115: Yasmin & Andy | Beyond Boundaries: One Family's Journey from England to Jungle Living in Belize

AUTOGENERATED TRANSCRIPT

Jesper Conrad: 0:10

Today we're together with Yasmin and Andy. I found you two on Instagram and I read the small bio and I was like, oh, I want to talk with them. But first of all, welcome. It's super great to see you. So, Yasmin and Andy, I think I would like to start with a talk about freedom because for the people watching, they will look at the video and say that looks hot, it looks nice, it looks green and rich in nature. Where are you right now?

Andy: 0:50

Now we're in Belize, so this is our home. We've been here for about three years and living where we are now for about two years.

Jesper Conrad: 1:00

So to turn that into a talk about freedom? Yasmin, you're originally from Sweden, andy, you're from UK. What happened in your life that led you down a path where Sweden wasn't good enough, uk wasn't good enough, and I'm searching for a deeper answer than just the weather. Maybe it is.

Andy: 1:27

Well, we enjoyed our life in the UK. We'd been living there for about 10 years. We had a nice house and friends and we didn't leave because we didn't like it there, but freedom was definitely part of the answer. We've been looking at making a change, we've been looking at other ways of living, and Belize wasn't the first place that came up in our search we.

Yasmin: 1:49

Actually this was before, just before COVID. So I was working at an alternative school called Inwood Small School and our oldest son, tio, was also a student there and we thought we would do something like this when he hits the age of you know, the end of the school years there, which he would have been 11. But then things changed, management changed and so finished there, and then that was pretty much exactly on the day COVID hit as well. So the plan was actually to travel down Europe in our van that we had converted and we were going to travel down to Europe and visit different intentional communities, communities because that's what we knew we wanted and what we've been sort of looking for and feeling a longing and a tug for for a long time.

Yasmin: 2:44

Actually, ever since Tierra, our first one, was born. We could feel the sort of strange loneliness of being in a you know, this little family unit in a separate house in a lovely village in England, beautiful and wonderful in many ways. But we just particularly I had that strong feeling that why are we doing this on our own? Why are we not doing this together? And I remember that very strongly and it's just been following me ever since and I think, the more the children grew and we had Viggo, our second, and eventually Evan, our third, yeah, that tug just became stronger, I would say.

Yasmin: 3:29

And Europe was our first idea because it would be less far away from friends, good friends and family and made a lot of sense. But then, because COVID hit, that traveling, of course, was very limited, very restricted and at the time we didn't know is this going to last for days or weeks or years, and I think it was very much a case of the obstacle is the path right? We really felt that. So this idea of traveling around communities and learning from them, maybe find the right community for us, or starting our own, that wasn't going to work. In Europe, we felt, yeah, I guess there was a freedom aspect to that as well.

Andy: 4:12

In terms of that felt pretty limited at the time. In Europe I work online. There's going to be some restrictions around that in European countries and there's definitely fewer restrictions around that in Belize. So in those sort of practical elements there was some freedom aspects there as well.

Yasmin: 4:27

Yeah.

Cecilie Conrad: 4:31

So from the plan of traveling in a van in Europe to Belize. Was that random?

Yasmin: 4:41

That's a really good question, actually. So one of our families at our old school in Woods is a British American family. Well, they told us we kept in touch and they told us, well, we're going to Belize. Well, they told us we kept in touch and they told us, well, we're going to Belize. And we were like, oh, belize, we love Belize because we traveled here 15 years ago. Actually, we cycled from Mexico to Panama, maybe two thirds on bike and then the rest sometimes on a bus or on top of a truck or you know something like that, but roughly.

Yasmin: 5:13

we actually cycled past here on the on the hummingbird highway where we are now 15 and it's almost, probably nearly 16 years ago now, and so it just sparked something in us, and actually particularly in you.

Andy: 5:25

You weren't quite as keen on europe as you were yeah, and when we started discussing belize I remember I loved it and I even remember when we were here a long time ago thinking wouldn't it be amazing to live here, build a house in that jungle there and be a part of that amazing nature and live?

Cecilie Conrad: 5:43

in it. Here we are now yeah. Yeah, it's funny, huh Things you think wouldn't that be great, do you have sometimes that I feel? Sometimes I find myself in a situation like that and I forgot I dreamt about it. So I'm in the situation. I'm like, oh yeah, that was the thing I thought back then would be so great. And now, now, here I am. It's as if you have to have the dream, have the idea, think about it for a while, forget it and then suddenly, whoop, there you go, yeah.

Andy: 6:23

It was definitely a catalyst in both, I guess, a practical way and a mental way of pushing you into another. This is happening now. Okay, this is the reality of the world. And what do we want to do in that reality?

Jesper Conrad: 6:37

it just it really fast, like not not being a part of it go to a different reality.

Jesper Conrad: 6:44

Yeah, do you? I imagine sometimes when you talk with people they're like, oh, living in belize, that must be a dream life, and in many ways I'm also sure it is. Sometimes we've. We as a family have now been full-time traveling for six and a half years. Sometimes I'm just, you know, tired or annoyed, and then this morning I looked around me and was like, oh, but you're in this awesome village in in the Andorras and you have all this freedom you have created. How about being grateful and I'm saying it as I actually sometimes need to re-remind me of what we have accomplished, of being grateful of it, because otherwise that everyday bug of normalcy can like sneak in and just make me forget how great life is. Do you have that feeling ever, if everything's still just wonderful every day?

Yasmin: 7:48

no, I totally agree and hear what you say for sure. I mean, life is always going to be life with children and the chaos of the world. All of these things are, of course, a reality for us as well, and sometimes it can even be a bit harder, in a way, when you do something so different and so maybe you're removed from your close family and friends that you grew up with, and then a new environment that you have to learn to navigate. That so it's always. It can be harder, it's complex, isn't it? I can imagine it's the same for you guys, but yeah, it's definitely both. It's almost like life somehow intensifies. It becomes so amazing and so incredible, like a dream in many ways, and then it's also the shadow sides are also rising and that you have to face more as well. It's like everything is a little bit more intense. That's how I experience it.

Andy: 8:48

I agree that I mean the intense of everything the surroundings, the nature, the heat is intense or the rain is intense yeah but then you still have your normal everyday life and everybody's emotions and needs and everything is the same as it is in the UK, but you've transplanted it here into a different place. You have certainly more freedom to do, to do different things, but still the same things arise within you and I totally agree with that, with that gratitude aspect and, you know, recognizing that I wake up early in the morning and start work. I start work at 5 o'clock. It's pretty early, I have to get out of bed, but then I can come and sit here and absorb a beautiful nature and be calm and relaxed and be grateful for the opportunity to do what we're doing.

Jesper Conrad: 9:35

Yeah, Yasmin mentioned something and be calm and relaxed and be grateful for the opportunity to do what we're doing. Yeah, Yasmin mentioned something earlier where, just like in a passing sentence and I was like what did she say? Which was, oh, when we were on bicycles here 15 years ago, that sounds like an epic adventure in itself. What happened and why did you decide to go on this adventure back then?

Andy: 10:00

So it was on bicycles, yeah. So I think we were entirely sure how it came about really. But we wanted to do something. We wanted to take some time. It was just the two of us before children. We wanted to do some time. It was just the two of us before children. We wanted to do some, do some traveling together.

Andy: 10:17

And the reason we chose Central America is because it's not that big and we thought we could, we could cycle. You know, if you choose South America, that's a long way to go. Central America is not so big. We can see quite a lot of countries in a in a relatively short space. And we're cycling. We never done anything like that before.

Andy: 10:38

We weren't keen cyclists. We had to buy everything, uh, plan a route and then just go, and it was. It was fantastic, amazing, yeah, and you've probably experienced some of that in in the van as well. But you know, when you're cycling, you're forced to go through every type of environment, every village and town, and you have to stay in these places and you see a country in a different way than if you're travelling through on the bus or a motorised vehicle. And we had an amazing time in Belize and I think one of the reasons was we had a common language. We didn't speak still don't speak Spanish, but we had the English to be able to communicate with all the local people, that people live here and have that, you know possibility to have deeper conversation with people and understand more of the more the people in the environment.

Yasmin: 12:04

Yeah, and I remember I had just finished. I was kind of a mature student, I had finished teacher training in sweden and we wanted to do something after that and you, you finished your work. So we just used some saved up money and wanted to do something. We knew that we probably wouldn't have that kind of freedom again, so we wanted to make the most of it.

Cecilie Conrad: 12:28

I think essentially yeah, and, and here you are with the same freedom later on in life it's a different freedom it's a different freedom, yeah our children just proposed that we should go on bikes from paris to barcelona this summer wow okay, that's awesome, they did yeah well one of them, proposed that the others didn't say no.

Jesper Conrad: 12:53

No, okay, yeah, but that's that sounds like an adventure, yeah.

Yasmin: 12:58

I love the sound of that.

Cecilie Conrad: 13:00

Yeah. You should do it Totally. The only thing is the logistics, because we live in the van, so who's moving in? I kind of have to figure that part out. I was thinking, yes, we wanted to talk about freedom, but then you started talking about something more interesting, which is community, and the obvious question is did you find it then in Belize?

Yasmin: 13:25

I think we found a community. I mean there are many communities and many different types of communities. There are local communities of people who grew up here and have lived here for generations and generations and generations. And then what we found here was a small, beautiful community of foreigners. Actually an Italian family who came here it's about 11 years ago, so roughly, and they started this permaculture farm here and they had volunteers in the beginning and it was very basic, very rustic, very simple living, and then eventually became a retreat center as well. So they developed really beautiful buildings and their own homes and now it's mainly that maybe a retreat center with um, you know, airbnb kind of accommodation as well so we were, um, it was.

Andy: 14:29

It was definitely something that was, it was a primary factor in, in it was definitely something that was a primary factor in making the decision to move to another place. Was that community, in a case you could call an intentional community or community of people living close together with common ideals, that type of thing? So we didn't know what we would find. And we were looking around and we looked at land and we, you know, stood on a hill in the top of the jungle looking at this amazing countryside and, uh, you know, with 20, 30 acres for reasonable price, but thinking, you know, we could build a community here, but you know what, what's the outlay for that in terms of time and you know effort, it's going to be a huge undertaking. So do we want to do that?

Andy: 15:18

And then the other, the other thing that we found was some of this sort of community, a small community already here and looking to grow. So our choice was to join that community. It's been, it's been wonderful, yeah, for two years now. Yeah, yeah, it's been wonderful. We've been there for two years now.

Yasmin: 15:34

Yeah, yeah, it's been a bit, I think.

Jesper Conrad: 15:37

Yeah, we started out our life together when we were 29, lots of kids, and it was along the can you say normal path of Cecilia is educated as a psychologist, I'm self-taught but working marketing and on the online digital world, and I had a career path and she stood in front of going down her road and we bought a house and got a dog and all these normal things and we lived on the street with a lot of houses and you of course see the neighbors, but it's not the same as seeing or being together with the neighbors.

Jesper Conrad: 16:25

And I am trying to figure out how I can explain what I mean about my dislike of the nuclear family as a concept. I think there's something really wild about these people living in these small units alone without connection to their neighbor or their neighborhood, and part of me has been thinking maybe it's only because we have work that this actually can work, because then you get some part of your social life covered by going to an office, small chat over the coffee or the dinner and stuff like that. And I haven't I'm not clear at all on either what I mean or how to define it.

Yasmin: 17:13

I can hear that.

Jesper Conrad: 17:16

But I could just, in the years, end up feeling this loathing against going to work in an office and sitting. And Cecilia was at home with our children and, as you know, the Nordic summers or winters the daylight is very short and I could sit at the office and if the sun was outside, I knew the sun would have set when I got out and I could see a picture. She called me during the day, I knew they were out walking and I could see the sun and it was just like why am I sitting here together with people I not dislike but that I would never go invite for dinner at home because we are not alike? Yeah, and this just grew and grew and grew until it felt so weird to go to work that we needed to find a way to break free. And and we, we found it. Is that something similar? What happened in your life or where are you? Does it sound total maniac what I'm saying, or am I making myself a little clear?

Yasmin: 18:21

I mean, you're making yourself completely clear to us I can speak for both of us, for sure, totally clear and it sounds like you've had that sort of that call, that tug within you that you know, life could be a little different. It could be a little bit different and or maybe very uh, depending on how big a step you take. But yeah, I think, yeah, we both have had that, haven't we?

Andy: 18:48

yeah, sure yeah, I mean, like you're saying, we lived in a lovely village and we had nice neighbours and friends in the village, but it's not really. There's a community of sorts, but it's not a living community. And, yeah, people are, all you know, very different and maybe it's quite insular and people you know have their jobs and their houses and that's like you say, a nuclear family, and then there's another one, and then there's another one. Um, so what we were looking for, I guess, was more of that uh, community as a whole. Um, you know, where people are living in close proximity together, sharing, sharing their lives in in more of a holistic way, everything about their lives coming together, having, you know, sort of education, those other adults that are important in the children's lives, hopefully doing that in a beautiful and natural setting.

Yasmin: 19:42

That's right. And also I think what a lot of families, what a lot of parents experience in our society is loneliness and it is stress because the hours are long and often at work and there's not quite enough support. So I think there's almost like an like an epidemic of that's the right word of, you know, lots of parents feeling quite, you know, overwhelmed and burnt out actually with it all, because I don't think it's possible actually to work, have school time and being able to look after a household and your children at the same time. I'm not saying it can't be done, but I think something has to give and I think a lot of people feel that it's too much. Not everybody, I'm not talking for everyone, but I think everyone who's tried that knows how hard it is or how hard it can be, and so we wanted also that that.

Yasmin: 20:56

Actually. Does life have to be so challenging? Does it have to be so hard? Can we have more ease and more play in our lives? Can we prioritize things like Like here, for instance, during the high season, when we have families here part-time and some full-time, and when we have our high season, which is just ending now, we can basically roll out of bed and go to a fire rhythm dance or a cacao ceremony or things like that and just feel that connection and support and having the children run around and play with each other. And I think no matter where you are, it will be challenging, but I think for us it's definitely been a life with more ease.

Cecilie Conrad: 21:43

I would say, we talked about today how the mainstream life with both adults on a nine to five or the equivalent and the children in a school setting or institutionalized children, when there are many advantages and and uh, obviously downsides, and we opted out, you opted out. One of the things that there just isn't enough time for is actually living. Yeah, actually having enough time to process your emotion, having enough time to complete your conversations. I spend so many hours every day talking to the same four people, which is my three children traveling with me and my husband, but I really feel that these conversations are important to our life, that this is wrapping things up, this is living it in detail and I just cannot imagine going back to being so rushed in life that I have to Our son, one of the youngest he just broke his arm two days ago and had he been a schooled kid, he would have gone to school the next day and I would have been at work and I mean the way we were all carrying his emotional reaction to breaking his arm that took the entire day.

Cecilie Conrad: 23:59

That was what filled it up and my reaction and, you know, the whole family we all had. There was a lot going on and I just can't imagine choosing a life where I wouldn't have time for that, because that's more important.

Yasmin: 24:16

I completely hear you and it warms my heart to hear that To take time for things like this that's not how our society is built. Is it To give time for things like this Because it's so rigid?

Andy: 24:33

You're not producing when you're taking that time. You need to process those life events. He has to go back to school because he needs to do x, y and z exactly.

Yasmin: 24:47

I see time differently now as well. Um, when you're removed from the mainstream education system, you just see your child and their learning journey, without the sort of external timeline that they're supposed to be in, and that's a really beautiful thing to be able to observe. You know them and not them in comparison, and that's a really beautiful thing to be able to observe them and not them in comparison to something else. But actually, what are their joys, what are their driving forces? What's their own inner, internal timeline, that sort of thing. And I think also the older we get in a way, and our youngest is grown up as well, she's not even four yet, she's still little. But you know, you just savor the moments in a different way when you realize how fast it all oh yeah, I think your kids are a little older, right?

Cecilie Conrad: 25:50

yeah, our youngest is 13. Yeah, our oldest is 25.

Yasmin: 25:56

So yeah, we're in a different space. Yeah, and are all four of them traveling with you?

Cecilie Conrad: 26:03

No, the one who's 25, she has her own life now, yeah, but 19, 16 and 13 are still with us. That's nice.

Jesper Conrad: 26:13

Yeah, it is, it is a gift every day. We are very grateful. That's nice. Yeah, it is, it is a gift every day.

Cecilie Conrad: 26:16

We are very grateful.

Jesper Conrad: 26:17

Yeah.

Cecilie Conrad: 26:17

Yeah, kind of wanted to circle back to the community thing. It's a big deal for us as well. Obviously, we live nomadically, we move around all the time and you know who do you share your life with when you keep moving. You know who do you share your life with when you keep moving. But imagine someone listening to this podcast, actually living that house in that village in England or somewhere else, having nice neighbors, having nice friends, having a good job. Maybe the kids are in some sort of alternative school, everything's fine and they have community. I mean, they have their grandparents or the kids and the neighbors and the maybe the boy scouts and the soccer club and all that. It is some version of community, isn't it, of course. So I'm just curious what's could you, can you define the difference? What were you looking for that you didn't have? What kind of community was it?

Yasmin: 27:20

Ideally, what we wanted was to scoop up all our friends and close family and just bring them along. It was like a huge. One of the most painful things we've done in life really was the transition from leaving England and essentially, in a way, sweden too, because you were going to be much further away. Yes, so it was leaving Europe, leaving our friends and family there. It was incredibly hard. At times we were wondering have we lost our minds? I mean, it was so painful. It was a huge process of grieving, grieving. I was sick right at that time as well, so my body was like and Avani was a baby, so I was just in, still in this postpartum space. Looking back now I'm just wondering you know how we survived it? Or, seriously, it was incredibly hard. Uh, and the grieving and the saying goodbyes and and all of that. So why I'm mentioning that? Is because, yeah, we knew that we wanted something that was still the unknown to us, which is a little bit of a crazy thing, like you know what you have but you don't know what you're going to get, because we didn't leave the uk knowing we were coming to sataland. We hadn't found it yet. We just knew initially we were going to rent out our house. So we still had that connection or something. Uh, in the end we ended up selling our house, uh, because it was just a good time to do it and then we wouldn't have to travel back to do that all that process. So we decided to sell it. So we kind of cut ties and, without making a formal cognitive decision, we had kind of made that already.

Yasmin: 29:07

So when we came here we were like, let's find something. We came to sattva. It's a very close-knit small community of six families with us now, so five families then, and it wasn't really like a formal, intentional community. It was also that things started to change for the families here during lockdown, that they were looking for maybe a different way of living together and maybe also generating generating an income from for satvala and the business which is or also is um with a retreat center and so on like to expand that a little bit. And so we're actually the first family without any family.

Yasmin: 29:51

But it was just. We just went with intuition, I would say, and we just felt what that? What we're looking for is the whole. We can walk to our uh, you know, um learning co-op. We can just um be with others within walking distance who are also keen on doing things together, if not on a daily basis, definitely weekly or several times a week. You know, it's just a different way of living and it's pretty much exactly what we had longed for, I think. And sometimes you know you're longing for something. You don't know exactly what it is, but you're just longing for a deeper sense of connection, a deeper sense of community than perhaps what we experience with our friends, but they still live a little distance away or we have to drive sometimes. So it's just this having them more closer by people who are offering things as well, you know, who are putting things to the table.

Andy: 30:55

I think that's probably quite an important difference is the is the offerings and what people bring and um, I guess you have people who've chosen to live in in in a certain place and live in in a certain way, whereas maybe in your life in in england you'll meet those people, connect with those people in in different in different areas of your life.

Andy: 31:18

Maybe there's one at work or school or somewhere else, but here it sort of brings it all together into one place. Of course, everybody has different ideals and different ways of thinking, but essentially people are pretty much on the same wavelength and everybody's offering something into the community. So so yasmin is offering um sort of self-directed um, learning, co-op, um for for the children here, and and we all contribute, uh, partly to that, but it's mostly yasmin that takes that, takes that on, and other people in the community are offering you know certain, you know certain celebrations. Every week there's something else that brings us together as a community. So I think they're probably the main things we found that are different from a life in the UK to the life here.

Andy: 32:12

It's, you know, the people who have chosen to be here, the proximity together and, because of that proximity, the opportunity to do things with each other every day.

Jesper Conrad: 32:57

It reminds me of. We have some friends whom we live with and co-live with when we are in Denmark, who have a farm, and the joy of caring and giving is so clear to me when I'm there. Sometimes they need help with something on the farm. It could be removing a fence, for example. I feel more valuable as a person after having helped them remove the fence than I do on when I make a work task where the what I get in return is money. What I get in return from them is their gratefulness and their joy and the shared time together, the laughs we had removing the fence and the working together and and there's working together and and there's, yeah, something missing, or there were for me when I went to work. Every day it doesn't feel valuable in the same way as it does helping a friend with a fence.

Andy: 34:00

That's right, I think it's a really good example and and here we have similar things because we're all living on this land together, we want to co-create the spaces. So when we're working together, it's you know, it's for all of us. Together we're co-creating the learning space for the children. We're going to convert this building, we're going to paint it, we're going to make it really nice and then our children are going to be there. We're doing all that together with the same idea and the same same vision.

Yasmin: 34:27

Yeah, I can really hear what you're saying about that and I think that makes me think about you know, how have we humans evolved to live Like? What's the optimal way for a human being to live? And I don't think there's one answer I think we can't just talk about. You know what we need biologically and so on, but I think we haven't evolved quite quite as far away from the sort of core needs that human beings needed in for, for for which is a smaller community in a sense I can't remember what.

Yasmin: 35:13

there's been some research on this but to have like these deeper, closer connections, I think you're not really able to have that with more than is it 40 people or something like that roughly, I might get that number wrong and I think if we can sort of develop and nurture those relationships, I think that gives us a sense of belonging, naturally, um which I think when we live in bigger cities maybe, or even towns, um, I think you can definitely do that, and I can see around the world that there are community urban communities as well, popping up a little bit of a decentralized kind of concept, and I think that's the future.

Yasmin: 35:57

Actually, I believe I don't think everyone has to come to the jungle in belize, you know, and to experience that I think we can definitely do that in our villages in england or denmark, you know for sure. It's just a and it happens already, it's, it's happening everywhere and I think more and more people are realizing that we need that, for, like it's as important as food and and water in a way, because otherwise we we become malnourished emotionally, essentially.

Jesper Conrad: 36:30

I like that sentence malnourished emotionally. Yeah, I've been there.

Andy: 36:36

I just made that up.

Jesper Conrad: 36:37

No, no, but I like it. I like it a lot. I remember earlier, when I was younger, I sometimes went to a charity shop or something to get secondhand clothes and I could have moments where I was like, why are you volunteering your time here? You're not paid for it. That's kind of weird. But I'm glad you're there and now I'm like, oh, now I get it. The community, the sense of being there, of doing something and doing something for others. It just took me some years to grow into.

Cecilie Conrad: 37:12

I've just been thinking, husband, you talk about how you don't like the nucleus family, but I think, in a way, what you don't like is the mainstream culture.

Jesper Conrad: 37:26

Yeah.

Cecilie Conrad: 37:26

Because you have a great it sounds. You have a great it sounds like you have a great community where you live, where you get to share everyday life and you do a lot of meaningful things together and you share skills and all these things, in a way, could be done in an urban lifestyle with neighbors. It just isn't, because the culture is that when you hang out, you have coffee and talk about things, or you grill or celebrate birthdays instead of taking down fences and teaching each other's children or painting each other's bathrooms or whatever you could have done together. You don't do that. That's like your own problem.

Yasmin: 38:06

So it's a cultural thing.

Cecilie Conrad: 38:08

I don't think you would want anyone to mess with our little circle here.

Jesper Conrad: 38:13

No.

Cecilie Conrad: 38:14

And I know that we've been looking at communities invited into communities. People talk all the time about how we should find an intentional community, but because of who we are and the way we are radical and the thing that stops me all the time is there's a limit to how much I want to share and one of the things I don't want to share is my children.

Cecilie Conrad: 38:37

I'm not going to share bringing up my children. I'm about free. I don't want anyone to mess with that. I mean, I like people and I like my kids having making friends with all kinds of people and they can obviously do whatever they want. But this whole that's one of the things that work in the communities we have been living in nomadically. So we come, we stay for a while, we leave. That's how we work, that there's no confusion about. This child is my child and that child is not my child no, no and now I'm listening to you in this conversation.

Cecilie Conrad: 39:18

Yeah, and you say you don't like the family system, not your culture around. How do we share life?

Jesper Conrad: 39:25

yeah, and that's also why it is something I'm exploring, because I think that the way I look at how I would portray the nuclear family is like single-unit families you go to work, you come home, you watch Netflix, you go to work the next day and if you meet with friends it's only in the weekends and it's very organized in a way. I find fake and I dislike it and I think that it creates a version of life where people think that life restarts on Mondays and you need to celebrate on the weekends because it's a weekend and there's something with that construction I think only works because social life is kind of covered going to work, so when you come home you are not lonely or you are kind of it is like eating on McDonald's going to work the kind of social life interaction you have.

Jesper Conrad: 40:26

Yeah, you're socially malnourished, but you get enough to not go out and hunt your friends down and say, hey, it's Tuesday evening, I just want to chat, I just want to dance, have fun and enjoy life.

Cecilie Conrad: 40:36

Maybe you're too tired.

Jesper Conrad: 40:37

Yeah, maybe you're too tired. So, yes, it's not the nuclear family, but it's the structure in everyday modern life that I, when I think back on it, I felt trapped, I felt imprisoned in going to work and I just am so grateful for the freedom I have today where if I want to do my yoga Tuesday till 12 o'clock, I do my yoga Tuesday till 12 o'clock. Of course, I have economic responsibilities. There's clients I work for and help. I have meetings, I have deadlines, but I decide over my own time. I have not sold my nine to five lifestyle. I tried that for 20 something years and I'm so grateful for being out of it and that is what I load.

Jesper Conrad: 41:32

It is this um imprisonment into an everyday culture where you, as I say, believe now it's friday, now I need to get hammered and party, because now I'm off work, and then Monday, mondays are boring because I need to go to back, work, to work. That's something in that reality that I just can't stand any longer and I'm grateful for not having been in many years. But when I look at it from the outside, I'm like someone needs to shout it out there. Someone needs to say hey, what are you doing? What is happening. Why are you doing that towards yourself? I wish someone had shouted it to me 20 years ago so I could have started earlier. But I know the level of fear I had when cecilia first started about talking about homeschooling. Shout it.

Jesper Conrad: 42:28

Yeah, yeah yeah, you kind of shout it, but I came from what I was brought up with and that was you go to work. That's how life is kind of. And here I am sitting on the highway because we had a podcast we wanted to do with you. So we are parked somewhere in France and are heading towards Antibes because we are going to see a Picasso museum tomorrow. That's like the goal. Yeah, sorry for ranting.

Yasmin: 42:56

You're going everywhere. I love the fact that we get to sort of just connect with you guys, like on the road that you just stopped everything you know and then just like let's have this chat. I love that amazing thanks. Thanks for you know, allowing us to do that. That's fantastic, and and that is a part of the freedom that you have created for yourselves and and your family, which is beautiful. Um, I also want to ask could it also be that, um, the family is? I think it's still amazing. I mean, like the family unit is beautiful. I think it's always going to be.

Yasmin: 43:35

However, families can look in many different ways. It doesn't have to be heteronormative. It can be looking in so many different ways, and so I think maybe we're a little bit tired of that as well. At least I am. And then also, can the nuclear family, even if it looks different to what ours, look like? Could it be that it can't give us everything? Can we get all our emotional nourishment or deep connection from one partner and our children? It's just a question I'm putting out there one partner and our children is.

Jesper Conrad: 44:17

It's just a question I'm putting out there. Yeah, I, I know, for example, we can take a such a simple thing as humor me and my wife don't share it's not funny I'm not. I'm too stupid sometimes I have a level of stupidity and I really just enjoy when I meet people where I can say the most stupid shit and I can see they laugh and and where I'm like, are they understand it?

Cecilie Conrad: 44:40

because it's not just stupid to be stupid, I just don't find it funny no but I think you're right and I and I think it's one of the points that we've been pointing at as well One of the lies, basically, of the idea of modern life and the idea of the romantic love that you marry this person and that has to fulfill most of your adult needs to unfold.

Cecilie Conrad: 45:12

You can have a relationship with your siblings and you might have one or two you could call your best friends, but that's it, and the best friends the spouse kind of has to be an all-round solution and and I think that's very wrong and it's wrong and it creates a lot of suffering, because then if you have a friend that fulfills some of your needs in a way your spouse can't, there will be jealousy, there might be drama, and's not, it's not a romantic relationship. There's no threat to the nucleus family. You know you can share having your children and you can be married and have your relationship. But you can have a friend with whom you share some passion or who can fulfill some sort of your need or the way you want to laugh, yeah, I can't give him that because you just don't share. It's very rare. We find the same thing funny and we all like laughing, and I don't mind, you can be stupid with whoever finds you funny yeah, yeah yeah, it sounds so rude

Jesper Conrad: 46:34

I mean I think it's great, I think it's, I think it's a great example exactly that we cannot be everything for example, cecilia is writing a book together with a good friend, jonathan, and in the start I had to stop myself because it's like, oh, am I not fulfilling that part of my wife's um intellectual needs that she want to go down and write this wanted to write a book with me as well.

Jesper Conrad: 47:01

Yeah, yeah no, no, the stuff happened in me until I was like, hey, I'm actually quite secure in our relationship. We have been married 20 years. I know it's romantic, but he fulfills that part of her intellectual need. And they are on the same wavelength with the things they discuss in that book and I'm like, oh great, then I don't need to listen to it. Perfect, I got it to laugh.

Andy: 47:28

Definitely laughing together on this podcast.

Cecilie Conrad: 47:32

We do laugh together.

Andy: 47:33

We do. I'm just laughing at Tim.

Cecilie Conrad: 47:38

Instead of with. Okay, so the downside of this conversation is I kind of want to go to Belize now.

Jesper Conrad: 47:44

Yeah.

Cecilie Conrad: 47:44

A little bit off the path.

Jesper Conrad: 47:46

But it's near Mexico Kind of. Yeah, yeah, I know you could buy some.

Cecilie Conrad: 47:51

We need to get over the same pond.

Jesper Conrad: 47:54

Yes, yes.

Cecilie Conrad: 47:56

This sounds lovely.

Yasmin: 47:58

You're welcome to come anytime, just let us know when.

Cecilie Conrad: 48:02

Yeah, I don't know.

Andy: 48:04

Let's not discuss plans on the podcast.

Jesper Conrad: 48:06

That's just too complicated. So we try to stay within some sort of time limit on our podcast. So I will try to stay within some sort of time limit on our podcast. So I will try to round it up.

Cecilie Conrad: 48:18

Okay, what if the listeners want to go to Belize? Do you have like a real Airbnb? Anyone can book it, or is it yeah?

Andy: 48:25

absolutely yeah.

Cecilie Conrad: 48:27

There, you go.

Andy: 48:28

Perfect.

Yasmin: 48:30

Here at Sattvaland.

Jesper Conrad: 48:31

Yeah.

Yasmin: 48:31

You can put a link in the description.

Jesper Conrad: 48:33

We'll put the link in the description and everything. But first, for people who are listening and I believe many have dreamt of I know we dreamt of it before we took the steps this oh, we want to do something different in life, we want to travel full time, we want to move to another country. For many people, including us, for a long period of time we didn't act on the dream, but you have done it, both with the bike ride through Central America and now with moving to another country. So for people who are dreaming, do you have any advice? What would you have wished to have said to yourself when you were there?

Yasmin: 49:22

You mean before we sort of made the decision to come here, or during, I think it's a question sometimes how to take the step.

Cecilie Conrad: 49:30

Yeah, how to get started. Is there any hack that you have?

Yasmin: 49:37

Would you like to start?

Andy: 49:39

Yeah, I'm thinking having a partner who says I'm not going to spend another winter in England. Okay, I'm going to start doing this right now. Yeah, and you were serious about that. I knew that.

Yasmin: 49:58

Yeah, I'd almost forgotten about that, because now, when you're always in almost perpetual, eternal summer, you kind of forget and now you think, oh, it seems so lovely, especially during Christmas. You know winter and snow. You're romanticising now, but it's actually been like for me it's been. You know, living here has has given me personally a higher quality of life, just through the sun, the sunshine, and I'm a person who needs that.

Cecilie Conrad: 50:26

everyone's different no, no everyone we just took a bad decision this winter and went to Denmark in January. No, it started earlier and I think that I mean you could call it a bad decision, but it was just the final nail in the coffin. You know, I cannot do this. No no, no, there's no way. This was a crazy idea I had eight years ago. I definitely am not compatible.

Jesper Conrad: 50:54

No, but also after six and a half year of full-time traveling, mostly staying in spring or summer time, sometimes fall, but never in winter. I had forgot how great it is in the Nordic countries in the winter and you're like thinking, oh, I can do it, it's fun, we're together with friends, but I could feel the emotional drain. And it's first after one and a half months now, in the hotter climate and sun, that I feel genuinely happy again. No, seriously.

Yasmin: 51:25

I hear you.

Jesper Conrad: 51:28

If you're ever dreaming and thinking like oh, maybe you can do one month, but a winter we did a winter.

Cecilie Conrad: 51:34

Yeah, we did a month. We were in England also Very brave.

Jesper Conrad: 51:40

Back to your steps. Back to your steps.

Andy: 51:44

That was a big catalyst, but there's a lot of things behind that and the one thing that I would say a big driver. One thing to think about is a little bit what we discussed before it. It's time, isn't it? It's time you, you have a certain lifetime on this, on this planet and, um, you have and you don't know how long that's going to be. You have a certain time with your children. You don't know how long that's going to be.

Andy: 52:10

So what do you want to do with that time? You've got choices. You can choose what to do with that time. You can spend it wherever you want, but can you choose to make the best of that time? What do you really want to do? Do you want to spend that time with your children as they're growing up, and have that freedom to do that every day and experience that wonderfulness of your children growing up, and with your partner? That's a choice you can make. So that's what drove it for me thinking about. You know what's our time? It's it's a limited time. It's hopefully a long time, but it's limited. Everything is limited and what do I want to do with that limited time that I have?

Yasmin: 52:49

yes, and I would like to add to that exactly Actually I was going to say something similar because I think that in our culture we don't talk about death and dying or the end of our life very much or at all. It's like this we're always going to be productive and then by the end we get to enjoy the fruits of time, which is pension and so on, the fruits of, you know, time, which is pension and so on. And I think for me it's been a process, getting to know myself and my own mortality more. That's actually been the biggest factor. So it's similar to what you're saying, andy, that knowing and understanding that we're not here forever, and that has helped me to play more and take greater risks, I suppose, because I know that there are no guarantees of tomorrow even.

Yasmin: 53:44

But we live in a culture where we have been sort of conditioned to believe that we can just go on and on and make plans for years to, you know, in the future. We don't know if we're ever going to reach that. So I think when you really start to deeply understand that I think it's a lifetime process I'm not done with it yet but when you start looking at that more deeply, I think that will help you navigate the choices in life and maybe also help you to follow that inner voice that we all have. I mean, of course, that can look different for each and every one.

Yasmin: 54:25

Not everyone wants to go on a crazy adventure. For some people, they might want to deepen their life where they already are, which I think it's an adventure in itself too or want to travel, like you you guys are, for instance. So I think there's no one, of course, no one thing. We have our own callings and purposes here in life, and I think that's also what self-directed education is about, I feel, is to know yourself and to get to know yourself and be able to follow that inner calling that you have, and everything should just really be about supporting that and not about somebody else's dream or somebody else's calling.

Cecilie Conrad: 55:03

So yeah, yeah, yeah, just do it. It's the short version, right yeah?

Jesper Conrad: 55:11

exactly no. No, the respect of the time. I'm sorry.

Cecilie Conrad: 55:17

But really it is. I mean, time is there's not going to be any better time. It's not going to get easier if the kids get older or you know. Somehow at some point you have to make a decision and make that choice and do something else, if that's what's calling.

Yasmin: 55:37

Yeah.

Cecilie Conrad: 55:37

Yeah.

Jesper Conrad: 55:39

For people who want to find the project you're involved in. Is there a website address? How do they find you?

Yasmin: 55:51

Yes, so we have a few different ones. Satva Land is the retreat center and community hub site. We can share all the links with you if you like. And then we have some social media links to the learning group and the learning co-op and to Satva Land itself so people can take a look if they like and if they want to come and visit they can just contact us. We also just had a family retreat on our first family retreat, our first retreat full stop, and Sattva Land's first family retreat, which was Interesting, it was amazing.

Jesper Conrad: 56:34

So, Yasmin and Andy. It was a really big pleasure and I was glad to explore the subject with you and unpack some of them. Thanks a lot for your time.

Yasmin: 56:46

Thank you so much for having us. It's been such a pleasure. We could have continued talking for much longer.

Cecilie Conrad: 56:52

Yeah, we could definitely.

Yasmin: 56:55

Yeah.

Cecilie Conrad: 56:55

Thank you.

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