Waves to Wisdom Interview: Dr. Nathalie Arias

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“If you have the chance to get closer to the ocean that’s gonna be life changing. Maybe you’re not living the life you wanted or always expected to be, I think the ocean might help you a little bit to decide here’s my priorities now and this is what I want to do.“

~ Dr. Nathalie Arias

Show Notes and Further Reading

2014 Article Describing Economic Inequality in the Trans-national Surf Communities of Nosara and Samara Costa Rica, from the Center For Responsible Travel

2019 Article from The Lancet Reporting on a SYstematic Review of the Lack of Nutritional Training in Medical Schools

Conocer: A Responsible, Socially Engaged Tour Operator in Nosara, Costa RIca

Interview Transcript

INTRODUCTION

My name is Maia Dery.

The Waves to Wisdom interviews are the result of an exploration into a world I discovered when I learned to surf at mid-life.

Some of these conversations aren’t necessarily with people who we would instantly recognize as leaders but they are all leading us in a direction I instinctively followed and have benefitted tremendously in the process. Some of them don’t have huge audiences, but they are living very large lives.

To me, these people all seem to have wisdom practices centered in their relationship to the more-than-human world, to what we usually think of as “nature.”

Surfing proved first revelatory, then revolutionary in my life. I thought I was creative, thought I knew and loved water, thought I took care of my body. But when I entered the world of surfing and waves, when I started to ritualistically return to a literal edge, I realized my vision for my life had been hampered by some artificial barriers.

Slowly, with each wave and wipeout, those barriers in my brain, heart, and body began to dissolve.

I began to wonder, what if we all had a nature based practice that cracked us open? Made us more creative? Allowed us to reliably let go with the abandon of play? Of unbridled joy? What if we all practiced vulnerability, risk and failure on a daily basis and they were fun? Wouldn’t it make our lives better? Wouldn’t it lead us to the places it feels like, in this moment of planetary peril, we need to go?

Whether you find full bodied and big hearted connection through waves or walking or digging in the dirt, I hope you find these conversations useful in your own journey of re-inhabiting your life with renewed joy, deep engagement, and increasing wisdom.

Dr. Nathalie: Dr. Nathalie: If you have the chance to get closer to the ocean that’s gonna be life changing. Maybe you’re not living the life you wanted or always expected to be, I think the ocean might help you a little bit to decide here’s my priorities now and this is what I want to do.

Maia: A couple of years ago, I left my full time job as a college instructor, one of the ways I dealt with the existential terror inherent in taking the leap into entrepreneurship and, even more frightening, radical freedom. I knew that, no matter what happened, I would be able to spend more time in the small rural community of Nosara Costa Rica, a place I’d fallen in love with because of its beauty and waves and light but even more, the open heartedness and zest for life of the of the locals and expats who live there.

Dr. Nathalie Aria