From Mexico to a Taranaki yoga retreat

Yoga instructor Brenda Davies moved from a crowded desert city in Mexico to New Plymouth and began living life to a different rhythm.

Iwas born in the north part of Mexico, it’s quite a desert part. I studied, studied abroad in Spain, and did some travelling, and then I met my husband in Canada. He’s Kiwi.

We were both studying in our 30s and we were doing our yoga training there.

I never actually thought so much about New Zealand and when we met, then I came to visit him later.

I remember talking to my mum and saying I met this guy, and she asked ‘‘Where is he from?’’, and I said I think he’s from Norway.

The first time I came here he was already established in New Plymouth. He’s originally from Auckland, and grew up in Wellington and Kapiti Coast, but he established here three years before I met him.

He was wanting to establish a yoga studio, and he travelled through the coast thinking of going somewhere warmer, but then he stopped and had an amazing surf at Back Beach, so he established the yoga studio here.

The first time I came I loved it, it was just such a beautiful feeling of a not so big, not so small town. It was just perfect.

I came here for one month, and then I went back home for two months and then came back for six months and I think that’s when I really started to see the Kiwi culture more.

One of the first things I noticed was everyone was driving really slow, and it was really calm and quiet because I come from a city that is 6 million people, so it’s really busy and really buzzing with lots of traffic.

There’s a lot of pollution, lots of traffic, very tall buildings, there are not many parks.

You really see the difference of actually taking a deep breath, like just breathing very deeply and seeing blue sky.

I think at the moment when Mum and Dad send me pictures back home, the sky is literally almost yellow. Like it’s so polluted.

Whenever I would go back home to visit I just felt I couldn’t keep up with the pace any more, like the slower pace really started to get ingrained in my way of living.

Where I’m from it’s desert, so it’s really hot all the time so tropical fruits are very accessible.

So here having a season of avocados for a certain time and then not having avocados for a while was a huge change to my diet.

It made me really turn towards green foods, like leafy greens which are better in the wintertime, which is not as much on the Mexican side because we have more sweet stuff and salty and spicy.

I’ve tried to teach my kids, who are almost 9 and 7, quite a bit of Spanish.

They didn’t really speak it so much but then during lockdown, we really got into that app Duolingo, and it’s brilliant.

It’s so good because it’s explained in a very kidfriendly way with graphics and games.

We run Sanctuary Hill Retreat where we offer yoga classes mainly during the week. We offer weekend retreats, workshops. We also offer therapies as well. We’re both certified therapists.

My husband Richard specialises more in sound therapy and I do more yoga therapy. We offer the space for accommodation as well when people just want to have a place to stay in.

Mexico offers so many things and a variety of culture and food, but I would say I wouldn’t probably move back. I feel New Zealand’s also extremely like the other end of the spectrum of safety for my kids. We would stay here as a family, just safety wise.

The kids have been over quite a few times. We try to escape the winter here.

When they’re here they roam around freely anywhere, they just go up and down and it doesn’t matter but in Mexico I’m always holding their hand.

A lot of my family live in the same city, whereas here only my husband’s father lives here and his sisters live in Palmerston North, so three hours away.

But over there, most of my family like my grandmother, my aunties, my uncles, like a massive extended family live close by.

Whenever we go back, and we get together, we get to see this massive family gathering. Not only like one time, but almost every day cousins and uncles come and go.

I want people to know that Mexican people are very warm. We’re just really passionate.

The tone sometimes feels like it’s too emotional, but it’s just the passion around it. We’ve got a lot of fire. We’re very fiery people.

We love hugs. Everyone hugs in Mexico a lot. It just doesn’t feel like you’re actually saying hello to someone properly until you actually hug them.

I think my husband’s family have got used to me but at first it was just a bit too personal.