FAQs
activities

We mainly will practice meditations that guide us to connect with yourself and our heart.

Therefore, the meditations:

- include visualization techniques to give our heart a voice and travel into our inner world

- make us aware of feeling our body and be conscious with our feelings

- guide us to be mindful and present at the moment.

This type of heart-focused meditation have the benefits of:

- Become more kind to ourselves

- Become more conscious of how we are really doing

- Enable us to let go and transform things in life

- Release stress and calm down

My favorite benefit that supports me day by day on my self-love journey:

As they are heart-opening, we can make the experience of listening to the voice of our heart, have a dialogue and feel the special sensation of being connected to ourselves and our heart.
The heart-connection enables and supports us to study ourselves, get more clarity about our needs, behaviors, limiting beliefs, life purposes and other aspects we feel that limit us to feel truly fulfilled and happy in life.

This type of meditation has the beautiful effect of making us smile from within, and become more and more authentic, and increase our self-worth and self-love.

You find some of my guided meditations to listen for free on the free meditation app “Insight Timer”: https://insig.ht/v0NCZfBlAqb

Note: The meditations we will do in the retreat are unique for the retreat experience and not published.

It is not just writing a diary! Journaling is a mindful and intuitive writing method. It is a technique that helps us to connect better with ourselves as we put our thoughts on paper. In this way, we are able to observe our thoughts and not identify with them. We can reflect on our thoughts, feelings and emotions.

The benefits of this tool are:

- We gain more clarity and consciousness of our thinking processes, or limiting beliefs. We can easier change perspectives, find solutions or get new ideas.

- For our mental health: Calm down our stress level, nervous system, change our perspective regarding some problems/ challenges we face,

- Room for more creativity as writing clears our mind and makes new space in our brain: Recurring / automatic thoughts about past things that upset us, stress us, worry us etc. can be written down to calm them down, take away their urgency and make them easier to let go of

- Gain deep insights about yourself, your values, your limiting beliefs and what really moves you inside. In this way create a feeling of deeper connection to ourselves

- Manifestation power: Celebrating ourselves through writing down what we are grateful for and appreciate about ourselves, and our life, helps us to create more of it. Also, writing down our dreams and wishes sends the right signals into the universe

During the retreat, we learn:

- How to start writing

- Tips for the writing process

- What to write

- Specifically, how to write a dialogue with our heart voice / inner parts because we have all the wisdom within us, we just didn’t learn to listen carefully. With this technique, we can start the learning process of doing so.

During a cacao ceremony, you drink pure cacao from the Sierra Nevada de Colombia. Pure cacao has lots of benefits. However, one of the most powerful ones is that it is a medicine for self-love, as it helps us to activate our mind and heart.

A cacao ceremony is all about taking time for yourself. To spend some quality time with yourself. A moment where you can be kind to yourself. You connect to yourself and the spirits of the cacao.

Thanks to the deeper connection, you can experience a wise moment in which you receive true answers / messages from the depth of your heart.

It is also a moment where we can find positive affirmations for ourselves. The cacao helps us to manifest them better and integrate more in our body.

The beauty of a ceremony is that you share this moment with other people. This makes the experience even more special because you vibrate in a more positive energy. Additionally, you listen, sing and maybe dance together to nice mantra songs. As you can share your experience with the others, you can get new ideas and perspectives for your own self-love journey.

During this retreat, the cacao ceremony will let by the inspiring Valérie. The experience will be special because we have a little hike in the mountains of la Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta to visit here place. From there we have an awe-inspiring view over the Sierra to the ocean. It is next to the river, so you could have a swim in the river if you would like to. We will have some free time to enjoy the place.

Besides of the beautiful place, we will combine the cacao ceremony with an ecstatic dance session. This allows us to connect even more to the magic of cacao and maybe receive deeper messages or just enjoy a moment of dancing and smiling to yourself

It is a free-form, conscious dance. There is no right or wrong. We move our bodies just as they want to move to the music of the DJ. Valérie will be our professional DJ who mixes the music and facilitates our dance journey.

It is a dance without words, so that we enter a meditative state. In this way we can connect our body, mind and soul. It’s an activity where we can be our authentic selves.

As soon as you enter the dance floor, you are invited to let go of judgements and expectations, and allow yourself to feel your sensations and emotions. But no worries, it is completely ok to sit/rest/observe at anytime

The ecstatic dance will take place at Valerie's safe and sacred place after the cacao ceremony. From the dance floor we have an inspiring view over the Sierra Nevada to the ocean

A ceremony for purification, cleansing, and relaxation of our mind and body. The ceremony will be led by a shaman.

It is an ancient ritual that has been part of Mexican and South American culture for around 1,000 years.

The ceremony starts around a bonfire in which stones will be heated up. Then we will enter a sweat lodge (an igloo-shaped hut). Once inside, the hot stones are placed in the center, and water is poured over them to produce steam. Herbs are added to aid the cleansing process. We sing, pray and meditate together to reconnect with our intuition and our inner being, to heal and release.

This ceremony is a powerful multisensory experience that gives us a special connection with the elements: water, earth, fire and air.

What is the effect?
After the ceremony we feel physically, emotionally and mentally healthier. Usually we feel like newborn.

We have different occasions to focus on our breathing. Pranayamas, kind and soft breathing during our yoga practices, mindful breathing during our meditations, and we will experience a more profound breathing technique during a special breath work session with Paula.

With Paula, we do a breathing ceremony that allows us to enter a state of full consciousness with our energy, traumas and emotions. We have the possibility to heal emotional conditioning, inner child experiences, or release fears. We can experience a new sensation of our body, a special form of connecting to ourselves that is created through the profound breathing technique.

We will practice a combination of Hatha Yoga, Yin Yoga and Kundalini Yoga together with Cata. We will also include the focus on our breathing into our practice.

In this way we can best align our body, mind and soul and connect to a deeper level to ourselves during the yoga practice.

What is beautiful about this retreat is the place of our practice. The Yoga Shala is in front of the ocean. So we can see the horizon of the ocean, listen to the waves and feel the salty breeze during our yoga flows.

The workshops are inspired by the NLP coaching. The NLP coaching follows the approach that we have all the answers and solutions within us. As well as, that all we do, think, behave, feel is due to a positive intention for ourselves. To better connect to ourselves and gain more understanding, we apply the inner part work that is based on the scientific proof that we all have a number of different personality parts. One of these parts we will concentrate on during the retreat is our authentic self.

We will work with tools that support us to experience a deeper connection to ourselves, learn how to connect with our inner parts, our heart and therefore become more clarity and understanding about our feelings, behaviors, needs, actions, life purpose. Whatever you need in the moment of the retreat

I am a beginner…

That is great. You don’t need to have any experience to be able to fully enjoy and take benefit from all the activities. Just be curious and open-minded. All facilitators are there to support and guide you and to reply to all of your questions.

I am advanced…

That is great. We promise you, you will not be bored because our journey to connect to yourself is a life-long journey. In any stage we will get new inspirations, get different learnings about ourselves and every instructor has its unique form of teaching. For sure, you will make new, unique experiences that add value to your current journey.

Besides that, the retreat is a great space to allow yourself to take some time for yourself to reflect on and integrate your current state of knowledge

The participation in all activities is optional/voluntary.

All activities are included in the retreat package.

However, the most important fact is that you feel comfortable and enjoy your time. If in some moment you prefer to spend the time differently, or you don’t like to practice any activity, it is completely fine if you do not join. No activity is obligation.