Why We Retreat: The Power of Stepping Away to Come Home to Yourself

As a Registered Psychotherapist, I’ve spent hundreds of hours in the therapy chair, on both sides. I’ve seen how talk therapy can be life-changing. But I’ve also seen its limits.

Sometimes, what a woman needs isn’t another hour of analyzing her thoughts. Sometimes, she needs to be witnessed in her fullness. To be held by a circle of women. To step outside the “shoulds” of daily life and remember who she is when no one is watching.

I have experienced this first hand through my deeply transformational and healing journey during my 33rd year. In spring of 2024 I got to the point where my mind and body were not aligned and I knew that talking it out wasn’t the path. This is when I started to explore connecting with communities of women. Through this embodied experience of connecting with other women, I learned so much more about myself and my soul than I could with individual talk therapy alone.

My untaming journey led me to hosting retreats.

There’s something radical about walking away from your day-to-day life, even just for a weekend. Not to run from it—but to remember who you are beneath the noise. In a world that rewards doing, producing, and perfecting, a women’s retreat offers something rare: a space to be. To soften. To listen. To feel.

Wild Women Building a fire at the Feb 2025 Retreat

I’ve felt it in my own bones—the before and after of retreating. The moment I put my phone on airplane mode and let the silence stretch longer than usual. The first deep breath in the woods, when I realize how long I’ve been holding my shoulders up by my ears. The cracking open that happens when I hear another woman share her story, and something inside me whispers, me too.

We don’t always know what we need until we give ourselves the space to discover it. Retreats aren’t about escaping your life; they’re about returning to it with clearer eyes and a fuller heart. They help us peel back the layers we’ve built up for protection and survival—layers of overachievement, people-pleasing, perfectionism—and find the pulse of who we are underneath it all.

At my upcoming retreat, Roots in the Wild, we’ll gather in a sacred, natural space, breathe deeply, move gently, and reconnect with the parts of ourselves we’ve ignored or tucked away. Whether it’s the part that longs to be creative, sensual, playful, or deeply rested—there is room for all of you here.

Because when women retreat together, something ancient and powerful stirs. We remember. We rise. We root.

Want to experience the healing power of retreat for yourself? Join Roots in the Wild on June 13-15, 2025 - a transformative weekend for women ready to reconnect and rise.

June Retreat