LIZ FROST, M.A. Ed, RP – The heart and soul of Sugar Ridge. 

After attending my first retreat decades ago I began to dream of a space in the woods to share the experience with others. I’m a rather stubborn individual and was very determined to make this dream a reality despite the incredible number of roadblocks along the way.  I have committed myself to embodying mindfulness and emotional intelligence in all that I do.  I love sharing what I’ve learned, and after 25 years of mindfulness training I still believe I’m scratching the surface and have much to learn.  As I say in all my workshops, “We’re never done”.

I worked as a Chartered Accountant in Toronto in what I think of as my `other life’. I became vegetarian around age 25, started meditating and studying holistic health and nutrition for fun, and left the corporate world at age 30 — in what I now call my ‘early mid-life crisis’. I didn’t know what I wanted to do, I just knew I wasn’t meant to sit in an office. I traveled, backpack style, for a couple years before returning to school. After completing an M.A. Ed. through Mount Saint Vincent University, I became a Registered Psychotherapist (RP) and see clients outside of my work at Sugar Ridge.   Retreats at Sugar Ridge are therapeutic the way time in a forest and fresh air are, but they aren’t psychotherapy.

I am also a certified yoga teacher and teach yoga as a form of meditation, incorporating mindfulness into daily activities. I do stop and smell the roses in the garden, pause to hear the beating of wings, and pour love into cooking, cleaning and teaching. I continue to study, believing that one’s education never really ends. My favourite teacher right now is my son Ben, who at a very young age intuitively named some of the gardens “The Gods Garden” which had a Buddha statue in it (as opposed to the medicine wheel garden which he calls “The earth’s garden” which is apparently “more important because we have to take care of the earth now”). I love the work I do and feel blessed to have such incredible teachers constantly coming here to share my vision.

I also feel blessed to call Sugar Ridge home. It truly is paradise. I live here with dogs and cats. I wake to the sound of birds at dawn, appreciate the view which changes every moment. The joy of my life is to hang out with Ben and go on ‘expeditions’ of the property. When my son, Ben, was much younger we found where the fairies live and, of course, our secret land of Rabbit and Toad. I am passionate about the organic gardens of Sugar Ridge and love to get dirty. I feel more at home in the forest than in the house and I’m not scared of the dark. Midnight walks with coyotes howling is heaven to me.

The first time I walked through the cedar forest here, I felt like I was home.
I knew this was the place I’d been dreaming of.