com, and I guarantee it will inspire you to live just a little more freely, whatever that happens to mean to you. Until next time, don't be afraid to explore, ask a stranger for help, and always, always keep it PLANTSTRONG. The PLANTSTRONG podcast team includes Carrie Barrett, Laurie Kortowich, and Ami Mackey if you like what you hear do us a favor and share the show with your friends and loved ones you can always leave a five-star rating and review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify and while you're there make sure to hit that follow button so that you never miss an episode As always, this and every episode is dedicated to my parents, Dr. Caldwell B. Esselstyn, Jr. and Anne Crile Esselstyn. Thanks so much for listening.
