women’s workshop: build a retreat

create a magical quest, or truly rest

sat morning aug 12 & tues afternoon aug 29

if your spirit is feeling the need for some joy, lightness, and relief, I heartily invite you into this sweet, fun workshop on creating personal retreats.  this is a great life skill!

on your personal retreat (even if it’s only one day long) you actually get time to unwind, enjoy the things you love, and quest to discover who you are, real-time.   retreats can be grand or simple, powerful or fun – you’ll be building your own, so you get to craft what you need.

our truths are: we all need places of renewal and rest, it’s easier to create with a kind, supportive group than alone, and we all want ease and rest in our lives.

we all crave time to relax

funny thing: every single woman I work with craves a space to come home to themselves again.  most modern humans probably do.

you might think having a personal retreat is a nice dream, but not attainable for you right now.

not true!

you being able to rest and connect with yourself real-time is an absolute necessity.  you’re precious, beautiful, and a gift to creation, and remembering your joy, or why you came here in the first place, is really important.

you have to be able to shine, and to shine you have to be able to rest.  period.

you don’t have to be a millionaire, go to exotic places, or need a year off (well, those are great, too) – all you really need is at least one full day for your retreat, an open heart, some creativity, and a willingness to come home to yourself again.

in this short, affordable, sweet workshop, we do just that.

the experience

sat, aug 12 @ 10amPT: the first gathering is creative and fun, with other kindred spirits who are enthusiastic, lovely, and supportive.  in circle, you walk through an easy-to-follow, step-by-step process to design a nourishing and affordable personal retreat that’s just for you.  (hooray!)

over the next two weekends, you go on your retreat, as your sisters are doing all over the world.

tues, aug 29 @ 5pmPT: at our second gathering, we learn how it all went.  it’s convivial, fun, and we share beautiful, funny, and tender stories.  brava!

what you learn

it’s fun to be in a circle, working together on individual expressions of the same project.  we’ll explore the topics below, and complete step-by-step workbooks that make creating easy.  we’ll cover:

  • what’s your strong retreat intention?
    some themes you might choose: rest, spirituality, creating, renewal, introspection, adventure
  • what’s possible for your budget, where you’ll go, preparation
    there are basic nuts & bolts to get in place, step-by-step, that will make your retreat solid
  • how to navigate common pitfalls and setbacks
    there are a few main things that can come up on retreat – we’ll prepare you for them
  • how do you actually…relax?
    ‘full speed’ to ‘slow’ is a really big ask.  tools to soothe phone addiction and being ‘on’ help a lot
  • how do you open and close a personal retreat?
    important!  you’ll learn how to open and close with strong, clear intention, so magic can visit

left to your own devices, you might think ‘oooh!  personal retreat, sounds fun!’ and maybe not actually go on one.  in a circle of wonderful women, with shared momentum and excitement, this is a collective – yet uniquely personal – adventure.

anna banana

about me

strong, regular personal retreat practice didn’t ‘just happen’ for me.  (nope!)

as a highly sensitive person and empath, I worked too hard, gave too much, and wound up with severe illness and burnout as a result.

I decided to engage 3 days of retreat a month, for 13 months – and I healed.  all these years later, I still take retreat every month.  it’s amazing.

after helping people heal for 20 years (you can read more here), it’s become abundantly clear to me that ‘healing’ is coming home to yourself.  retreat is a strong pathway to do just that, and I’d like to teach you how.

who this is for

  • you’re kind-hearted, empathic, sensitive, and love spirit, magic, and the mystery (yes!)
  • you’d really welcome some time and space for yourself, without it feeling too hard to set up
  • at a bare minimum, you can set aside one entire day in your schedule for a personal retreat

who this is not for

  • you have elder, child, animal, or work responsibilities that won’t allow a full day off right now
  • you’re dealing with active trauma or illness (blessings, that needs special tending)
  • taking a day to yourself will cause tension or resentment from a family member or partner

time & cost

two-afternoon workshop + retreat workbook: $95
meet other lovely women, design your retreat, have an adventure, decompress and celebrate

saturday aug 12, 10am-noonPT via zoom (create your retreat in circle)

tuesday aug 29, 5pm-7pmPT via zoom (celebrate how it went, two weekends later)

*note: you’ll need to be able to take one full day of retreat in the 2 weekends between calls

FAQ

everyone will create something different – one size fits no one.  I mention because some women will want to go snorkeling with wild dolphins and then receive hot stone massage…and some will crave nothing but to journal uninterrupted out on beautiful land with a beautiful sandwich and a thermos of hot tea.  different budgets, right?

what you create is all up to you!

your retreat can be modest or fancy.   what matters is you choose it, love it, and it supports you.

depending on what you want and need right now , I’d expect something like:

frugal and creative: $120-150ish (workshop + one-day retreat)

b&b and a meal: $250ish (workshop + overnight retreat)

adventure or decadent: $500+ (workshop + special adventure, or multiple days)

you’re your own sovereign being, and of course you can do anything you want!

and!

I REALLY, REALLY encourage you to plan at the very least one full day outside of your usual space.

there are important reasons for this (physical and energetic) and we’ll talk about them in circle.

for now, even the most beautiful objects in your home have identity and memory attached to them.  a big key on personal retreat (at least in this workshop) is to get outside of your daily rhythm so you can discover who you are, real-time, without old stories, energies, or identity achors.

yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.  this workshop IS for you.  if you have that question, please come play.

we’ll talk about this in circle – going full speed for years (or decades) and then screeching to a stop is going to freak anyone out.  so we don’t do that.

we’ll normalize what may come up for you on retreat as you embrace slowing down, and teach you a tool that will help (a lot) with phone addiction or the racing mind that says ‘I have to do x, y and z.’

no matter what happens on your retreat, it is your friend and teacher.  so if you feel you need to check your phone and use the tool you learn in circle a million times…you’re learning something important, and we’ll decompress at our second circle about it.  same goes for not feeling like you can actually slow down.

the whole beauty of personal retreat is that it gives you a space to see and feel what you need to – and if you can’t slow down or stop checking your phone, that might actually BE the beautiful gift that begins to create real change for you.  we’ll talk about this quite a bit – it’s a great question.

billion dollar question!  ;)

it’s my very, very strong hope and most fervent prayer that you take what you learn in circle, make it your own, and create a regular personal retreat practice because you love it.

this can be a whole way of life, that is so rich and rewarding.  first, you learn how, then you do it, then you calendar more (we’ll talk about this), and practice makes…beautiful.

lived experience:

‘anna is a master of articulating magic in a way that makes sense to my 3D life.  she shared the importance of personal retreat with me, and I still think about it a lot.  she taught me we can often carry old ideas of ourselves, and when we go on these retreats, we have an opportunity to meet our current selves and set new dreams in motion.

she very gently and skillfully helped me through the entire process – in hindsight, she helped me weave a strong energetic container that allowed miracles to happen, and did it so playfully I just felt like I was having fun.  I ended up going to beautiful yosemite for a weekend, where I enjoyed nature in a new way and created the entire next chapter of my life’s work.  it was a real gift.’

– sabrina

 

‘anna deeply inspired me, and creatively guided me to explore a new way to savor time alone – my own personal retreat!  she helped me create my kauai retreat, where I was blessed by a life-changing sunrise on a healing beach, a profound labyrinth walk, and I received a powerful message that brought me the clarity I was seeking, and couldn’t have found in any other way.

it was truly magical!  there are no words for how strongly I felt held by anna’s compassion, creativity, vision, and love as I took this new journey.  I will hold it in my heart forever!’

-amy

join the workshop

we’ll meet saturday morning august 12 and tuesday evening august 29 for about two hours at each gathering, and you’ll have two weekends in between our calls to take your retreat.

I’ll email your workbook and materials to you 2 days before the workshop, and the booking widget below will send you a zoom link and reminder.

this is a fun project to do in community – welcome!

blessings