Enrollment for this retreat is currently closed. Join the waitlist.
Vista Verde Retreat, Carson, NM
Tend to your wounded heart
Heal your relationship to yourself
Awaken your senses and soothe anxiety
Reclaim your mental real estate
Rest, and welcome yourself to belong in your body
Unlock tension and release chronic patterns of holding
Guided art, movement, and somatic therapies
Ceremony, ritual, and group process
Research-backed mindfulness and guided meditation instruction
Vista Verde Retreat is nestled in the enchanted forest in New Mexico between Taos and Ojo Caliente, on 45 acres of piñon and juniper forest, with several hiking trails, classic adobe architecture, and easy access to Taos, Santa Fe, Ghost Ranch, and hot springs.
Slow down, care for your nervous system, and bring your authentic self back to life. Escape the hustle, drama, and noise of daily life and give yourself the gift of coming home to yourself in safety and connection with other heart-centered women. This retreat is an opportunity to rebuild your relationship with living in your body, reclaim your mental real estate, soothe your heartache, rest your nervous system, and resource yourself with mindfulness, interpersonal connection, and sensory awareness.
During this week together, we’ll cultivate skills for taking refuge in the present moment and embark upon a journey of loving awareness across our lifespan, making space to welcome all of our humanness. Along the way, we’ll invite acknowledgment of our collective wounding, reconnection with our divine feminine, retrieval of the fractured pieces of our souls, and new possibilities for how to relate to belonging in the world. We’ll dance, sing, paint, hike, meditate, write, and play together, as well as take time on our own to deepen into our personal experiences of being human.
Your journey will be facilitated by Dr. Cynthia Garner, certified mindfulness instructor, somatic psychotherapist, and host of the Welcome You Podcast.
Cynthia’s work with clients is built upon the somatic healing practices and mindfulness-based interventions that helped her manage her panic attacks, heal her core wounds as an adoptee, and come home to herself. Her intention behind organizing this retreat is to offer the safe, connective, relational spaces and practices that supported her healing journey, so women can share their stories, welcome themselves as they already are, and gain practical, real-world skills for setting effective boundaries, managing stress reactivity, and reclaiming their mental real estate.
When we finally slow down, turn our attention inward, and commit to our own wellbeing, we build new neural pathways and start to rewire our traumatized nervous systems. Committing to this journey means take the first step towards healing by doing what previous generations could not - we repair our relationship with ourselves. In doing this work, it becomes possible to take back our collective power and fully embody the divine feminine. We are no longer hijacked, at the mercy of the stress-ridden world around us, but in the driver’s seat and in charge of our own actions, reactions, and our responses.
Women like you, who are willing to sit in the driver’s seat of your own mind, who are motivated by compassion, kindness, and integrity and who are willing to strengthen your capacity to pay attention and to honor your inner wisdom - you are the warriors needed in these challenging times.
We are the change-makers, and by changing how we relate to ourselves, and to what it means to be alive, we can disrupt the divisive and oppressive systems that keep us from thriving. We can at last free ourselves to embrace our divinity, authenticity, and humanness.
The location of Vista Verde Retreat is ideal. The three miles of dirt roads to the retreat center are passable year-round and give the feeling that you are “out there”. The village of Carson consists of about 150 residents, a cafe/general store with great food, a post office and a fire department. The remote, peaceful area provides a respite for the most harried of individuals.
Benefits of Mindfulness Meditation Include:
Decreased reactivity, stress, and anxiety
Increased concentration and focus
Increased sense of belonging in the body
Befriending yourself and your experience
Increased sense of wellness and improved facility for self-care
Skillful coping and increased resilience
Improved sleep, physical wellbeing, and relational health
Decreased startle response, suicidality, depressive relapse, and burnout
Pricing
Your tuition includes the facilitation of your therapeutic journey, savory plant-based meals, and five nights of accommodation. Transportation to and from the retreat center is not included. Total program cost ranges from $1525-2025 depending upon your choice of lodging (single and shared rooms available, as well as a few tent camping sites). Reserve your spot with a $500 deposit (refundable up to 60 days prior to the program start). The balance will be due May 1.
Pricing by accommodation (please specify your preference in your retreat application and we will do our best to honor it in the order received):
5 tent camping sites - $1625
6 twin beds (shared room) - $1875
1 twin bed (single - no bath/closest bathroom is 85’ away in main house) - $1925
1 full bed (shared room) - $1950
1 full bed (single - no bath/closest bathroom is 85’ away in main house) - $2050
1 queen bed (single - Casita) - $2225
3 king beds (shared room) - $2225
Shared Room
Invest in your future self and secure your spot today.
Upon receipt of your application, you’ll be contacted to verify suitability for this program. Contraindications for attending a mindfulness-based program include active substance use, recent grief or trauma, a major depressive episode, and certain mental disorders. During this call, if it becomes apparent that these practices are not in your best interest, or that the program is not a good fit for your mental health at this time, we will refund your deposit in full.
Retreat Schedule
Program begins at 5:00 pm July 5, 2024 and ends at 1:00 pm on July 10, 2024. Please make your travel plans accordingly so that we can start and end together.
Sample Retreat Day Schedule:
7-8 am Morning Movement/Meditation Session
8-9:30 am Breakfast
10 am -12:30 pm Morning Group Session
12:30-2:30 pm Lunch and Individual Time
2:30-5 pm Afternoon Group Session
5:30-7:00 pm Dinner
7:30-9:00 pm Fire Ceremony and Council
Every body deserves to feel at home in their own skin. You deserve care, rest, and attention.
By committing to nourishing your own wellbeing, and in taking the time to repair your relationship with yourself, you are taking an important step towards healing deep systemic and generational wounds. Now is the time to do it differently. We can break deeply engrained patterns of systemic oppression and trauma on an individual and collective level by learning to regulate ourselves in the midst of uncertainty and fear, and to respond with loving awareness rather than react.
How Attending a Mindfulness Retreat Can Help Heal the World
The way we meet the world each day matters. When we step into our offices and meetings from a place of regulation and resource, we have much more capacity to handle what comes at us, than when we arrive frazzled, depleted, empty, and irritable. If we are under-resourced it is very difficult to mindfully navigate our trauma-impacted systems in a calm and compassionate way.
One thing I want to offer you right away, as you consider joining this retreat, is gratitude. Thank you for caring enough about yourself and your relationships to bring attention to the repair that is needed. Second, you are in the right place. Healing begins when you slow down and welcome yourself as you already are, without judgment, right here in the present moment.
At the core of relational trauma is a deeply fractured relationship with ourselves. It is in doing the work of welcoming ourselves in the present moment and repairing this relationship with our own experience, that we can begin to heal this core wound - that of belonging in our own bodies. So I offer you this program, as a pathway for individual and collective healing, and to help you navigate your way home to yourself.
During our five and a half days together, I will teach you practical ways to honor your body’s wisdom, befriend your experience, and incorporate mindfulness into your day-to-day interactions and relationships, so that you may begin to live with greater awareness, compassion, effectiveness, and wellbeing.
Life can be complicated and overwhelming, especially when we’ve experienced, or are still enmeshed in heartache, conflict, or relational trauma. If there is ongoing threat and reactivity in your life, you may feel like you have reached your breaking point. At times, it simply becomes too much for the heart to bear. Your body may feel broken, your spirit, frazzled, and your soul, tired. Your nervous system may be completely overwhelmed and you might even be creating storms with your hyper-vigilance, constantly anticipating triggers and threats before they even happen, feeling like you are always tiptoeing around eggshells and broken glass.
The good new is that mindfulness can help, and it can be incredibly effective for helping regulate and repair our nervous systems. Mindfulness has been powerfully transformative for me and my family, and I’ve seen the impact that my consistent practice, care, and kind attention have on the world around me. There aren’t any shortcuts for doing the work, but over time, one moment and one step and one breath at a time, we can replace our habits of self-criticism, shame, blame, rumination, anxiety, and worry with positive self-talk, enoughness, gratitude, safety, and belonging. Mindfulness is a way of being, rather than doing, and you’ll leave the retreat with a toolkit of practices that can be incorporated into every-day life, called upon in moments of stress reactivity, and accessed to help you reset and regroup when you get knocked off-balance.
When we get away from all the distractions, and create a container where we can get quiet, pause, and turn our attention inwards, towards what is happening in the present-moment, we can make space to honor and embrace the whole of our human experience. This welcoming ourselves, the way we might welcome an invited guest, is to acknowledge what is happening for us, right here, right now, without judgment. Once we have established some resources and anchors for attention, we can start to move into the deeper layers of our experience, and learn to meet what is arising with wisdom and compassion.
Give yourself the gift of a few days in connection with other women, where you don’t have to go anywhere or accomplish anything, where simply allowing yourself to be worthy of your own attention is enough. You are enough. You are not broken, and you do not need to be fixed.
The program includes guidance in seated, standing, and lying down practices, yoga and mindful movement, mindful walking and eating, reflections and journaling worksheets, improving relationships, and building connections with other participants. The practices offer a pathway for developing a routine of self-care that supports showing up in your daily life as a calm, non-reactive presence, and for cultivating resilience and compassion towards self and other.
You’ll also receive a workbook to guide you after you return home, with practices to support welcoming your own wounded parts, welcoming your family members and colleagues at work, cultivating curiosity and belonging, and in carving out time and space to prioritize wellbeing on a whole-systems level. You’ll have a toolkit for being the change you wish to see in the world, so that you can model the skills and practices needed for navigating uncertain times.
We may not be able to heal the planet all in one go, but we can change how we relate to the suffering in the world, just as we can change how we relate to our own stories of belonging. We can simply start by making some space for slowing down, turning inwards, welcoming ourselves, and bringing some kindness to our own experience of being human.
Testimonials from Past Participants in Cynthia’s Classes:
“Immediately I saw the difference, especially with the breathing. I’ve been under so much stress that I’ve been disconnected from my body, and I couldn’t name certain sensations. The breath alone seems to reset things for me. I didn’t know it was that significant until I started become more aware.”
“This really helped to start my journey, so I wanted to thank you, because you’ve planted a seed that I’ve taken and am watering. And I’m pretty selfish. I’m doing it for myself.”
“We do need it, especially moving into a new year, where teachers are going to be stretched a bit more. My concern is for the staff and they are experiencing anxiety about having to re-enter these spaces, and to go full throttle without any acknowledgment of what just happened.”
“This has really helped me get in touch with what it feels like to be kind to myself by taking the time. This course taught me to relax and focus on sensations when I am feeling anxious or overwhelmed. I got lots of tips to let things go and center myself. I appreciate being able to calm myself down to keep my personal life in balance at work.
“I love this class. I am so grateful for this time every week. I don’t think I have ever had the opportunity to nurture myself in this way. After 31 years of marriage and raising 2 kids into their twenties, focusing on myself is a real gift, a priceless opportunity, a transcendent experience.”
I enjoyed this course very much. I reminds me that I need to take time for self throughout the day, even just a little. I learned good techniques to cope with the stress that comes with being an educator using evidence based mindfulness concepts.
I loved the mindful tools from this first module, because they have been so important on a daily basis for me. Since I’ve taken the course, I can calm down before I get frustrated or even angry at situations or people. I'm not an aggressive person by default, but sometimes after the long days and craziness of this job, I find my fuse a lot shorter than normal. Now, I take a few minutes just to focus on breathing and calming down.
I really enjoyed the guided meditations because I like to hear the calm soothing voice that helped me stay present. Thank you so much for this program it has helped me to manage my stress levels. This class has taught me how to better give back to myself.
I think taking the time for some self care and just letting the day go by finding a quiet place to breath or focus on something else is so beneficial. I think we are so run down with things that happen during the day that we don't always take care of ourselves.
“I’ve been getting ‘stuck’ in my meditation practice – this gave me skills and tools to use in physical life outside of my internal practice.”
“This gave me immediate tools to stop my automatic reactions in stressful situations.”
“What has been useful is learning to put on the brakes of my thoughts and recognize the body sensations and building my awareness.”
“I learned to practice kindness, practice compassion, practice mindfulness and to be okay with being still and not latch onto thoughts and emotions.”
“It has been useful to see that I am not alone with my struggle with anxiety.”
“The class has helped me go deeper with my yoga practice and really make my breath the focus.”
“It’s been an interesting rollercoaster of stressful situations since the beginning of the course. Going to class every time is just great! The energy surrounding me is so warming and real and welcoming. A safe space to test my capacity for stress has definitely widened up. Overall, so much love and growth have happened since the beginning.”
“I have discovered that I am a powerful and strong woman, capable of being mindful in the daily stresses of life.”
“Meditation is such an amazing tool. My goal is to be able to tune in as much as possible despite the chaos that surrounds us all, and to connect to the beautiful energies around me.”
“I was spending a lot of time ruminating over unnecessary and harmful thoughts and am learning to accept my emotions.”
“I am learning to stay present, even in the difficult moments.”
“I felt immediate benefits in that the body scan, the yoga, and the meditation were all helping me to settle more into being grounded and centered, even in difficult times. I also learned a great deal about how I habitually respond to stress, and realized that those automatic stress responses caused way more problems than they solved.”
“I have made a change in how I approach work and chores and life in general. Instead of feeling like I need to barrel through chores to just get them done, with the hopes of having some time at the end for relaxation or fun, I am now mindfully doing as many things as I can, and finding enjoyment even in the simplest of tasks, or even unpleasant tasks. Enjoyment is in living life moment by moment.”
“Finally, I have learned how to relax in meditation because of this class.”
