What does a stressed out, workaholic business executive do when she decides enough is enough? Open a company offering amazing yoga retreats of course!
Rachel Bonkink had worked hard for 7 years, and by most definitions was a successful business executive, running a medical market research company.
However, her hours were brutal; work life balance was just a dream and the only thing that kept her going were the 2 – 3 yoga retreats she would attend each year.
As these were her only chance to relax, of course Rachel chose carefully to ensure that each precious retreat gave her the maximum opportunity to enjoy yoga and refresh and recharge. However, what she found is that though many retreats were good, they often lacked something that would have turned the experience from good to amazing.
“Of course there were some wonderful retreats, but so many of them had something missing, an essential component lacking, that could have turned what had been a good retreat into a great and unforgettable one instead.”
It was while she was on a silent retreat in Jordan that she realised she had to change her life story; so she quit her job and after much soul searching and yoga, she realised that having being on so many yoga holidays, she knew exactly what made a fantastic retreat, so why not launch her own business doing that exact thing?
And that realisation was the genesis, the beginning, of the path she now walks, developing and hosting yoga retreats in amazing locations around the world.
Italy, Spain, Chile, Costa Rica; each of these locations has been carefully curated by Rachel to provide a perfect backdrop for her ‘twist’ on the yoga holiday; what she calls the “leave your wallet at home” yoga retreat.
What Rachel believed was that very often retreats that seemed cheap ended up costing a lot, because the very aspects that people wanted were the things that they had to pay extra for. So she decided that her retreats would provide everything needed for the perfect retreat, at one, affordable, price.
As Rachel says, “With us you’ll find that everything is covered in the fee – airport transfers, excursions, massages, meditation and pranayama training, coaching – all the little things that make you feel special and pampered… just like you deserve”
Today, Revealing Vajra is a thriving yoga retreat specialist, with a growing list of new customers and happily, many return ones as well. It seems that Rachel has found a formula that works for her, and is living proof that the dream is there for all of us, provided we take action, preferably while doing a downward dog of course!