Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Elizabeth Jane “ej” Brumfield. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Elizabeth Jane “EJ”, we’re thrilled to have you on our platform and we think there is so much folks can learn from you and your story. Something that matters deeply to us is living a life and leading a career filled with purpose and so let’s start by chatting about how you found your purpose.
Hemingway said, “write what you know,” and this inspired me to create an offering the healed the pain I knew well.
When I was younger, my father was diagnosed with brain cancer, and as he was dying, I said some terrible things in my anger (as teenagers do). When he died, I wasn’t able to apologize or seek forgiveness; deep down, I developed a subconscious belief that I was a bad person, that I wasn’t worthy of love. I truly knew self-loathing, doubt, and an icky dark self-hate—my life reflected this belief.
One day, I discovered yoga and meditation; I learned the darkest parts of myself weren’t as frightening as I believed. On my yoga mat, I learned to accept who I was. Later in my 20s, I worked and lived abroad for 4 years. I saw different ways of living, of thinking, of praying, of being—it was among the embrace of other cultures that I slowly started to love myself.
That’s really the heart and intention I approached Sun + Soul Retreats with: to create experiences for women who feel lonely and unlovable; for the women who might not like who they are or are discovering who they are. For women who want to transform by getting uncomfortable; who expand their own limiting beliefs by braving the edges of new cultures AND experiencing spiritual ceremonies and heart-felt practices at the same time.
Sun + Soul Retreats is a unique mix of history and cultural exploration, adventure that sets us out of our comfort zones, and spiritual practices interwoven to guide women back to their true selves and help shed our limiting perceptions.
Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?
I’m EJ, a E-RYT certified yoga teacher trainer who teaches 200-hr Yoga Trainings 6-8 times a year. When I’m home, I offer Breathwork Ceremonies, free local Sound Baths for our non-profit Building Hope, Sound Bath + Yoga events in a local alpine garden, offer shadow work ceremonies, energy work, and host a Sound Healer Certification program to spread the local love of sound healings (most the sound healers in our small town were certified through this program!)
My passion project, my sweet baby, is Sun + Soul Retreats, a women-based retreat company I started with my dear friend Sarah Creech. Sun + Soul Retreats has traveled to many places over the last two years: Portugal, Mexico, Morocco, Croatia, and soon Italy, Slovenia, and Sri Lanka!
As women get older, quite rarely do we take the time for ourselves, for a girls trip, to receive. We run out of time for our sisterhood, for growth, for adventure. In a sense, some of us lose our sense of wonder and play.
Sun + Soul Retreats is to enliven us again. It’s a retreat where women can marvel at the world in sisterhood, challenge their own perceptions of self with crazy excursions, and have yin yoga, breathwork ceremonies, women ceremonies, and sound healings to process and shed more limiting beliefs.
We’ve ridden camels in the desert at sunset and rode hot-air balloons at sunrise in Morocco, climbed the side of a mountain on a Via Ferrata in Croatia, surfed and mountain-biked with screams and giggles in Portugal, and bonded in a potent Temazcal ceremony in Mexico. Our excursions are meant to make us laugh, face fears, learn about the local culture, and be present and alive!
Our ceremonies and yoga classes are all crafted to encourage self-love + self-worth. Our retreats are magical; you leave with true friends, sisters, a zest for life, and confidence in self again.
Sun + Soul Retreats started as one retreat a year and now is slowly expanding to our biggest year yet. In 2025, we are offering 5 retreats collaborating with local healers, acupuncturist’s, energy workers and creating deeper ceremonies and more wild excursions!
There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
1. Lead with your heart and be you. If you’re planning travel, it should be to a place YOUR heart lights up. If you’re planning a yoga class, it should be from lessons that resonate with you. People can tell when you’re trying to embody or be someone else. People will judge what you do and what you offer. But there will be people who NEED what you are offering. Don’t let the voices of those that judge stop you from sharing your offering for the ones that need it.
2. It takes time to build trust. The most powerful marketing tool for me didn’t come from social media or ads, it came from word of mouth. Trust that everything is blossoming as it should and let the word spread organically.
3. Let go of perfectionism or this idea that an offering or retreat needs to be perfect for it to be a success. Every retreat is a prototype and ever-evolving project that progresses with time. You’ll have aspects that rocked and aspects that you want to fine-tune. If there are parts of your retreat that you want or need to change, that doesn’t mean it was a failure and you should give up, it means you evolve!
How can folks who want to work with you connect?
Ahh, magic happens when women collaborate together! I recently collaborated for a Goddess Reclamation Retreat with an Acupuncturist to create a week-long retreat combining sound healings, ceremony, and acupuncture. I would love to collaborate with women who have an enchanting oasis in the world, women who lead mindful adventure or hikes, women-owned retreat centers who want to host a sound or yoga training, shadow workers, shamans—calling you! If you’d like to co-create, I’d welcome your idea. 🙂
Contact Info:
- Website: https://sunandsoulretreats.com
- Instagram: @wild.earth.yoga
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