Holding Gratitude and Discomfort at the Same Time

I’ve been on Lake Atitlán for just over three weeks now.

The original plan was two months here, then back to El Paredón. Simple. Structured. Decided.

But this place has grown on me in ways I didn’t expect, and I extended my stay by another month.

I’m doing a work exchange at a hostel in San Marcos La Laguna — one of the smallest villages on the lake, and arguably the most well-known among travelers.

San Marcos has a reputation.

It’s often called the “spiritual village” of Lake Atitlán. The place people come to heal. To reset. To awaken. Yoga studios line the narrow pathways. There are cacao ceremonies, ecstatic dance nights, sound healings, breathwork sessions, Reiki trainings, plant medicine circles, workshops on shadow work and tantra and inner child repair.

It draws seekers. Expats. Digital nomads. People in transition. People unraveling and rebuilding.

It is beautiful. Lush. Intimate. The lake is impossibly blue in the mornings, and the volcanoes rise around it like quiet guardians.

And while I’m not sure this is the best place for me to learn Spanish, it does feel — physically and mentally — like the best place for me right now.

And yet.

It also doesn’t feel like the right place for me.

I can’t quite make that make sense.

The Alignment

Some mornings I wake up, walk to Spanish school, sit one-on-one with my teacher, and feel focused and steady. After class, I head to a café and review the day’s lessons. I order in Spanish. I listen carefully. I write everything down. I practice.

I return to the hostel to “work.” I’m meeting people from all over the world. I’m connecting in ways I didn’t when I was in Antigua. I’m sharing a dorm with other volunteers and building real friendships — the kind where conversations stretch late into the night and you forget you met only days ago.

There are days when everything feels aligned.

The lake in the morning.
The volcanoes holding everything steady.
The rhythm of routine forming again.

Some days I feel like all is right in the world.

And then my chest tightens.

The Tension

Because as grounding as this place feels, there are moments when I walk through town and feel like I’m not actually in Guatemala at all.

I feel like I’m in a version of it.
A curated, consumable version.

I struggle watching sacred traditions turned into ticketed experiences.
I struggle with how easily Western spirituality can take what is ancient, repackage it, and sell it back as awakening.

Because I love yoga. I love breathwork and meditation and spirituality. Those practices have carried me through some of the hardest seasons of my life. They’ve helped me regulate, rebuild, return to myself.

And that’s exactly why this feels complicated.

Here, something feels unmoored.

In places like Bali or Thailand, spirituality is culturally embedded — Buddhism isn’t a workshop or a weekend offering; it’s lived tradition. Here, on land that holds deep Mayan history and living Indigenous culture, much of what’s being practiced and sold is Western spirituality — imported frameworks layered onto a place with its own sacred cosmology.

And that raises questions I can’t ignore.

Who benefits?
Who profits?
Whose traditions are amplified — and whose are sidelined?

I’ve had long conversations about this with Cristina, my Spanish teacher. They are not comfortable conversations. I often leave them with tears in my eyes, trying to untangle my love for these practices from the awareness that I am participating in an economy that can commodify culture.

I am not outside of it.
I am not neutral.

I am PART of the problem.

And I don’t know what to do with that yet.

I don’t know how to move differently in this moment.
I don’t know if staying is avoidance or inquiry.
I don’t know where the line is between participation and harm.

I only know that the tension is real.

And for now, I’m choosing not to look away from it.

The Duality

Because at the same time — this place has given me something I desperately needed.

It gave me routine.
It gave me community.
It gave me my yoga practice back.
It gave my nervous system space to exhale.

I am more grounded here than I was before I arrived. I am studying. I am showing up. I am building friendships. I am healing in quiet, ordinary ways.

And maybe that’s what makes this duality so sharp.

This place feels right for my body.
It feels right for my mental health.
It feels right for this season of rebuilding.

But it doesn’t feel entirely right in my heart.

I miss Guatemala — the friction of it.
The language barrier. The humility of not understanding. The small daily embarrassments that remind me I am a guest here.

I miss straining to follow conversations. I miss ordering food imperfectly. I miss the discomfort that forces me to grow.

Here, English is easy. Western food is easy. Community is easy.

And sometimes I wonder if what feels like comfort is actually insulation.

Ease isn’t always the same thing as alignment.
And comfort isn’t always the same thing as integrity.

Maybe this is what discernment feels like.

Right now, I’m here.

Not blindly.
Not uncritically.
Just honestly.

Holding gratitude in one hand.
Holding discomfort in the other.
And feeling the weight of both.

-A