She burned out trying to change the world, and learned transformation begins inside the body.

Marea came following years of environmental and social justice organizing during and after her studies at UNC Charlotte, where she studied Public Advocacy Communication and Urban Studies. She worked in student organizing and on grassroots campaigns, mobilizing students around environmental issues, including efforts to ban plastic grocery bags in California. The work was intense and became unsustainable. She felt burnout.

When Marea came to Esalen, she was carrying exhaustion and grief for our strained ecological systems. She could no longer override her depletion. A severe illness consumed her mere days before her scheduled arrival on the land. An experience that was for her an intense physical and spiritual purge. As she landed and began to heal, Marea learned to slow down. She began to notice her fear instead of pushing through it. “I have been living with a lot of fear,” she shared.

Something shifted in how she understood her work. She began to see that external change and internal transformation were inseparable. Now she carries that understanding forward, building a different foundation for the change she wants to bring into the world.