Reset in the Mountains: Wellness Off the Grid

Canvas walls, a real bed and the quiet of the woods.

I haven’t had coffee in three weeks. Raised in Seattle, that’s saying something.

What pulled me away from coffee wasn’t willpower, but a simple sequence of events that shifted me into a different rhythm. There was no withdrawal, no battle with cravings—just a different way of being.

I went off the grid for a week, and fair warning: what came back with me wasn’t just a reset, it was a wellness novella. Sans coffee.

I spent a week in the mountains, completely off grid—no cell service, no Wi-Fi, no clocks. Life was measured only by the gong that rang at 8am, 1pm, and 6pm, calling us to anti-inflammatory, organic, vegetarian meals. (If you know me, you know I prioritize protein like a full-time job… a few days in, I was dreaming of steak.)

I don’t think I saw a single airplane streak across the sky, which feels almost impossible these days. But my nervous system knew this was exactly what it needed to return to calm.

Through meditation, yoga, hiking, endless sauna-cold plunge cycles, and long floats in the hot spring pools, I could feel the edges of myself start to stitch back together. I noticed dragonflies skimming water, bees humming nearby, the river carrying on with its own ancient song. Slowly, all those frayed nerve endings began to bond back into place.

River water, wild and unfiltered.

The sound bath was its own remarkable experience. It wasn’t just gongs or bowls; it was a whole symphony of instruments, woven together with breathwork and guided meditation, all designed to calm the nervous system and integrate body and mind. One instrument drew me in completely. I’m not even sure what it was—something like a tiny piano crossed with an accordion. You literally breathed with it, inhaling as the bellows expanded, exhaling as they collapsed, and the chords shifted with each breath. For a while, it was as if the whole room was breathing together, music and lungs in perfect time. That concert of breath, sound, and presence was profound in a way that caught me completely off guard. It left me more attuned, as if my senses had been recalibrated and opened wider to whatever came next.

One afternoon after a thunderstorm, I inhaled that rare perfume of rain meeting soil—petrichor. My whole body lit up. They say our attraction to it is thousands of times stronger than a shark to blood in the water. It doesn’t happen often in this modern life, but when it does, something primal wakes up.

The last time I can remember being hijacked like that was at a work dinner years ago, when someone ordered a tomahawk steak. One bite and my brain refused to do anything else but surrender to the experience. My pupils dilated, conversation paused, and my dinner guests laughed at my response: “I can’t talk right now!” Just pure, ridiculous, sensory joy.

It struck me that these moments, rare as they are, always seem to come through the senses. Which is why the waters felt like their own kind of revelation.

At Breitenbush, the hot springs themselves felt alive. More than heat, they carried minerals—calcium, magnesium, potassium, sodium, even trace amounts of lithium. Scientists are studying how lithium, in particular, may calm the nervous system, support mood, and even play a role in brain health. I don’t know how much the body actually absorbs in a soak, but I know what I felt: steadier, lighter, restored. Like the water itself was medicine.

The sauna was its own ritual. A cedar cabin perched above a capped geyser, steam rising through slots in the floor—like breathing with the earth itself. The artesian water below would otherwise shoot 30 feet into the air, Old Faithful–style, but here it was tempered, channeled into waves of heat that wrapped around me, essentially wringing me out. I would sweat until I couldn’t anymore, then step outside and plunge into cold river water piped into a bath beside the cabin. Back and forth, back and forth, until I felt emptied and renewed.

One afternoon, the sun caught a prism hanging in the sauna window. Suddenly the cedar room itself was filled with rainbow light, steam swirling with color, and for a moment it felt like I was being bathed in something otherworldly. It reminded me of standing in Gaudí’s Sagrada Família, when the early evening sun streamed through stained glass and the whole cathedral was washed in shifting hues. Both moments carried the same feeling: being completely immersed in light, overwhelmed in the best way, with a deep sense of wholeness.

The accommodations were simple but thoughtful—raised platform canvas tents with actual beds, desks, and plenty of space. They also offered heated yurts, several small lodge rooms, and camping. Open-air showers beside the river jolted you awake in the best way. Not “resort” luxury, but the kind of luxury our bodies crave: comfort without excess, wildness close enough to remind us of who we are.

An open-air shower beside the river, nestled in the trees.

This week was a reset button. A step out of the sensory overload of our world and back into something much older. And I am so grateful for it.

For me, it was a reminder of why wellness has always been the thread running through my personal life and my career—because it is central to my being. These days, balance feels less like a destination and more like a fleeting glimpse. But in those moments—breathing in petrichor, soaking in mineral waters, lying still in a sound bath, sweating in a cedar sauna bathed in rainbow light, tasting food that truly heals—I felt it. And that glimpse reminded me that wellness isn’t separate from my goals, it is one of my goals.

#Breitenbush Hot Springs, Willamette National Forest, Oregon