Living As A Queer Couple In Samara, Costa Rica

Ever wondered what would happen if you just quit your job, packed your stuff and moved to the beach in Costa Rica? 

Jay and Aaron Quinn have done just that. In the first months of 2024, the couple quit their jobs and moved from the US state of Georgia to Samara, Costa Rica without ever having set foot in the country. They had never even used their passports together as a couple, and they have been together for 12 years. 

So, just who are these daredevils, you ask? 

In reality, Aaron (they/them) and Jay (she/her) knew that the move to Costa Rica was all a part of their higher mission to continue their healing journey that intensified during the pandemic. They have experienced the joy in making their decision work - becoming content creators, authors, and founders of the More Love More Kindness Summit this June at the Fenix hotel. 

Find out about their LGBTQ+ healing summit here: https://fenixretreatcenter.com/

Mentioned in the podcast:
Book: Seven and a Half Lessons About the Brain
Book: The Mountain Is You    

Find Momma Jay:
Website: Askmommajay.com
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@askmommajay
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/askmommajay/reels/ 

Rainbow Relocation Strategies

***The Adventure Calls podcast is brought to you by Rainbow Relocation Strategies, the first and only LGBTQ+ centered company focused on creating your international relocation strategy for when you're ready to move abroad. ***

Website: www.rainbowrelo.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rainbowrelo

Your host, Jessica Drucker, can be found online at:

Jessicadrucker.com
Book: How To Move Abroad  
Guide: Adventure Calls Global Relocation Guide 

Transcript

0:10

Welcome back to the Adventure Calls podcast. I'm your host, Jess Drucker. As always on the show, we seek to empower LGBTQ folks and their families to move, live and thrive abroad. And on today's podcast, we're talking to Jay and Aaron, a queer couple that relocated to Costa Rica relatively recently, just 4 months ago. Last week we had on Sara Elena, also an American expat living in Costa Rica, but she's got a thriving business as an relocation specialist for Costa Rica. So we got into her story, but we also got into the nuts and bolts on how to move to Costa Rica and resources to improve your journey. This week, I wanted to talk to Jay and Aaron because they're such new expats. I wanted to hear their story and what their life was like in Costa Rica. But as you'll see from today's episode, we went way deeper and got way more interesting than just learning about their life in Samara, Costa Rica. We learned all about their lives, their backstory. We learned what it's like for Aaron as someone with autism to move abroad. You'll hear about how they fully quit their jobs, sold their house, and they moved to Costa Rica even though a lot of people didn't believe that they would. And these are to people that have definitely never lived abroad before, and as you'll see, Jay, this is her first passport stamp at all, and they moved to Costa Rica just 4 months ago. So this is about what it's like for 2 queer folks to live in a beach town in Costa Rica, so if you're here for that, you're definitely gonna be served for that. There's a lot in this episode about healing and the healing journey that these to folks are on and why moving to Costa Rica and moving outside of the US allowed them to silence a lot of the negativity and fear to increase and improve their healing journey as well. And then you'll see that these people have moved and become full on entrepreneurs. They're running a summit. We'll talk about that, and you'll also hear when the power goes out as it tends to do in Costa Rica and how we just kept right on talking and everything worked out just fine. So if you were wondering what it's like to move abroad as a queer couple to Costa Rica, keep on listening because you will hear all about it today. Erin, Jay, thank you so much for joining me on the adventure calls podcast today. I'm so excited to talk to you. And please let us know, first of all, where are you sitting right now? On the futon of our apartment to 200 meters from the beach. Okay. Now you're just rubbing it in. We didn't even get started yet. You got you are based in Costa Rica in Samara, if I'm not mistaken. Correct. And I definitely wanna get to talking about how in the world you ended up living in Costa Rica and all of that stuff. And I'm sure it's been a journey that I can't wait to hear you talk about. But can we first talk a little bit about where you all are from and, I mean, really, how you all met, if you don't mind? Oh, yeah. Absolutely. I grew up in Michigan. And this is Erin speaking, so we can get the voices right. Erin, I grew up in Michigan. I moved down to Georgia when I was 12 years old because my dad worked for General Motors. Grew up there from then on and met her at, 22 in a bar in the middle of Atlanta. We just we we really shouldn't have we shouldn't have met each other. There was no reason for us to Erin was 22 years old, and I was 36 with a 12 year old child. And we lived 99 miles from driveway to driveway, and we just ended up in this to and a half hour conversation in a lesbian bar in Atlanta. Just both of us almost walked away when we found out how old the other one was because we were just like, no. That is It's ridiculous. That's ridiculous. But both of us also kind of said in our minds, you know, I I really like their personality. It'll be fun. Yeah. Let's let's have a good time. And Yeah. You know, it doesn't have to be serious. And and how many years ago was that now? 16. June 22nd will be 16 years. Look at you with the due you know the date is that the date you met? Yes. Oh my god. Also, the gayest thing ever to know that you were 99 miles from driveway to driveway? Like, come on. 99.7. Okay. That's awesome. And I did yeah. So I I saw that I that you so you have a daughter, Jay. Right? And how old is your daughter now? We actually have 3 children, but the daughter that I had when we came into the relationship is 28. Oh, wow. Wait a minute. So you have 3 kids? What what's happening there? How big is your family? What's happening? We have 3 children and 3 grandchildren. Yeah. Yes. So we, when, in to when did we have Dalen? We had a, we had a took a foster child in when he was a teen. And now he has a son, and we still we still consider him our child, and he still he considers us grandchildren to grandparents to to his child. And then 2016. Yeah. 20 2017, I think, is what is what we got him. Sometime around that. But these We were foster parents. We were. And then, we also, adopted an adult girl who lived with us for a couple of years. She was at the time, she was married to her husband. And then after their relationship went south, she continued to stay with us. And it was at that point, not too long before the divorce Strategies just felt like God, the universe, however you word it, we felt like God said we are supposed to be her parent, and she needed us at the time. And so now she has the new man that she has married has a 3 year old, and they have a baby together. So Oh my gosh. So how do you feel being so far away from them on the beach? I mean, I I know you probably feel on the beach. But how do you feel being so so far from your family? I'm assuming now listen. It's very gay. A lot of my clients wanna bring their whole family with them chosen or not. Right? But did you bring your whole family with you? And if not, how does it feel being away from them? We did not. They're all they're all in Georgia. And and they knew, like, we're not the kind of grandparents that are gonna be all up in your kids and babysitting all the time. Mhmm. You know, we have goals and intentions. Yeah. Okay. So okay. And I wanna get to all the work that you're doing. It's very exciting to me. But before we do that, I think I'm right when I say neither of you at all lived abroad before. And from what I understand, you had never even been to Costa Rica before you moved there. Is that true? What were you thinking? What's happening there? Oh, yeah. That's that's very accurate. We had never been to Costa Rica. This was Costa Rica was the first stamp on my passport. Year, and this was the first stamp. Aaron had traveled some, passport last year, and this was the first stamp. Aaron had traveled some as as a younger teen in school and call. I had gone to Europe, but I had I had never really flown out of the country. And so, yeah, we took a big risk, but we felt like we do have a message. We do we do have stuff to to, and the best way to do it is to practice amazing self care and make our lives be what we want it to be. Putting it into practice. Right? Like, at you practicing what you preach. And so, yeah, you said last year. So, basically, how long have you actually been living in Costa Rican? 4 months. 4 and a half months. Yeah. Really? Okay. I saw that, but I didn't know if that was, like, a few months old call you were at, like, the 6 month point. So you've been here you've been there 4 months. And what so, you know, you're sort of maybe still in what I refer to with clients is, like, the honeymoon phase. But are you have you felt the a shift coming from being in, like, a honeymoon phase of, like, this is the best thing we ever did to any sort of, like, homesickness or, like, coming up against, like, this is hard. I'm feeling like like that all the Spanish or the food or something where you're feeling like it's hard. Well, I have autism. So change for me is not always the easiest. But the first the first to weeks, you know, we got here, I settled down, got to the place that we were staying at for those 1st to weeks. And I had the thought, what in the world did I just do? Yeah, we definitely both Strategies at the beginning. And I and and, I mean, it was a huge culture shock. Even I think we said in one of our videos that even the birdsongs are different. I mean, everything, the view of the sky, the night sky is different. Everything is different. So knows that, you know, the the ambient noise that there's no there's no crickets here. You know, the the insects sound different and the cicadas The cicadas. Yeah. The cicadas don't sound like they're screaming. It's so different. Yeah. Completely different than monkeys. Angie, don't you just don't hear English spoken a lot on the street when people are passing by, when you walk by people, when they're down you know, when we're on our balcony and they're downstairs, it's not English being spoken. So it was difficult, but we I call tell you the the the best thing that helped us is we read 2 books. And again, I know there's TikToks on this, but we read 2 books that just it was like the universe handed us those to books on a silver platter and said, this is how your brain works. This is what you can expect when you go there. This is why your brain is going to panic. This is this is what's behind the scenes. And so I just feel like because we understood the background of it, it was so easy for us to manage it. And we just practiced beautiful self care too. And what what's the book? So we we can put those in the show notes as a reference, but do you do you happen to know what those books are called? You holding them right now? 7 and a half Rainbow lessons by Lisa Feldman Barrett. And the second one was the mountain is you by Brianna Wells. Jess, w I e s t. Brianna Weiss. And so and you were able to kind of, like, intellectualize your experience. Like, this is why this is what we're feeling, and this is also why we're feeling it. And that was what helped you sort of Yes. Because ignorance breeds fear. And when you understand with that knowledge, you're able to calm the sympathetic nervous system in your in your body and think about it logically and then move forward. So what was you know, you got there and you were like, well, what did we just do? But what were you what was it like the few months before you moved? I'd like to know how you guys felt. Was it mostly excitement? Was there fear? And then did you tell people how early on in your decision making journey did you tell people or did you keep it for yourselves until closer to the end before you moved? Well, we have talked about moving for, like, 8 years. Because it there was something that we we had said we wanted to do, we wanted to do, we wanted to do. Nobody believed. But we had a we had a a decision moment happen. 1 of the gentlemen that we went to church with was unfortunately in a motorcycle accident and died not far from us, a 150 feet from the church. And on a Wednesday night as we were heading there and we both kind of looked at each other and said, you can be here today and gone in the moment. It just kinda gave us a a good knock to the noggin and said, go. It's time to go. It's now or never. Yeah. I mean, I I hear that actually quite a bit. You know, the first person I met traveling who told me that story, their brother had just died of a sudden massive heart attack, just like that. And they were, like, to. And so her and her husband were just like, what are we doing? You know, we talk about this all the time. Let's go do it. You know? And now I'm just moving, 20 years later, they live in, like, a cave house in Spain that's, like, built into some caves and run their own businesses and are just living the life. You know? And also they're very healthy and in shape because they do quite a lot of walking in mountain areas. But, you know, Jess. Sometimes it's like these nightmare situations that make you realize it's it's now or never, and you don't wanna regret it. Yeah. Wow. Okay. Alright. So then you tell everyone, no. Seriously, we bought plane tickets. Plane tickets I find to be like a real period on the sentence. We bought plane tickets. We're going. We we sold our sold our house and sold everything we own and Move in with our best friends for 2 months. So I think at that point, it was pretty real to everybody. And I think our both of our mothers had the biggest trouble with it. Sure. I mean, they just were you know, they're convinced, like most mothers that are in their seventies, that anywhere besides here is dangerous. Anywhere besides near me has got to be dangerous. And once we really hit them with statistics and, you know, the biggest statistic that I would use all the time is, mom, the latest stats, the United States of America is, like, 100 and 29th in safest countries in the world, and Costa Rica is 29th. I think that's quite a bit of difference. Mhmm. And, you know, I just repeated that statistic over and over again to people because there are still a ton of people who just are like, is it safe? That's probably the most popular question that we get is, is it safe there? Do you feel safe there? Is it safe there yet? Yeah. You know, but what you did is something that I actually advise, a lot of the time is I get 1 or 2 sentences that you commit to, like, muscle memory. And when people throw their doubts at you, you have these things that you say it's muscle memory. You don't even have to think about it. So there's no room for your your fears to trickle in because they're going to try. They're going to do what they can to keep you to stay. And it's not evil. It's not it's not like they mean to be mean, but, like, people don't want you to leave. You know? And it's easy for people to try and, like, talk you out of it or at least make you doubt it. But you committed these these, in your case, data to muscle memory and just just kept repeating it to people. And it's also fully true that it's, like, way safer in Costa Rica than in the US generally. That's good. That's good advice for people. That, you know, that that really is good advice. I mean, our fears try to leak in over and over, and we kinda have a policy that we live by. And it's that if we make a decision, if the decision is made, we've already done the research and put the time and effort to into it. The worry doesn't serve any purpose after the decision is made. We just move forward. I like that a lot. It's it it it's worthless to to waffle and and do it it doesn't contribute. You've already thought through it enough to make the decision. I love that. I really do. So how'd you decide on Samara? Because this is one of my favorite beaches in Costa Rica. Yeah. You yeah. You probably don't know, but I I did live in Costa Rica for a year, and I done a a lot of, like, living and Strategies and stuff in in in Costa Rica and Latin America in general. But Costa Rica is a magical it real and and I don't mean to, like, Disneyfy it, but it really is this amazing sort of, like, Venn diagram center of just incredible nature, also really affordable, excellent health care, just really just all the sort of things that people are looking for when they, you know, if they wanna move to, like, a Latin American country? We had a checklist though. Yeah. We did. We had a checklist. We What was it? Number 1, I wanted to swim in the ocean every day. Yes. And not every beach, not every ocean in Costa Rica is swimmable. There's a lot of rocky coast and all that. We wanted to continue. We've we've done so much healing and working on our health that we wanted to continue that journey. So we wanted a place that had better air, water, and food than what we were currently experiencing. Yeah. Well, you moved to a blue zone, I think. Right? Yep. Wanna cost the entire peninsula is a blue zone. Exactly. And then we didn't want a car. We didn't wanna have to have a car or mess with any of that. I see you guys riding bikes a lot on your TikTok. Yeah. It's amazing. Yeah. And we just wanted a more simple way of life. You know? I mean, we we're gonna have to we're moving a mile from the ferry, so now we're gonna have to buy a wagon to bring our groceries back to our apartment. You know? I mean, that's as simple as you get. We have to I mean, it's just so much more simplified. The fridges are small here, so you don't you know, before in the states, we would cook and then make 4 bags of leftover vegetarian chili. And here, you you know, when we decide what we wanna make for dinner, we go down to the grocery store, which is 250 yards from us, buy it, and then come back and cook. It's just a simpler way of life. For sure. And, Erin, I noticed you did a few cooking videos as call? Yeah. I'll probably do more eventually. With me, I have so many tastes and especially, like, texture sensitivities, the texture can be a very large trigger. So and then I have an issue with gluten, so I can't go out and buy bread. But if I want a toast or something crunchy or something bread like I just have to make it then And I was blessed with a mother that taught me how to bake from a very, very young age. And and I'm good with with doughs and I'm good with baking. And I'm, I'm finding and perfecting these gluten free recipes for myself and altering them to what I enjoy. So it works. I think it's so I mean, I don't wanna, you know, make autism like the focus of this podcast by by any means. But I just wanna say that, like, it is so it's in literally so inspiring to know that, you know, you have autism. There are lots of ways that moving abroad could trigger pretty much, you know, everything with your autism. But it doesn't it doesn't hold you back. You learn to adapt. However, you're learning to adapt and by making your own food, for example, whatever it is. But, like, that it's not something that holds you back at all. You are sitting on your futon talking to me 200 feet from the beach or meters. I can't remember which one, but still. Meters. Okay. Alright. Fine. 200 meters from the beach. I mean, you didn't let it hold you back. So I just you know, not that you need it from me, but, like, I just find it super inspiring. And I happen to work with a lot of queer folks who are very, you know, aware of their of all their intersectionality and the ways that that might be a challenge for them and their families. And, yeah, I mean, just just I just think it's amazing that nothing is holding you back from from making the move. Well, autism is just a label. It's not who I am. It's not what I am. Right. I am Move. And, you know, I have to figure out a way in how to move through this world for myself and to make it one heck of an enjoyable ride. So you know I'm not gonna let things stop me or block me from making this the best ride I can for me. Yeah. It's but, like, that's so awesome because you could I mean, you could easily just be like, well, I can't. This isn't you know, you could let your fear you could let the label be the excuse. You know, you could just say, well, I that's not something. I'm I'm not gonna do that. You know? But then you said you're just gonna say that. There's and and there's a trend with that because it you know, there is in the states a lot of fear. There's I mean, we just are that was one of our biggest goals with that was why for 8 years, we've wanted to live outside of the United States call we are just surrounded by things that make us just live in fear every day. Yeah. And I'm done with that. And isn't it amazing how it evaporates when you move somewhere else? I mean, they still have fears. Costa Ricans have fears. They're scared of things, but there's a there's a layer of just constant perma anxiety that evaporates once you leave, I find. Yeah. And that that is something that I noticed because I had fear and anxiety in the states. And, I took medications, over the counter, you know, prescriptions, what have you. And there's always this underlying anxiety that just kinda sort of rips and makes your heartbeat just a little faster than it should. And after a month here, I looked up and noticed it was gone. Wow. I I wanna talk actually about that, but not quite yet because I I I think I've I've read and seen you guys talking about how you've sort of, like, healed yourself and you've been on this wellness journey. And I wanna start back at the beginning of that. So I'm not sure what you guys did in the states before you moved down to Costa Rica, but I do know whatever you did, you quit your Jess, and you made this move fully and bravely and wildly on your own. So can you if you wanna talk a little bit about I mean, Jay, I think I understand what you did before, in therapy and stuff. But if you wanna talk a little bit about that, but, like, what what are you doing now in Costa Rica professionally and like So I I I was a therapist for almost 25 years, and, honestly, I was on a healing journey already when Erin and I met. Erin was 22 and definitely had started to think about healing. Really from the get go, we worked on healing together. We just always wanted to be better and be more healed, but it really kicked up around the pandemic. And really with with the same as a lot of people with TikTok, you know, where we did start to figure out a lot more about ourselves and the world. You know? We're so insulated in the United States, and so it just opened up our minds. And then I also think that both of us going in home, working in home together, we just also figured out because before that, we both drove a whole lot for our jobs, and so we just were away from home a lot for our jobs. And so when you have that opportunity to sit down, stay home, we both just kinda said, we don't wanna be in this rat race. When all of the distractions were gone. Everywhere you go, there you are. You have nothing left to distract yourself with. I couldn't have, you know, inane conversations with my coworkers anymore. Oh, goodness. We might lose you. The power just went off. Yeah. Costa Rica life. Thankfully, the the our our landlord has He has a small battery. Battery backup. So we'll see. Cross our fingers. Yeah. Infrastructure is the is the we had hoped that we wouldn't experience this, but that's the one problem is infrastructure. I know. I get it. In that moment, we just had to face ourselves and deal with ourselves. And we we really didn't have a choice in that anymore with the pandemic and being work from home, both of us. And so I looked at myself and I didn't wanna be who I was. I didn't like it very much. I think a lot of people feel that way. I think a lot of people listening feel that way. I think that's the sort of stuckness that a lot of people feel. Right before they take a big step is like, I don't I don't this isn't what I thought it was supposed to be. We were we served at our we had a local church that we served at. I was the youth pastor, and Aaron, did the audio visual. And we were struggling pretty pretty badly 3 years ago in our church. Our pastor, you know, I I just was honest with my pastor and said, we're really struggling right now. And we were struggling financially, emotionally, all of it. And our pastor said, you know what? I want the church to get you a cabin in the mountains for 2 days, and y'all just go take care of you for a minute. You know? Do what you need to do. Pray whatever it is. Amazing. We it was really a turning point for us. Yeah. We really sat down and realized that our Twitter feed, our Facebook feed was feeding us queer, Was just that we we watched on TV. I mean We watched Criminal Minds, Law and Order, SBU. Both of us have a lot of childhood trauma, and we just realized how much we were just repeating that trauma and supporting it. And so after that weekend, we, I turned off my Twitter and we really just started the the focus of of my first book is how we we started doing these little mini fast or, Jess, where we would spend a a measured amount of time focused on ourselves. I mean, you know, it's hard to do something all the time. So we would just kind of have these 2 week or 3 week or 4 week periods where we would say, you know what? We're not gonna we're gonna watch less TV. We're gonna eat less sugar. We're gonna, focus on self care and thinking about what we wanna think about. And from there, we really started peeling away those layers. When we when we watch less TV, we found that we didn't want to watch TV anymore. Yeah. You know, it's so interesting what I'm hearing is, like and this is also not what I expected to talk about today either, but, like, it sounds to me like the actual move was was really just a layer of your healing journey. Like, it's like you did all this healing, and then, like, the move to Costa Rica was, like, an obvious next step for you guys because you had done all this healing and you were practicing being the people that you wanted to be in these like 2 week, 3 week diets of like inspiration diets. And then you were like, no, I wanna be this all the time. And that's something that's possible somewhere else. Not here, not in the US. Yep. And, and we, you know, we took in what we could take in and I think we went as far as we could on the healing journey as we as we could. We wanted to continue to calm. We knew that every layer that we calmed our sympathetic nervous system, stopped with the TV that had the trauma on it, stopped with the music that had the trauma in it. Every layer that our sympathetic nervous system calm, we were more in touch with our spirit. And we knew coming here, there's not the the the neighborhood that we lived in was a a really nice subdivision in West Georgia, and there were gunshots Every day. 3 to 6 days a week. Just people I mean, I don't know what the hell they were moving, target practice or what, but there's no gunfire here. No. There's and there's like 50 caliber stuff that would, like, shape the house too. Yeah. And it's just and just everywhere in West Georgia. That's a I think you know, there's there's people on you know, you go to a restaurant and odds are you're gonna hear somebody yelling at the waiter or yelling at the hostess or I mean yelling at each other. And that's the ambient noise you guys were talking about. Right? That's the ambient noise we all experience as Americans because it is everywhere or it could be everywhere. That's the other thing. I once was speaking with someone who was her boyfriend was German, and she was American. And they were in a German grocery store, and there was, like, a huge something going on in the front of the grocery store in Germany. Like, so and her instinct was to hide because she thought, like, it's a moving. And his instinct was to go help because that's a normal human thing to do. And they were in Germany, so there wasn't gonna be a gun. And she was just like, what are you doing? And he's like, I'm gonna go help. Someone needs help. And her instinct was to, like, hide or find a freezer to hide in or something. You know, it's like that's like even if there's not ambient noise that's dangerous, there always could be something going on. And I and and it worked. I mean, our sympathetic nervous system have both of us have experienced some level up in healing that I never dreamed possible. Big level ups. So okay. So if you're if we're gonna lose your your Internet maybe because of the, ghost to blackouts that happened, can you talk about the summit that you're holding in June? Because you've obviously learned so much. And, obviously, you know, you you've worked as a therapist for so long. This isn't something that's, like, out of your realm anyway. But can you talk about what what your summit is that you're moving, why you're holding it, what the inspiration is? Also, just kudos to you because you just moved somewhere. You're call already being entrepreneurs and holding summits. So that's ridiculous and inspiring. But can you talk a little bit about that just in case we lose you? Yeah. We saw on our Facebook pages here, they posted and said that they had space available for this lesbian summit that they were moving. Not even to thirds of a mile down the down the beach from us. I mean, it just so happened to be happening here in San Marco Costa Rica. So the owners of this hotel and her sister, both enjoy doing retreats. So we went to this retreat and then halfway through the retreat, the owner of the hotel was like, let's do a healing retreat, man. Let's do it together. Let's do 4 year for, you know, you guys moving these retreats. So this will be our first one. She actually already had, like, the I mean, we talked about it, and the next day, it was posted. I mean, it just was so Kismet. Much. Yes. It was just charkismet. And, you know, it's one of those things where we met these people, and we just knew that this was the right path. And that happens all the time for us. You're tuned in. I think you're tuned into what you want. And when you're tuned into actually what you want, then you get what you want. Yep. And so we're gonna do this this queer women, lesbian women healing retreat to help people find their moments and fill their lives with more love and more kindness, not just for themselves, but also for them around us. Oh, you're not going to lose us. Yay. That's amazing. We're good. The lights just went back on for those who are listening. Yeah. Yeah. The universe. So, you know, we're we're we're doing this thing because we don't wanna hoard this for ourselves. We want everybody to level up. We will have to that's not altruistic at all because we want to be surrounded by people who are also leveling up. I mean, you know, that's gonna make a happier life for us. Nothing that we do is truly altruistic. We want other people to be just as tickled to be where they are and alive and in their lives as we are. We want to share the amount of joy and love and peace that we're experiencing in this healed life and in this healed place. We don't want everybody to come here to Costa Rica even though, jeez, it's amazing. But we want everybody to make every single country. I mean, we're stupid enough. We're naive enough to dream and believe that this can continue to impact the collective consciousness, not just us, but all the other people who are on the same page as us. Yeah. No. I I I totally get that. And I think, you know, especially getting getting Americans though to leave the country, to experience life in another country, That's that's a a a big thing to be able to do because I think, you know, like you said, they're so led by queer. And once you leave, you can see, like, there's a lot more goodness that you can see. And it's not, I mean, it's not like Americans don't see goodness at home, but there's definitely something about getting out. But are these, like, the the people that you envision in attending, Are these queer folks already based in Costa Rica, or are you intending for people to sort of fly in for this? Fly in, but Yeah. Whatever. Yeah. Yeah. Across the world. We do have, we're we're we're committed to doing because, again, we understand what the the the conditions are for Costa Ricans. So we do have to scholarship slots for locals that so that they can attend. So we've got those to slots set aside and earmarked, and then everybody else, we're hoping either, you know, comes from near or far. This retreat is for people who have already embarked on some level of healing and are ready to continue to level up. You know, we we feel like we have kind of the next level of information to continue to calm your sympathetic nervous system, continue to increase your emotional intelligence so that you can understand what your brain is telling you and figure out which one which parts of it to believe and which parts to recognize. Okay. I appreciate you. I love you. I know you're trying to help me, but we're we're not experiencing lack. And if we are, we're an intelligent human being, and we'll figure it out. Right. We don't need to you know, one of the big things that I did before I started healing is, maladaptive disassociations. And I think that is a huge thing that I saw with my clients as well. It's where you just come up with these false things that might happen. Yeah. There's false scenarios that may happen, and then you figure out how you would respond. But here's the thing. Your brain doesn't know the difference between your imagination and reality. Yeah. To your brain that's actually occurring. So you Jess constantly you're sending your own self into fight or flight planning for these situations that, you know, that they never going to happen. Yeah. Yeah. So the people that should attend this is called the More Love More Kindness Summit, I assume, or conference. Right. The people that should attend, I note, should be healing to. I did hear you also obviously say queer folks is is your target audience. Can you talk a little bit about, like, Jess, like, what's the queer scene where you are? I mean, are there a lot of gays? What's happening? Do you feel comfortable? What's it like for you as queer folks living in Costa Rica? Honestly? Yes. Honestly. We want the team. There's okay. So here, there are queer folks. You do see them out in the street. There's so freaking So it's we're in a rinky dink little town. This is not We should say, Semra is a small town. I think there's a total of about 2,000 people here on on average. So, yeah, I see 10% queer. But the fact is, is everyone here treats everyone with the same level of kindness and inclusion. So you don't necessarily feel like like a queer scene is necessary because I don't feel excluded in the day to day life of existence, which, you know, is why queer scenes often come into play in the Strategies and and other places because we need to find a place where we feel safe and comfortable. And where we feel like we can be ourselves. Right. You know, we've always leaned Natalie on our we're moving our families are not fully, fully they're very on board and very kind with us and call. But they're still, you know, they're they're both both of our families are very religious. And so there's still that portion that that we're not, you know It's not a 100%. Yeah. It's not a 100%. So we've always leaned heavily on our queer family. You know? The church that we went to was a primarily probably 65, 70% gay. Our pastor is a lesbian, and so we've always, Yeah. I know. In in freaking rural Jess Georgia. I would not have expected that. That's my stereotype and prejudice for sure, but I definitely would not have believed that. It would be accurate though for you not to expect that. Yeah. It would be very accurate for you not to expect that. But But we don't feel we don't miss a queer saying here. Because we just are and everyone here just is, and it doesn't matter. And it's never been so refreshing. It's so weird. We're unique looking women. I mean, I have to full sleeves of tattoos. Indeed. And I am what is affectionately known as a 100 footer because you can tell I'm gay from a 100 feet away. That's if you can tell my gender. And nobody stares at us here. Not Not a single one. Pass. If we say hola or buenas this or buenas you know, whatever, it's not we they rarely even make eye contact. They just speak, smile, and move on. It's so different for us. We've never experienced that. Even in at even in downtown Atlanta. You've met town. Still get people who make eye contact for a little longer and stare Jess again because we look unique. They don't care here that we look unique. When I first moved here, my Mohawk was purple. And even then, just we'd moving. We you don't get stares here. That's what we've experienced. I mean and we meet people and we're talked to like human beings. Like and as another another person deserving of respect because you are part of humanity. It's fantastic. And it doesn't matter if they're straight, queer, cis, het, trans it doesn't matter. Everyone here is just human. And it's fantastic. Yeah. I think that's something that people sort of overestimate is when you move to a very heavily Catholic country, for example, people might think that's not gonna be as LGBTQ friendly, but that's only one side of it. There's also, like, a social fabric of, like, you really like you say, but, like, kindness. You know, I think Portugal is another one where a lot of queer folks like to move to, and it's very Catholic country. And yet, like, you're moving, nobody bats an eye, nobody makes it a thing. You know, you have the right to exist in the way that you are Jess as they have the right to exist in the way that they are and, like, that because there's, like, a social fabric or network that keeps people together rather than looking at your differences. I mean, that, you know, it could sound a little bit like, you know, utopia. But in a way, it feels like utopia, especially if you're coming from a place where you're noticed all the time for being queer as your number one defining factor. Accurate. Thank you. That was my soapbox. What does I wanna this is one of my final questions for you before we go. To you, especially now, when now that you're through the looking glass and on the other side, what does freedom mean to you? You know, the crazy thing is that I just like, my friend that we have met that we really like here from, she's originally from Argentina. She moved here when she was 7 12. And she sent me this book called Jonathan Livingston Siegel. I it completely changed my vision of freedom because in this, it's a seagull who loves to fly, but the other seagulls just want to fly in order to get a small piece of bread or just to they just want to live in their little small box, only fly enough to get a bite of food and then come down. But he wants to really fly, really be able to soar. And so the freedom that he talks about in the book is just so different than anything I think as someone from the United States that I've ever thought about and experienced. It's the ability to be able to not only uncover who you are and what your desires are, but to be able to freely express them and carry them out. Beautiful. I want to be able to exist in a world just being me without feeling like my existence is a burden. I think a lot of queer people just heard that. My existence is not a burden. It's not a burden to society. It's not a burden to family. My existence is beautiful, being human and being valued for being human and doing my best to to express that humanity in only the way that I can. Well, I mean, the the whole root of more love, more kindness is that it's the and and that's the last chapter of this book that I'm working on. The the first book that I'm working on is that compassion is the measuring tool that you can use for your level of heal. If there's anybody that you can't show compassion and more love and more kindness to, then that is an unhealed portion in your brain. That's still a sticking point. Wow. Yes. Amen. Amen to all of this. You guys, I wanna attend your conference. Where can people find you? Where can people find you on TikTok? I don't know what other socials you're on. And do you have a website for this conference where people can sign up? Okay. So pretty much everything is under the Ask Mama Jay, TikTok, Facebook. And it's the southern it's please note to everybody, it is the southern spelling of mama, the way my mama always spell m o m m a. So it's ask mama j and then Jess s j a y. Yep. I'll link to that in the show notes for sure. And that's Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and then the, retreat. If you wanna learn more about the treat, it's gonna be Phoenix, and that's, f e n I x. So that's the Spanish way of spelling Phoenix. Retreat center.com. And that's that. Yeah. You can you can see a little bio about us and and get a lot more information about about that retreat there. And we're on, Instagram and Facebook also and have a little small presence on YouTube. And I do have the a mental health tool coming out next month. We're working on, the storefront, and it is a mental health tool that helps hack your brain and calm your sympathetic nervous system, produce more happy com chemicals and improve clarity and and things like that. So it's a deck of it's a deck of cards that's to cards that And they're called Sukhakarts, s u k h a, Sukhakarts. Sign me up. Send me a link. Thank you so much. I'm so glad that I had you guys on. I it was so inspiring. I mean, I really just wanna talk about, like, are there gay people in Americans what's your move to Costa Rica been like? And this was so much Move, honestly, healing and enlightening than I could have expected. So thank you very much for for coming on the show today. Thank you for having us. So I hope you enjoy today's show. All the links from today's episode will be in the show notes including my book, How to Move Abroad and Why it's the Jess Thing You'll Do. In addition, we've got our adventure calls global relocation guide. And listen, if there's a voice inside of you that's saying that you wish you could move abroad, that you wish you could live somewhere else, remember, not everybody's having those wishes. Not everybody has a little voice inside them that wonders what it's like to live somewhere else. Not everyone goes on vacation and opens up Zillow or some other app and looks at, you know, apartment prices to see, like, what's it really like to live here? Not everybody does that. So if you're having these dreams and you feel like that's something you really wanna do, I'd much rather you take a big risk than regret never having taken such a leap at all. So if you're interested or you're just starting to question moving abroad, head over to rainbow Relocation. We've got a lot of great blog posts and information for what it's like to live abroad as queer person and, of course, you can reach out directly to me there and we can set up a call to discover where you might like to move, what your strategy for moving might be, and how you can set up a life and thrive in another country. But for now, thanks so much for listening, and I hope you enjoyed this episode of the Adventure Calls podcast.