What if wellness includes more than caring for your body and managing your stress? What if it also includes meaning, belonging, awe, ritual—and even the places we choose to travel? This week, Skye sits down with Bobby Ansari, Certified Wellness Professional, spiritual travel specialist, and founder of Rose of Jericho Wellness. Skye and Bobby met serendipitously while they were both presenting at the National Wellness Summit in Nashville, and quickly discovered just how much overlap exists between Bobby’s work in spiritual wellness and sacred travel and Skye’s work with poetry, creative health, and retreat experiences. Together, they explore why spirituality and religion are not the same thing, what spiritual wellness can look like for people from many different belief systems, and why meaning, hope, connection, and belonging deserve a place in the broader wellness conversation. Bobby shares stories from her own remarkable path—from studying spiritual care in trauma settings to learning from teachers and sacred traditions across Turkey, Ireland, Indigenous communities, and beyond. She also introduces the idea behind her Travel Prescription™: thoughtfully using place, ritual, ancestral connection, and meaningful travel as catalysts for healing and transformation. The conversation also goes into some important territory around safety and integrity in the wellness and retreat world: cultural appropriation, poorly trained practitioners, “plastic shamans,” and why holding sacred or transformational space comes with real responsibility. And somewhere along the way, Skye and Bobby discover a shared fascination with creativity as spiritual practice—including the idea that perhaps artists aren’t simply “channels” for inspiration, but prisms, allowing something larger to move through the lens of their own lived experience. They talk about: Spiritual wellness beyond religionTravel as a catalyst for transformationSacred landscapes, ritual, and the energy of placeBeing a witness instead of trying to “fix” someoneWhy safety and cultural integrity matter in retreat spacesAwe, wonder, and spiritual experiences in everyday lifePoetry and creativity as forms of reverenceWhat it means to create spaces where people can rediscover parts of themselves that have gone quiet This one goes beautifully deep—and may leave you looking at your next journey, your creative life, and even the places that make you feel most alive a little differently. Learn more about Bobby and Rose of Jericho Wellness at roseofjerichowellness.com. Learn more about Skye's upcoming retreats at https://www.wellbeingworkshops.co/womens-retreats-indiana
