The Romantic Island Retreat You’ve Never Heard Of (& How To Go There With The Greenfields!)

Ben Greenfield [00:00:00]: My name is Ben Greenfield, and on this episode of the Boundless Life Podcast, we are literally taking out every toxin you can possibly imagine here.

Mara [00:00:10]: So we truly want you to feel better when you leave than when you arrived, and that is going to start with the food.

Ben Greenfield [00:00:17]: Welcome to the Boundless Life with me, your host, Ben Greenfield.

Ben Greenfield [00:00:21]: I'm a personal trainer, exercise physiologist, and nutritionist, and I'm passionate about helping you discover unparalleled levels of health, fitness, longevity, and beyond. What you are about to hear is a podcast I recorded in, of all places, Belize. I was pretty pleasantly surprised at how cool this little country, I guess it is, is. And, I went to this place called Pranamaya and met with the team there and fell in love with it. And as a matter of fact, I not only recorded a podcast, but I'm going to lead a retreat there in November. So visit the show notes for all the goodies, including to come join me and my wife at a couple's retreat in Belize this November. How cool is that? BenGreenfieldLife.com/Pranamaya. That's a mouthful.

Ben Greenfield [00:01:20]: P-R-A-N-A-M-A-Y-A. Enjoy the episode. Oh man, I've never, never been to Belize.

Mara [00:01:33]: You've never been to Belize? Wow.

Ben Greenfield [00:01:35]: How did you discover Belize?

Mara [00:01:36]: Unbeliezable.

Ben Greenfield [00:01:37]: Oh my gosh, please everybody start groaning now. Um, this is the way, this is the way it's gonna go. Um, what, like, why Belize? Like, how did you discover Belize?

Mara [00:01:47]: It was a last-minute decision to come here a year ago for a solo scuba diving trip because this is the world's second largest reef system and I wanted to come scuba diving and I've been looking for a luxury a hotel where I could bring in wellness retreats. Yeah. And so this property presented itself for me to come. I came—

Ben Greenfield [00:02:06]: the property that we're on right now?

Mara [00:02:07]: The property that we're on right now. I personally came here a year ago and vetted this place to see if this was something I'd want to collaborate, do projects with.

Ben Greenfield [00:02:17]: What's the, what's the world's largest reef?

Ben Greenfield [00:02:19]: Do you know?

Mara [00:02:19]: Australia.

Ben Greenfield [00:02:20]: Okay, I was getting— Great Barrier Reef, Australia. Would have nailed it. Yeah, you're on Jeopardy. Um, so I think some people, embarrassingly, including myself up until like a month ago, might not even know like where Belize is. Is this off the coast of India, South Africa?

Mara [00:02:35]: Right, yes, we are way out. What's so great about Belize is it's so easy to get to because we're in Central America. So it's a 90-minute flight from Miami. It's less than a 3-hour flight from Texas. So it's really convenient to be able to hop here. It's an English-speaking country as well. And then they take the US dollar.

Ben Greenfield [00:02:54]: I noticed that, 'cause I actually flew here from Mexico 'cause I was over in Mexico and I got got in, and I'm still speaking Spanish to everybody, and everybody's speaking back in English, right?

Mara [00:03:03]: Yeah, I did the same when I got here. I was so excited to use my Spanish, and I was like, I don't get to speak Spanish here. So there's a mix of about 5 different cultures here though, and some Spanish is spoken, but the main language is English.

Ben Greenfield [00:03:15]: Yeah, I want to come back to like what this place is, but you, you came over scuba diving, but you said you were looking for a place to host retreats. So what's your background in this whole?

Mara [00:03:28]: So my, I did my pre-med studies, but I didn't know which field of medicine I was gonna go into. And my family was in the rock and roll side of business. And so I went into the family business and I became the travel manager for over a decade for the Rolling Stones, Shangri-La Entertainment, Steve Bing, Martin Scorsese, Jerry Lee Lewis. And I joke that I got my MBA on tour. And, but through that entire time, and I was working for my family, my aunt who was the travel director and owner of the company, there was the whisper that was still in the back of my head of calling of medicine, of medicine. And I threw my back out while I was on tour, laid me out on the floor, and my aunt said, you need to go.

Ben Greenfield [00:04:06]: Or crowd surfing, or just like—

Mara [00:04:07]: yeah, totally. I was headbanging, doing the whole thing. And my aunt said, you need to go to my chiropractor/acupuncturist. And I said, I don't know what either of those two things mean, but I'm willing to do anything. That first visit, he had me lay face up on the table. I was like, what's going on? My back is over here. I felt better within one visit. Within three visits, I was back on the road and touring, and I had no pain and my light bulb instantly—

Ben Greenfield [00:04:30]: This is like chiropractor slash acupuncture?

Mara [00:04:31]: Yeah, he was a double board certified physician. He's actually Mick's, one of Mick's doctors. And I'm still in touch with him to this day. He was my mentor. My light bulb went off and I thought, this is the most brilliant medicine I've ever experienced. And this was my calling. And so I left the family business and working for my aunt and I went to medical school, started in New York City, Did my residency then in San Francisco, and here we are 15 years later. But I have wanted this entire time to bridge these two worlds.

Mara [00:05:04]: I have a very unique niche of being a travel manager for the most discerning clientele around the world, going into the best hotels around the world. And then also having—

Ben Greenfield [00:05:14]: With only brown M&Ms in the green room.

Mara [00:05:16]: Oh, exactly. Yeah. And so I've been looking for a property for almost 2 decades at this point to be able to merge these 2 specialties. And I came to Pranamaya and this just hit all of my checklists, every single thing. I joke that I put my Mick Jagger goggles on when I walk into a hotel, and this was the perfect property from the location. Like you said, we're in Central America, it's so easy to get to from the United States, um, the English speaking, the US dollar. It's healthy, it's clean, it's safe for a woman to be here traveling. I've traveled the world alone mostly.

Mara [00:05:51]: So this hit all those points.

Ben Greenfield [00:05:53]: And then locking your doors with me?

Mara [00:05:55]: No, we don't lock our doors. We were barefoot the whole time because it's so safe.

Ben Greenfield [00:05:59]: Or I showed up, you're like, yeah, just walk around naked.

Mara [00:06:02]: I actually did say that too.

Ben Greenfield [00:06:04]: So, so real quick though, because I, I thought this was interesting what you said about your back. So this, this guy, this chiropractor, acupuncturist, um, you had back pain and you said you lay down on your On your back?

Mara [00:06:18]: Yeah, I was face up.

Ben Greenfield [00:06:19]: He treated the front of your body? How does that work?

Mara [00:06:22]: So we have something called meridians, and these are invisible highways that are coursing around our body, and they have starting points and endpoints that correlate to different organ systems. Along those invisible highways, we have something called acupuncture points. This is a concentric area that has an indication for pathology and physiology. So we know through brain mapping of modern evidence-based medicine that we can increase blood flow to certain parts of the brain, and then that that message goes out to the rest of the body. So I can use a solid stainless steel, tiny, tiny acupuncture needle to help light up the brain, which then releases neurochemicals and neurons throughout the body.

Ben Greenfield [00:07:01]: I've had acupuncture before. Is the reason that when you put a needle in, it doesn't hurt because it's so— the, the size of it is so small it doesn't hit nerves?

Mara [00:07:10]: Yeah, there's that. Well, we can— nerves are quite intelligent. They don't want to be cut, so they can actually feel something coming, and they'll kind of move a little bit out of the way. Sometimes those needles are just a little bit faster, and you can And the person will feel it. It's almost kind of like when you hit your elbow and you get this numb, tingly feeling, but it goes away like that. So through guided breathwork while I'm doing the insertion of the needles, most people don't even feel anything because, yeah, they're such a tiny gauge of a needle. If I drop them on the floor, I can never find the things.

Ben Greenfield [00:07:37]: Yeah. So if somebody had low back pain, how many, like, needles would be going in?

Mara [00:07:40]: Well, it depends on where they're at in that healing process. So if this is an acute trauma, their back is in spasm, I'm definitely not going to needle the low back because it's just going to make it more angry. So I'll do what I had experienced these remote points that are going to influence. So, you know about how we have different muscle trains in the body, right? These posterior chains, anterior lateral chains, right? When you're doing a deadlift, you're working that posterior chain. It's the same idea with a needle. I could put a needle in the back of the calf to influence that posterior chain to release the low back.

Ben Greenfield [00:08:13]: Right. It's kind of like when the front of my shoulder hurts, like the brachialis, I've been hitting too much pickleball, which I might have been doing here. There's pickleball here, which I was pleased to find out. And then if I work kind of like under my rotator cuff in the back where it doesn't hurt at all, like if I just lay over a foam roller. Yes, you can really mash in that area. It releases the front of the shoulder.

Mara [00:08:32]: Right, exactly. Like, I would not needle the front of your shoulder right now because you've been using it in an acute way. I would needle coming down to the elbow, the hand. Yeah, I didn't even come down to your feet and your ankles to help release that.

Ben Greenfield [00:08:44]: Okay, so, so you, you came here to Belize, you're doing scuba diving, then you found this place. And it's kind of interesting because we flew into Belize from Mexico, and then we took the little, what do we call it, little pulp river. Yeah, I love those little places.

Mara [00:08:58]: Yeah, I know, they're the best. Those Cessnas are great.

Ben Greenfield [00:09:00]: Best part's the landing, right?

Mara [00:09:02]: Because you're the— it's like you're the pilot on a plane.

Ben Greenfield [00:09:04]: Usually you can't see, you know, the landing, right, on a passenger jet. And it's just so surreal to, to see the runway, and it almost feels like you're Navy pilot landing on aircraft carrier or something. So we land and then we got on a quick shuttle, like a 5-minute shuttle through town and then like a 4-minute boat ride out to this little— Yeah, our private island technically.

Mara [00:09:29]: We're on an island.

Ben Greenfield [00:09:30]: Yeah.

Mara [00:09:30]: Yes, they're called cays here. So this is called Placencia Cay. The town that we're— C-A-Y? Yes, C-A-Y-E. There's an E at the end. So the town is called Placencia. This is the region that we're in of southern Belize. And a Cay is an island. So we're on Plasencia Cay.

Mara [00:09:45]: So you have to come by boat in order to come here.

Ben Greenfield [00:09:47]: Okay, got it. And then we, we come down this, like, canal, and then it got really pretty. I mean, the town had almost like this kind of like rugged Caribbean feel to it.

Mara [00:09:57]: Yes.

Ben Greenfield [00:09:58]: And then we come into here and it seems like this, like, 5-star resort.

Mara [00:10:01]: Oasis.

Ben Greenfield [00:10:02]: But very boutique. It's all these villas. Like, we're in one of the villas right now.

Mara [00:10:06]: Right.

Ben Greenfield [00:10:06]: They're almost like these little McMansions along the canal. And so when, when you found this location, is this what it was like or was it in development or?

Mara [00:10:16]: It was fully built and open, but they had just opened their doors. I was one of the very first guests that they'd ever had. So the inn is the main property where we enjoy our meals together and we like to do things family style. If you've experienced everyone here who works with us, we're all one family. We hug all the time, we're barefoot, we're, it's a really happy, relaxed place. And that's what we want people to feel when they get here. Steve has a saying, I built this resort, what do you want to do with it?

Ben Greenfield [00:10:43]: Steve is the guy who's like the mind behind the operation as far as building it.

Mara [00:10:48]: He was the creator.

Ben Greenfield [00:10:49]: I actually want to talk to Steve later. So we'll get, by the way, if you're listening, go to bengreenfieldlife.com/pranamaya. Brace yourself, P-R-A-N-A-M-A-Y-A. And I'll have the show notes where you can learn more about the property. And I want to talk to Steve in a little bit here. But the way that I met you, Mara, was I have a friend who's the son of a friend. So there's this guy who has been on the podcast a few times. He's a doctor, Dr.

Ben Greenfield [00:11:17]: Thomas Cowan. Dr. Thomas Cowan is involved with the Weston A. Price Foundation. That's where I met him, was when I was speaking at a Weston A. Price conference. And he's one of those doctors who's, like, definitely on the fringes, you know, with everything from light to energy to electricity.

Mara [00:11:35]: He's using crystals.

Ben Greenfield [00:11:38]: You co-wrote with Sally Fallon this big, beautiful book of, like, baby care that I recommend all the time. Yes, for families, parents who are pregnant. I'll link to my other podcast with Tom Cowan for those of you who are listening. But Tom's son Asher is pretty cool, and I've known him for a few years. And he sent me an email, and he's like, dude, there's, like, this island resort, but they're doing the whole Weston A. Price food thing. Which I thought was weird because usually you go to like a whatever yoga acupuncture spa island and you're getting the vegan.

Mara [00:12:12]: Vegan, yeah, and local-ish.

Ben Greenfield [00:12:14]: Which I don't think you can do a vegan diet right. But, you know, he starts talking about like raw milk and sourdough bread and pastured pork and grass-fed beef.

Mara [00:12:24]: Organ meats, right? Bone broth.

Ben Greenfield [00:12:27]: Ferments. And food is one of my favorite languages, so perked up. And then I had a phone call with you and Steve about not only me, like, coming down here and checking it out, but, uh, you know, bringing some folks down.

Mara [00:12:40]: That's our big thing is like, just come. Like, we wanted you to come with your family first and foremost. Like, come and just feel this with us and experience what we call the magic of pranamaya. Yeah, you have done a lot of guided breathwork, and I love that you brought up the prana breathwork too, right? Prana is life force. It is our breath, and then Maya is the ancient Maya civilization from here. So that's the prana and the Maya. Got it. So we want you to come feel the breath and the magic of the Maya civilization when you're here.

Ben Greenfield [00:13:10]: Yeah, so tell me more about the food.

Mara [00:13:12]: So food is medicine. So from a traditional Chinese medical standpoint, that is first and foremost. I can do all the acupuncture on the planet, give you herbs, but if we are not fueling our bodies the way we each uniquely need to be fed, right? You require a different level of nourishment than I do. Your wife requires a different level of nourishment than your boys do, right? So I I like to customize meals and get them really curated to the individual. So that was my number one thing of coming here is we have to do a food is medicine approach. We're not doing club sandwiches and fried chicken wings and seed oils.

Ben Greenfield [00:13:47]: I know, we just came in beautiful. We just came in from a super beautiful fancy resort in Mexico, but that was the worst was, you know, they feed you and it's just like the combination of oxidized seed oils and sun shock. Paradoxically get skin damage from. And yeah, like nothing about the sourcing of the food or the fermentation, soaking, sprouting, unlocking nutrients, all the little things that make a difference. What do you guys do for your cooking fats and oils?

Mara [00:14:16]: Tallow. We're using tallow and then maybe a coconut oil and then butter. We also provide ghee for people to use. And we are partnered with local farms. So everything is 100% organic and farm and seed to table. If the fisherman doesn't come with the fish, that's not what we're having tonight, right? So we've gotten a variety every night of a fresh fish that's being sourced. The vegetables come from our affiliated garden when they're producing enough. Of course, it's seasonal, so we then partner with other farmers who are providing other vegetables for us.

Mara [00:14:47]: The flowers that are on all the tables or in your villa, there's no herbicides, pesticides, fungicides. Everything is organic when we're here. We've taken out even the chemicalized detergents of washing the sheets, right? You asked me where detergent was to do laundry. I was like, they're the eco sheets, right? We have literally taking out every toxin you can possibly imagine here so that your body is detoxing. Our bodies have the innate capability to detox every day, thank goodness. They're bombarded— the food we eat, the water we drink, the air we breathe, the chemicals on our clothes and our furniture. So how can we help you eliminate that on a faster level when we're so bombarded by modern-day society? Yeah, so we truly want you to feel better when you leave than when you arrived, and that is going to start with the food.

Ben Greenfield [00:15:33]: Thank you for water. Thank you for water.

Mara [00:15:41]: So water here is locally sourced water. We drink it right out of the tap. We don't have to use bottles and put our toothbrushes in the bottles.

Ben Greenfield [00:15:48]: No Zuma's Revenge.

Mara [00:15:49]: No Montez Zero of that. So it comes from the jungle, from the mountains. It comes into a well and it gets filtered over limestone naturally. This is considered some of the purest potable water, I think I'm going to say the world. I can't actually quote that, but I've never had an issue. And everyone comments on, they're like, I can't believe I can drink the water out of the faucet.

Ben Greenfield [00:16:10]: Yeah.

Mara [00:16:11]: I can't even do that in Florida.

Ben Greenfield [00:16:12]: Very uncommon in a hotel. Yeah. So when people are here, so I'm here with my family and we've been playing pickleball at a great paddleboard sesh this morning, followed by a swim, which is That's why I look like I've been smoking weed all morning. I've actually been swimming with goggles and salt water in my eyes and hitting the natural— that's like a saltwater pool, right?

Mara [00:16:36]: Yes. All salt. Yeah. Saltwater pool.

Ben Greenfield [00:16:38]: Saltwater pool. And then my wife and I had an amazing spa day yesterday, which is great with your sound healing bed. What's it? Sound healing?

Steve [00:16:48]: PEMF?

Mara [00:16:48]: It's a PEMF mat, vibrational sound healing bed, and then the Axiom H2 molecular hydrogen machine. So we're getting this. Trifecta of this immersion into the sound that provides a specific frequency to maybe what you're needing to feel in that moment. And then the molecular hydrogen is entering every single cell of our body, producing ATP, helping the detoxification pathways, right? The NRF2 pathways. And then that PMF mat is providing that red light therapy with some heat to help heal the tissues and also stimulate mitochondrial function.

Ben Greenfield [00:17:24]: I was tripping out on that. Like, wow, that's awesome. And then, we played cornhole last night. And, you've got all these little activities and almost like this kind of like full body brain reboot feel here along with the really clean food, clean water. But then, for example, we're going spearfishing tomorrow. You hooked me up.

Mara [00:17:45]: They're going to bring us some dinner.

Ben Greenfield [00:17:46]: Spearfishing. We'll get some lionfish, bring them back for dinner, maybe some lobsters. I don't know what else. But, what else do people go out and do for fun here if they're going off on adventures?

Mara [00:17:57]: So, a couple of things that we curate, whether they're coming on one of our retreats or coming as a family to just be a guest at the resort. We have so many excursions people can go on. One is to our affiliated property we talked about, which is Valley Stream. We go into the jungle. We have a water source there that we do some grounding, guided meditation at. Uh, there's a beautiful orchid trail. And then we can go into the Jaguar Preserve, the Coxcomb Basin, and do some gnarly hiking, which we had considered doing, right?

Ben Greenfield [00:18:24]: Jaguar's out there?

Mara [00:18:26]: They're so elusive. It's like, and I think they're more nocturnal, so it would be rare that we would see one, and they would run from us before.

Ben Greenfield [00:18:34]: They're not like the mountain lions back where—

Mara [00:18:36]: No, they're not like the Pacific Northwest mountain lions. They're very elusive and nocturnal. And so hiking is an incredible thing. We can go see Maya ruins while someone is visiting. Also, there's a beautiful spice farm to go visit. Again, that medicinal part. And then getting out on the water and go scuba diving, snorkeling, paddleboarding, spearfishing, go island hopping. There's so many beautiful cays that you can go visit, do a barbecue for the day, and then walk into the cute town of Placencia.

Mara [00:19:04]: It's just really relaxing and sweet to do also.

Ben Greenfield [00:19:06]: Yeah, actually, I still want to go over there. I think the boys want to also walk around.

Mara [00:19:10]: It's got a little reggae feel to it.

Ben Greenfield [00:19:12]: So the offsite stuff is kind of like the adventure component. And then over here, people are doing more of the reboot.

Mara [00:19:21]: Yeah, we're downregulating.

Ben Greenfield [00:19:22]: Day, let's say somebody was like here and I was leading a retreat. Yeah, typically if I'm leading a retreat, I'm doing different Q&As during the day. A lot of times like a meal will have a certain theme, like we're going to talk about longevity at this meal, or we're going to talk about detoxification at this meal. Um, and then usually I'm leading some kind of like a morning movement session, and there's usually something in the evening too, like a live recorded podcasts, things like that. But what would you describe as like an average day that somebody wakes up here and engages in if they're not leaving the property and they're just basically wanting kind of like that reboot?

Mara [00:20:01]: So our goal for everyone is to downregulate their nervous system and tap into the parasympathetic nervous system, which is all about quiet, calm, digestion, relaxation, sleep, right? So what I love about this property is we can cater to two different desires. So For the morning, your wife and I did beautiful yoga out on our private pier with a sound healing session floating over the ocean while you and your boys were doing a gnarly TRX workout. TRX, kettlebells, burpees.

Ben Greenfield [00:20:28]: This morning was paddle lap swimming and TRX.

Mara [00:20:31]: Yeah, so someone can get up.

Ben Greenfield [00:20:33]: We've kind of got the vibe for the—

Mara [00:20:34]: Yeah, so you can get up and you can do an awesome hard workout, or you can just come and relax and get a beautiful yoga and sound healing session. Go to breakfast, have our amazing everything made from scratch here on property. And then we typically go into the spa, or you can go into a question and answer workshop session. We can do cooking classes. All of our kitchens in our villas are beautiful, professional-grade culinary setups, so we can do a cooking class too. Um, usually we then do community lunches with each other, family style, or you could go out to the palapa like you said and play pickleball. In the afternoons, we then do more spa sessions. Usually we like to call them serenity sessions.

Mara [00:21:15]: So you can get acupuncture, massage, body scrub, somatic healing, vibe bed sessions, guided meditation, breathwork. And then in the evening, we usually do something fun together. Like it might be another movement session. My thing is we gotta move every day, whether, but first and foremost is we gotta really bring everything down to a slow level. And I love that you tapped into that, 'cause I had your schedule like, boom, this is what we're doing, Ben, this, and you were like, I wanna chill. I'm like, yes, that's what I wanted to hear from you. I was like, great.

Ben Greenfield [00:21:45]: Overprogramming.

Mara [00:21:46]: And then we bring in a lot of the local culture. So we bring the Garifuna dancers in and they do drum sessions. We can get up and dance with them and do their amazing drum dancing. We bring in breathwork facilitators, like lion's roar level breathwork. You've talked about this, without psychedelics, your brain goes to a whole nother level when you do this level of breathwork. So the days go quickly because we have so many options for people. And I tell people, please come join us, but if I don't see you, I'm so happy because it means you're reading a book and laying in a hammock, or you're off with your family doing a paddle session, right? Come join us. Here are options.

Mara [00:22:26]: Or you do you and just chill and relax.

Ben Greenfield [00:22:28]: What are those paddleboards that we got on this morning? Fiberglass? They're super stable.

Mara [00:22:32]: They're catamaran paddleboards. They were built and created actually in Clearwater, Florida, where I live. Gentlemen who developed them, they are made to be so stable. You could go fly fishing off of them, you can go picnicking off of them, but you— they're great for here because the reef is so shallow that you really stay above the water and you're not going to fall in and tip over on those. We like to do a sunrise paddle in the morning, and so those are great because if the waves are a little bit choppier, you're not going to dump like the traditional paddleboard.

Ben Greenfield [00:23:03]: Yeah, yeah. So how many—

Mara [00:23:05]: like, you and I are in this, this is a 4-bedroom, this is a 4-bedroom, 2-story villa.

Ben Greenfield [00:23:09]: Yeah. And then how many, uh, villas are there?

Mara [00:23:12]: We have 7 total right now. So they range from 4-bedroom to 3-bedroom, like you and your family are in a 3-bedroom right now, but everyone has their own private plunge pool. Everything is oceanfront. Everyone has a water view here.

Ben Greenfield [00:23:24]: And then there's like a traditional kind of inn.

Mara [00:23:26]: And then we have the inn, which is where we have our dining experiences, the bar, the resort main pool, saltwater pool. Upstairs on the 3rd floor is then this open-air place where we can have special events, yoga movement sessions. And then the spa is up there on the third floor.

Ben Greenfield [00:23:45]: So if I did a retreat here between the villas and the inn, how many people do you anticipate that we could accommodate?

Mara [00:23:55]: If you want to maximize the property, that would be 70 people, ideally. 70? But that's—

Ben Greenfield [00:24:02]: That's too many for me.

Mara [00:24:03]: But that's what I'm saying. So ideally, for an intimate retreat, or 20 to 30 people. Like, my retreats that I'm doing have been around 25 to 35 people, and it's the perfect amount that people feel like they have their own private time, but then they're in community and making new friends, new networking opportunities. It's been so beautiful to see the relationships that have come out of people just spending time here on the property. Yeah. So around 25 to 35 people is really this beautiful— it doesn't feel overwhelming. You're not going to be exhausted by holding space for that. 70 is like, you're more going to do workshops and be talking versus holding space for Yeah, 20 to 30 is a total sweet spot for me.

Ben Greenfield [00:24:40]: And, by the way, for those of you listening and watching, I'm working on dates and details and everything, but it's looking like November-ish of 2026 when we're recording this. I'm definitely going to bring a group down. So, if you go to BenGreenfieldLife.com/Pranamaya, P-R-A-N-A-M-A-Y-A, you'll be able to get the details on that, which might even be on there by the time this podcast comes out. You've mentioned Steve a few times. Steve Hall, who kind of brought this place to life. I would love to hear his story. Yeah, he's the magic from the horse's mouth, so to speak. I think he's in it.

Ben Greenfield [00:25:18]: He's in the live audience right now.

Mara [00:25:19]: Is he here?

Ben Greenfield [00:25:20]: Where is he? Get your butt in here and we'll hear a little bit about Steve's vision for this place. Steve, are your ears burning back there in the live studio audience listening to me sing your praises?

Steve [00:25:33]: Yeah. You always wonder what somebody's going to say about you. But that's good.

Ben Greenfield [00:25:36]: Yeah, it's kind of funny because me and my sons have been getting to know you the past couple of days. By the way, for the record, we're 4-0 right now in pickleball. I think we're throwing down after this too, so I won't exhaust you too much. But your background that you were kind of explaining to me is not necessarily in, like, luxury wellness, but you started off in just—

Steve [00:25:59]: No, this is the first one I've I have an illness called entrepreneur-itis.

Ben Greenfield [00:26:08]: Entrepreneur-itis?

Steve [00:26:09]: Yeah. And so I've just loved doing startups and I've been in the construction business and apartment, you know, business and the assisted living and drug and alcohol rehab and different things. And I've just really enjoyed doing startups in the— I got really involved kind of in the health and wellness probably 12 years ago, maybe a little longer. Time flies. But the— really wanted to see what we could do in the assisted living business with the food as medicine aspect of things and really started looking at Alzheimer's dementia. There's been several books out about that, the how to basically cure Yeah. You know, dementia. And so we got—

Ben Greenfield [00:26:58]: Like, The End of Alzheimer's by Dale Bredesen is probably the most popular one.

Steve [00:27:02]: Yeah, yeah. We've met with Dale several times, Dr. Bredesen, and to try to look how we could joint venture on something. Yeah. And, but we just found that our population, we have both in our assisted livings, we have regular population and then we have dementia population. Which is a totally different type facility, which you have to have because they have to be secured. And we just couldn't get enough interest, even in our regular population of really wanting healthy food. They wanted the Campbell's soup, we were making homemade soup and that didn't have enough salt for them, or they loved ice cream and all the different things that we were trying to— so it failed basically.

Steve [00:27:45]: And we just went back to feed them what they want. So, and then I got into the drug and alcohol rehab business and had a campus, 2 campuses, one for men, one for women, for 18 to 28-year-olds. Now, we did incorporate some there. We had gardens and teaching about food and so on because the young men and women in that program were so malnourished. They were just very malnourished and really wanted to get their bodies healthy again. But the industry is really driven by insurance. And so there was no really incentive financially on how to do that. And because they're so insurance driven.

Steve [00:28:30]: And so as I started looking, I wanted to develop out of the country, became interested in Belize. And like yourself, it was like, well, I better find it on the map first.

Ben Greenfield [00:28:39]: Yeah.

Steve [00:28:39]: See if we can find it. And then you start studying it. It's the 400,000 people in the whole country, the size of New Jersey. You have a very stable government. There's no cartels here. Uh, you can own property outright. You can, uh, have a corporation owns property, or you have a corporation do business. Uh, to get residency is very easy here.

Steve [00:29:00]: And, uh, so much made sense about Belize.

Ben Greenfield [00:29:04]: And a lot of flights in from the US, like Mar was saying.

Steve [00:29:07]: Oh yeah, a lot of flights. But two-thirds of the country is mountain jungle, is pristine. And then this is the second largest coral reef in the world right here. And you turn around, there's the mountains and there's the reef. Our island is part of the reef. This where we are is part of a reef. And right out in front, you're right on the reef. And it's just incredible beauty, incredible energy.

Steve [00:29:28]: And this place is special. I sense that you and I talked about that when you come here, there's a real vortex here. Energy piece that, you know, was here long before I started building here.

Ben Greenfield [00:29:41]: When you say vortex, what do you mean? When you say vortex, what do you mean?

Steve [00:29:49]: It's kind of like a Sedona. It's like you just have those places that it's like a portal place and you just feel it when you come. And it's just— it just opens you up in just a whole different way.

Ben Greenfield [00:30:02]: You feel super chill during the day. But my favorite is sleep. I just left— I'm not going to throw them under the bus, so I won't say the name, but I left a really fancy resort in Puerto Vallarta where I would just wake up at like clockwork at like 3:00 or 4:00 a.m. Oh, man. Super long sleep latency. And, you just don't know in a facility like that, is it the VOCs, the toxins, the cleaning supplies? Is it the Wi-Fi that's just blasting through each room? Is it the energy? That the place is built on itself. I came here, we've been having dinner at like 7:00, so I've been going to bed at like 10:00. 10:00 PM, lights out.

Ben Greenfield [00:30:44]: I've been waking up like 7:00 AM here.

Steve [00:30:47]: Wow, I love it.

Ben Greenfield [00:30:48]: Yeah, and I mean, by waking up, I mean like waking up, like I'm not getting up at night to pee, like nothing, just like, yeah, super solid sleep. Fairly anywhere does that happen around the world where I travel except my own home.

Steve [00:31:03]: Everything, the mattress, the sheets, the grounding bed mat you have in there. We put a lot of effort and energy in trying to understand how to foster that. We really have. And now we've added different glasses that you see in your room.

Ben Greenfield [00:31:24]: Yeah. Raw Optics.

Steve [00:31:25]: Yeah.

Ben Greenfield [00:31:26]: Matt's my buddy. He's been on the podcast a few times.

Steve [00:31:28]: Oh, really? Yeah.

Ben Greenfield [00:31:29]: Blue light blocking glasses.

Steve [00:31:30]: Yeah, great guy.

Ben Greenfield [00:31:31]: You guys have them there in the rooms. You check in, you don't have to pack your own. They're right there.

Steve [00:31:34]: Yeah. And so, and now we're looking at different IMAX and different sound machines and we're really making a big effort on the sleep part.

Ben Greenfield [00:31:45]: Yeah.

Steve [00:31:46]: So we're adding more things as Mar's really educating me in the sleep aspect of things.

Ben Greenfield [00:31:52]: Yeah. So you find Belize, former British colony, I learned. From you, and this place seems like the spot that you wanted to build and develop.

Steve [00:32:07]: Yeah, I mean, I'm— I wanted to move some money out of the country for different reasons. And then I only know how to do a few things. That's develop and build stuff. So it was kind of natural to do that. And the— when you look at spots to build, you kind of put in a lot of factors of, you know, what would make this work or not work on this. Obviously being on an island, being unique, being a village close by, a lot of activities, things like this, how easy it is to get here. And but for my desire, this is— in my career, so-called career, is, you know, such a fun project for me. As my business has grown, I've not been able to focus on one thing.

Steve [00:33:00]: I've just had to kind of manage.

Ben Greenfield [00:33:02]: Yeah.

Steve [00:33:02]: You know, but I've been able to focus on this one and it's really been a lot of fun to how to build it and the team that's come along just I'm involved with recipes and what's on the menu, you know, involved with how they're cleaning the rooms and what chemicals. I'm involved with things I would never have been involved with in my other careers because I had to actually run a company. So it's really fun to be more hands-on. I really enjoyed that a lot.

Ben Greenfield [00:33:32]: Yeah, so as far as like your own focus when it comes to what you think kind of supports the body, is healthy for the body, et cetera. What are some of the things that you've learned in your journey over the past few years?

Steve [00:33:47]: It's no doubt. I mean, it's the food you eat and what you need to detox out of your body. And we live in such a— I don't like to use the word polluted or toxic because we have such a beautiful country. You know, I live in Tennessee and I have a house in Florida. We have so much.

Ben Greenfield [00:34:13]: Yeah, a lot of first world problems.

Steve [00:34:14]: Yeah. And but then you really look at our food supply where the food actually comes from.

Ben Greenfield [00:34:19]: Yeah.

Steve [00:34:20]: You look at the chemicals that are in everything, every place you go, every restaurant, every, you know, piece of cloth, every, you know, the list just goes on and on. And, you know, you go, okay, I got to get to some level. I want to be able to live in a first world country. And this is the problems that we have. So in doing this, we really wanted to have people have aha moments, to be encouraged and to detox what they could. We're looking at how to do like just a 7-day detox and people come down.

Ben Greenfield [00:35:00]: Yeah.

Steve [00:35:00]: Just something simple. You know, to encourage them in a different type of lifestyle.

Ben Greenfield [00:35:04]: Do you mean like they would show up and their food is dialed in to the extent to where I would imagine they're not just going to go in and order off the menu, like it's already chosen for them what they're going to eat?

Steve [00:35:16]: Exactly. Yeah.

Ben Greenfield [00:35:16]: Different detox pathways they're going to go down, different activities, everything.

Steve [00:35:20]: Yeah. We would like to have it really structured and a retreat style. And so they will come and the first couple of days may be fasting. Maybe it's to be water fast. There may be some supplements with that to do some cleansing and just kind of take through a process.

Ben Greenfield [00:35:36]: Inject everybody with those Empics so the fasting is so much easier.

Steve [00:35:39]: Yeah, yeah. It's like, you know, I've had questions about that where they say, well, we may want to do a fast for some of these days. And they're like, I was supposed to say, oh no, that'd be terrible. I got to make money on the—

Ben Greenfield [00:35:52]: Yeah.

Steve [00:35:52]: I'm like, no, that's fine. You know, that's— Yeah, we want that. You know, so many times you go on vacation and you go away bloated and, you know, tired. And the desire right from the beginning is someone would just have an experience of just a real health, spiritual, emotional, relational, positive experience being here.

Ben Greenfield [00:36:19]: Yeah, but there's a little bit of a hedonistic element too. I mean, some of the desserts that came out.

Steve [00:36:24]: Well, I know I like some of those.

Ben Greenfield [00:36:26]: Yeah, I love them. Like you have your key lime pie. What's the key lime pie? Fill people in on a couple of the tempting.

Steve [00:36:35]: You know, if I have to die 2 or 3 years early eating key lime pie, so I only make it to 94, I'm okay. Yeah. So I do have things like I am going to enjoy, you know, things like that.

Ben Greenfield [00:36:49]: So even like the desserts, are they focusing on specific components similar to the Weston A. Price approach?

Steve [00:36:54]: Yeah, very much. Yeah, very much. So we're not purists.

Ben Greenfield [00:36:59]: Yeah.

Steve [00:36:59]: Yeah, we're not.

Ben Greenfield [00:37:01]: And there's cocktails. And tell me about the wine though.

Steve [00:37:07]: Yeah.

Ben Greenfield [00:37:07]: Don't you have, 'cause I think my wife last night was drinking a biodynamic.

Steve [00:37:11]: Yeah. Yeah, we have our guy Peter that purchasing all our wines, you know, is really focused on this and have a real selection of wines of things. I'd never heard of.

Ben Greenfield [00:37:24]: Yeah.

Steve [00:37:24]: You know, 'cause he's bringing in from South America and different places. Yeah. And so that's been fascinating too. And the wines that they have. And we have a lot of mocktails and juices and so on. We have a real large selection of that.

Ben Greenfield [00:37:37]: I had a cucumber, celery, ginger as soon as I got in off the plane, along with the barefoot sand in the ocean that cured me pretty quick. The Belize itself, You know, you said the size of New Jersey, 400,000 people. How hard was it to build a place like this?

Steve [00:37:55]: We'd have about 120 people out here a day and, you know, around. And these are concrete structures because right on the coast for hurricanes and so on.

Ben Greenfield [00:38:07]: I was gonna say, they seem pretty solid.

Steve [00:38:08]: Yeah, pretty solid. And then we're on an island, so everything had to be brought on in a barge.

Ben Greenfield [00:38:14]: Yeah.

Steve [00:38:14]: Concrete trucks, you know, everything had to be brought out on barge for the structure itself. And then the furniture that we have here, most of it came from Bali. And so the doors that you have are all hand-carved and solid wood. They take it right from the log and these are all hand-carved. The trim that we have is all hand-done. Then kitchen equipment came from China, bathroom fixtures came from Mexico. And so we had all these containers supposedly coming in on the right time. None of them did.

Steve [00:38:54]: And the Panama Canal was too shallow for some of the boats to get through. And we couldn't get containers out of Singapore. And you just kind of name the list. So it was an interesting, how to, you know, get everything coordinated because there's no Home Depot.

Ben Greenfield [00:39:12]: Yeah. Yeah.

Steve [00:39:13]: You don't—

Ben Greenfield [00:39:14]: well, it seems like it's coming together pretty well. I mean, it's—

Steve [00:39:16]: well, thank you.

Ben Greenfield [00:39:17]: It's pretty high-end.

Steve [00:39:18]: It's magic. Yeah.

Ben Greenfield [00:39:19]: Yeah. Do you still call it a boutique hotel? Is that how you would describe it, or do you call it—

Steve [00:39:24]: yeah, and this one, that's what I've been told to call it.

Ben Greenfield [00:39:26]: Yeah.

Steve [00:39:27]: You know, as far as I think that's what in people's minds, you know, because we can cater to very special needs on either food allergies or in a retreat of you want a different menu than what we have.

Ben Greenfield [00:39:43]: Yeah.

Steve [00:39:44]: On, you know, the size groups or where we can put you. I mean, we have a lot of options and that's the goal.

Ben Greenfield [00:39:52]: Yeah.

Steve [00:39:53]: I mean, if I had— if I could write a script, you know what I love, I just like to have retreats only. Yep. I mean, just so that the impact is higher. People are coming to really be impacted when they go on a retreat.

Ben Greenfield [00:40:13]: Yeah. Yeah. And then so for a guy like me, like I was talking about with Mara, I could come in, I could have my group of podcast listeners, people have heard about it through me, they all show up and I can put together the itinerary for them based on what you have here on the property.

Steve [00:40:29]: So, right, but you can go through a menu with us. Yeah, you can go through what times you want to eat. Yeah, because you may not want the first meal, you know, a certain time.

Ben Greenfield [00:40:40]: That's one thing, like I've done this at other retreats where they like have breakfast at 7 or breakfast at 8. And when I'm leading people through retreat, a lot of times they're kind of doing like what I do, like I'm an intermittent faster. I have breakfast like 9:30 or 10:00. Usually, it's after some kind of really good morning activity. I'm all for going out and seeing the stars at night and maybe even staying out past your bedtime a few nights, but then I also love to program in afternoon time where people can full-on siesta, spa, relax, recharge, get up, still have time for another activity to move the body before dinner, do dinner, go on a walk. So, What I like to do is when people come to retreat, craft a day that allows them to experience the property, but then also craft a day that they can take home and know, "Okay, so I got up, I did stretching, I did breathwork, I rehydrated, I had a workout, then I had a later breakfast to get the intermittent fasting in, then more activity and some time on the water, then lunch, then siesta, then activity, then dinner." But, like Mara was saying, not overprogrammed. Right? I know when people come to a retreat, they still, yep, they got to check the email inbox and they got to make a few phone calls. And I don't like people to leave feeling like they're underwater with work either, because that's the worst when you get back to the airport and you're like, oh no, I have 3,000 emails.

Ben Greenfield [00:42:03]: So yeah, I love the idea of putting together some kind of an itinerary for people that they can take back home and implement.

Steve [00:42:10]: Right. But like yourself, other people are going to do retreats here, have their own style. And they want to have a very something specific they want to teach and the rhythm that they want people to be in. And we're like, great, you know, that's what we want. We didn't really want to build the typical health resort and so on where we have, you know, our staff. We really wanted people like yourself to bring what you wanted, bring your people and have a place to do it. So we really want to be in the host business is what we want. And how do we come alongside what's already happening? Because this is a movement.

Steve [00:42:56]: You are in the movement and it has been accelerated after COVID. And it's an exciting time to be on that crest right now.

Ben Greenfield [00:43:06]: Yeah. And you can hit it all. I think some of the big ones for me are movement, food/fuel, sleep, relationships, nature, and faith. And I think you can weave all those in pretty well here.

Steve [00:43:23]: Yeah, if you can't feel something spiritually here, then you're not connected. Yeah, whatever. I mean, yeah, you can feel it here.

Ben Greenfield [00:43:32]: Yeah, well, what I'm gonna do is on the show notes at bengreenfieldlife.com/pranamaya, P-R-A-N-A-M-A-Y-A, all include more information about Pranamaya. And then, before this podcast comes out, likely have the actual dates for anybody who wants to come join me later on in 2026, November-ish. And, I think we're going to have an incredible time.

Steve [00:43:59]: I can't wait. That'd be great.

Ben Greenfield [00:44:01]: Cool. Thanks, man.

Steve [00:44:01]: Thank you, brother.

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