Over the last two decades, Di worked extensively within Boston’s hospitality industry. She especially loved working for one of Boston’s top private event venues where she successfully guided a team and actively engaged wedding, corporate, social and non-profit clients alike to curate luxurious and memorable events.

During this time, Di began to pursue a yoga practice to not only help relieve the pressure of a busy career but also the mounting stress of a parent suffering from vascular dementia and the oncoming depression of the other parent as a result.

‘Ironically, life started to make more sense when I was lying on the floor. I felt supported on my mat in a way no bottle of wine could or any of the other crutches I reached for during that sad time. I had gained weight, felt fatigued but also felt justified in my bad choices. Many days I struggled to get to the studio but once there, I surrendered. The practice began to wring out toxins in my body from all the anger I was holding onto. I slowly began to connect with my breath and over time, to slow my racing thoughts. With a simple, but mindful practice I was beginning to bring some calm to my body, some space to my mind and some long-sought compassion to my heart. I began to gain an overall sense of well-being.’

After travels to eco-friendly retreat centers, Mhai Yoga, Cuba in 2017 and Mala Dhara Yoga, Thailand a year later, Di began to change her relationship with food. She began to feel the very real effects of eating fresh, organic, plant-based food. ‘By the end of our stay in Thailand I found myself approaching another level of wellness I had not previously known. It came from the inside out. I felt my body healing itself.’

Back home, Di began purging-the-pantry of processed foods and set about learning new ways to prepare healthier meals. “And while the cost of whole foods is a bit eye-popping, the cost of illness will always be greater. My goal now is to live each day with wellness and to help others do the same.”

Then 2020. Then Covid-19. The world slowed while we sheltered in place. Quarantine provided the unforeseeable gift of time as Boston’s event industry came to a stop. Di immersed herself into yoga teacher training, began to build a website and devoted almost every other available hour to studying nutrition, wellness and health coaching - positioning herself for an inevitable career-change. “I worked hard during that time. I knew there would need to be a lot of healing post-Covid and I wanted to be part of that.”

Di never returned to the corporate event world opting to continue studying while teaching yoga and bartending. As 2021 came to a close, Di found herself researching infrared sauna and was intrigued by the many positive therapies it offered. With the original intention of focusing on health coaching and boutique wellness events (think plant-based picnics, think movement, think friends) she decided to include infrared sauna as one of her offerings. It would also serve as a wellness modality for herself and her family. “The world needs more healing. Being able to offer this modality, along with coaching, is a dream come true.”

July 28, 2022 was the official ribbon-cutting for the blu bodhi w e l l n e s s + sauna bar. People are now travelling from all over Cape Cod to make infrared sauna part of their wellness in 2022.

Di is a 500HR certified yoga teacher, completing her 300HR Yoga Teacher Training with the Chakra Power Yoga in February 2021 (and a second 300HR YTT with the Sacred Seeds Yoga School in June 2022). She is currently a Registered 200HR Yoga Teacher with Yoga Alliance. In June 2021 Di received her Functional Nutrition Coaching Certificate from mindbodygreen. The program is an in-depth study of functional nutrition from world-renowned instructors including Dr. Mark Hyman, Dr. Vincent Pedre, Dr. Taz Bhatia and Nutritionist Kelly LeVeque. In April 2023, Di received her Health Coach and LIfe Coach Certificates from the reputed Health Coach Institute.

Di’s work experience has been centered around the hospitality industry in the Boston and New York area. She has worked with Longwood Venues + Destinations, Marriott Hotels International, The Capital Grille and Winston Flowers. She has also worked as a Fine Art Consultant/Director for galleries in Boston and Soho, New York.

‘blu bodhi’… The color blue offers a sense of calm and serenity. Bodhi is an enlightened being. We all deserve a place of calm in which we may gain enlightenment.

Di would like to lovingly acknowledge her sweet boy who passed in January 2022 just shy of 14. Monty brought enduring comfort through her mother’s long illness, her father’s sudden death and her brother’s passing in February 2020 from small-cell lung cancer.