I Laughed Until I Cried: Recentering Myself at Stratton’s Yoga Festival

Summary

Inside Stratton's Transcend Fest: a 3-day yoga festival in Vermont's Green Mountains where moms trade the to-do list for sound baths, belly laughs, and real rest.

Moms are superhuman at scheduling everyone else’s joy. Summer camps? Booked. Family vacation plans? Done. Snack bags? Packed with ice water and their favorite colored straw… But carving out an entire weekend devoted to our own joy and well-being? Somehow, this has gone overlooked for not only us moms today but the generations of Moms before us. Self care has long been seen as “an indulgence”, and not an essential need for us.

Spoiler alert: it isn’t and never should be.

Transcend Fest

I recently packed my yoga mat, some sturdy sports bras, and an open mind and headed to Stratton Mountain Resort for Transcend Fest, a three-day Vermont yoga festival tucked into the Green Mountains. Think equal parts mountain retreat, girls’ weekend, wellness playground, and soul tune-up. It was exactly what this All Mountain Mama needed. 

As both a longtime yoga teacher and mindfulness instructor, I’ve spent years teaching presence and pranayama; to me these are essential life skills for when times get hard. But knowing and teaching the practices and actually making time to receive them myself are two very different things. This weekend reminded me why I fell in love with yoga 20+ years ago in the first place. It is a fertile ground for healing, joy, and ultimately remembering and honoring my own self.

Transcend’s line up of movement practice and workshops were reliably honest to each different style and variation of yoga practice, like a coming home across the disciplines, but also with some new variations, immersive headphone experiences, and dub flowing to the beats of Jamaica.

Saturday began with Ethereal Vinyasa Yoga, flowed into Power Yoga: Strength, Presence  Embodied Flow, and continued through workshops, meditation, and an evening sound journey. Sunday brought Kundalini-inspired movement before settling into Deep Rest, Release and Rewiring, a title that beautifully summed up the vibe of the weekend.

But here’s what surprised me. It wasn’t the movement that stayed with me most. It was the stillness.

One of the most powerful workshops I attended explored tantra—not the kinky Hollywood version, but the practice of conscious presence. We spent time simply seeing another person. Holding hands. Making eye contact. Standing witness to another’s joy. Another’s pain. Their pleasure. Then allowing ourselves to open to allow them to witness ours, raw vulnerability and all.

In a world obsessed with fixing, commenting, advising, and scrolling past one another, simply being witnessed felt radical – and honestly, a little awkward and scary at first.

It also felt deeply human.

Later that afternoon, I journeyed into a sound bath expecting an hour-long rest; I even brought two pillows for the occasion. Instead, something within me quietly unraveled. My frame tuned in and too-long-tightened muscles softened through the vibrations.

Lying in savasana, I could actually feel what I had been holding firm, bracing for impact, my back first, then my brow line, my jaw, even my lips, a soft quiver and then stillness. It came in waves that awoke me from an otherwise trance-like calm. Somewhere between the crystal bowls and long exhales, a new mantra floated into my awareness and repeated itself;

Recentering me.

No forcing. No striving. Just… remembering I am worthy of coming first.

Then there was Kundalini.

If you’ve never tried it, imagine vigorous breathwork, repetitive movement, mantra, and enough energy to wake up every sleepy corner of your nervous system. The class ended with one full minute of each participant practicing uninhibited laughter.

At first it felt ridiculous. I was uncomfortable, and as self-ascribed new age witchy-hippy lady, I do “woo woo” all the time. And yet, something about laughter felt hard.

Then, with a little steadfast intention, I focused on immersing myself in the sound of others’ joy, and it became contagious. It gave permission for me to access my own. And not because I am without pain. It let me laugh authentically; joy even amid some real-life hardship I am also navigating.

I laughed until tears streamed down my face. Apparently, laughter was indeed the exact medicine I needed.

Me (And My Friends) Time

Outside of the scheduled classes, both Stratton Mountain Resort itself and the organizers of Transcend have created space between the spaces. My girlfriends and I lingered in long conversations beside the pool, glowing with that unmistakable post-asana calm that makes conversation more open and honest. We wandered through the Mindful Market, filled with beautiful handcrafted jewelry, botanical skincare, wellness products, and art from dozens of thoughtful makers. I treated myself to an incredibly deep hip opening massage and acupuncture without ever leaving the resort. 

Throughout the weekend, the soundtrack never stopped. Acoustic musicians drifted through the village during the day, while DJs transformed the evenings into joyful celebrations with glow in the dark hula hoops and uninhibited dance. 

Add in perfect bluebird weather and hundreds of (mostly) women gathering with open hearts and open minds, and the whole mountain carried an unmistakable energy.

We often talk about self-care like it’s another item on the to-do list, a bubble bath squeezed in before bedtime, a product found on Instagram, or five quiet minutes before the kids wake up.

This felt different. It was a community of women saying yes to self care. This was a reset.

This was remembering that tending to ourselves isn’t selfish, it’s self-love, it’s about showing up as our fullest, most vibrant selves.

I drove home sun-kissed, sore in all the best places, carrying a few new sequences for my next class, and one new mantra tucked into my heart.

Recentering me.