Hey Reader

actually, since I’m writing this from Chiang Mai, Thailand, I should say:

Sawadeeka | /saː.waː.diː.kʰaː/
the way of saying hello in Thai, used to greet someone with warmth and respect.

And warmth is exactly what I feel being back in this city.

Chiang Mai holds a very special place in my heart as this is where Beyond Dharma was born, and being back feels like one of those full circle moments you don't quite have words for.

But to understand why this place matters, you need to know where this whole journey started.

In 2012, I left Italy after burning out completely from my corporate PR job.

I packed a bag and spent a year backpacking Australia with no real plan, just an overwhelming need to breathe (you can read the full story here).

Somewhere along the way, I ended up at a retreat centre outside Sydney, where for the first time in my life I understood what it felt like to belong to a community.

Not to be surrounded by people I grew up with or who looked like me, but to be genuinely held by strangers who came from completely different places and cultures and yet somehow felt like home.

That place changed everything.

It's where I first tried yoga.

Where I stopped eating meat.

Where I realised that an unconventional life could still feel deeply rooted and meaningful.

That one experience quietly shaped the next decade of my life and continues to shape how I think about my retreats, community, the work I do today and how I want my future to look like.

Fast forward to 2025, and I arrived in Chiang Mai as a volunteer community manager at Alt_ChiangMai, a coliving and coworking space founded by someone who understands, like I do, that real connection doesn't just happen because you put people in the same room.

It happens when there's intention behind the space, when there's a bridge between the traveler world and the local culture, when people are given the conditions to co-create, collaborate, learn, give back and actually show up for each other.

That's the philosophy that shaped how I built Beyond Dharma, and it's the lens through which I approach every retreat I plan or co-create.

Being back here right now feels significant, because I'm currently working on something designed for people in this community, for teachers and facilitators like you Reader, who are doing meaningful work but struggling to make it financially sustainable, who are bending themselves into knots trying to hold it all together without the structure or support they actually need.

I know what it feels like to be where you are.

I've had full time jobs that paid the bills and passion projects I squeezed in at the end of an already long day.

I've lived the unsustainable lifestyle, the one where you're giving everything to something you love while quietly drowning in the logistics of just keeping it all together.

I've lost sleep over money, over whether to walk away from a permanent position that paid every month, over whether betting on myself was brave or just reckless.

I made those difficult decisions.

Not because I was fearless, but because at one point staying felt much harder than leaving. And I felt I was betraying myself.

And slowly, imperfectly, it all became this.

So when I say there's a path to the life you want, I'm not saying it from the outside.

I've walked it.

And I'm working on showing you what that path can look like. More on this very soon.

But in the meantime I want to ask you something: what does your version of that life actually look like?

Hit reply and tell me.

See you next week,

Ciao ciao,

​
Milla

P.S. If you want to experience what it means to truly pause, join Dhara and me in Ubud this November for A Pause in the Season, six days to reconnect with your body and breathe. Book with a friend and you both get $150 off.