Scott Hayes | [email protected]
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
If you want to know what it often takes to achieve your dreams and find peace in your life, just ask Jeff Perham.
The Jasper-raised 36-year-old talks about the difficult road that he and his family have endured over the last few years, and the personal transformation that he accomplished in order to traverse it.
Only five years ago, he was successful in business and living in Vancouver. That was right before his father was diagnosed with cancer and then had a stroke within months. Jeff traveled frequently to visit him and help get him to appointments, even moving closer to him while still trying to do his work.
"It got to a point where I just mentally and physically couldn't do both. I ended up taking leave from my job," he said. "I did my best to just use my energy to keep him just motivated to go on really, and to just bring joy and happiness into his life because it was such a scary time for him."
Those hard months ended in January 2020 when his father passed away. Jeff and his sister were there for the "beautiful moment."
"It just put a lot into perspective just about life and what I wanted to do going forward,鈥� Perham said.
鈥淚 was very lost after he passed away because I'd given up all my social life, all my work life just to be his main caretaker, just making sure that he enjoyed whatever time he had left, and that he wasn't scared and just making him laugh every day. That was my goal, and then when he died, there was really nothing. I didn't really have a purpose, I guess you could say."
Having an interest in business, marketing and travel helped him to find the path, or perhaps helped the path to find him. His grieving process took him back to Bali, a spiritual island country in Southeast Asia. He had been there before on a backpacking adventure, and it left an indelible mark on his soul.
"I wanted to go back because I thought that was the perfect place to grieve the loss of him. It's such a magical and healing area."
He landed in February. In March, COVID changed everything. Having to stay much longer than intended was a sign from the universe, he said, although it included his own severe illness, which required surgery and an extended stay in the ICU at a Balinese hospital.聽
"I said, 'Okay, there's gotta be something. Why did all this happen, and what's the silver lining of it all?' But it wasn't really clear to me."
As the months progressed, he came to know many locals. He also came to learn how the country's tourism was affected with all of the international travel cut off.
His business sense piped up and an idea formed: he would establish a healing resort called . With colour themes based off of the chakras and dragonflies as its emblem, the resort finally opened in April.
With his life back on track, he wants to share the fruits of his own healing with the world.
"I want this little healing oasis that people can escape their real life momentarily and focus on themselves, improve themselves whatever they need to improve on or just take a moment to be present and realize what they have and be grateful for it, and just have that mind reset where they can reset their life, have a blank canvas and figure out maybe they're in a job that they hate or a toxic relationship," he said.
Capung Asri is meant to remind everyone of how special and important they are.
"I want this to be the place where they can sit there, they can analyze their life, and they can make decisions which are best for them,鈥� Perham added.
鈥淲e can do that through yoga meditation, the healing treatments that we offer or just giving them that special VIP treatment to make them feel worthy and special again."
