Retreats created from our passion for the journey inwards… step closer to living your most authentic happy and fulfilled life.
Join us in a unique retreat offering a reset to holistic wellness. This retreat offers the opportunity to develop awareness and clarity about your wellness and lifestyle. We have created a retreat program that allows for insight into how your nervous system, energy system and mind influence your lived exerience. When we have the space to nurture and nourish ourselves with nature and energy based practices, we give ourselves the space to introspect, put things into perspective, plan for the life that we want and develop the confidence to achieve our dreams with a lightness and ease.
Retreat Highlights
Why is our retreat unique?
Our retreats are fundementally different from other retreats on offer due to the culmination of expertise that your retreat leaders have in delivering you a unique, tailored to you exerience for relaxation and personal growth.
We offer a range of the most powerful and best practice therapies for change along with well known opportunities for self care and taking time out:
Somatic practices - Trauma Sensitive Yoga - therapeutic yoga supporting the befriending of your body, which often houses our stress and traumas. TSY allows us to rebalance our nervous system and becoming aware of what we feel, becoming more adaptive the present moment and to trust our sensory awareness and intuition. Our body becomes our therapist.
Forest Bathing - A unique introspective practice originating in Japan to combat stress, complementary to trauma sensitive yoga, as this is a mindfulness bases practice incorporating ancient knowledge, supporting our relearning to notice, listen and just be. The forest becomes our therapist.
‘Find Yor Spark’ Sessions - In the context of our introceptive (sensing our body) and Introspective work, making time and space in nature to become aware, these sessions offer space to put it all together and take stock of how we are living and what we want moving forward.
Are you ready to fall in love with yourself and your life again?
Retreats created from our passion for the journey inwards. Step closer to living your most authentic, happy and fulfilled life.
Sound Healing
Cultural Activities
Breathing and Visualisation practices
Journalling and Workshops
Mindfulness and Meditation practices
Nature based venue offering ‘time out’
Daily Energry and Insight Practices
Theraputic Yoga
Qigong
Forest Bathing
Two unique sessions with our psychotherapist and yoga therapist to clarify emotional, physical and energy blockages and a path forward to living your best life
This retreat includes
7 Day/6 night stay in a 5 Star Jungle Resort in Ubud, Bali
Airport transfer from and to Bali international airport in Denpasar
Welcome drink and chilled towel on arrival
Balinese blessing at hotel temple as part of the opening ceremony
Traditional Cleansing ceremony at Titra Empul
All meals (Breakfast/Lunch/Dinner) with a Welcome and Farewell dinner on the last evening
Daily Theraputic Yoga/Qigong/Pilates, morning pranayama and meditation sessions
2 ‘Find your Spark sessions’
Wellbeing workshops
1 hour balinese massage
Complimentary daily mineral water
Free scheduled transport to the Ubud area
Free Guest WiFi at the resort
Meet the Retreat Team
Martine Coates, Thera Foundation founder and co-host
Meet Martine, a highly regarded Psychotherapist, Yoga Therapist and Trainer with 30 years of experience working with some of the world’s top trauma researchers and trainers.
After realising that traditional talk therapy alone wasn’t effectively treating traumatic stress, Martine studied at The Boston Trauma Centre to immerse herself in the research and work of the renowned Psychiatrist, clinical researcher and author, Dr Bessel Van Der Kolk. She became a Trauma Sensitive Yoga Facilitator, understanding the importance of treating the whole person – mind and body. This led her to co-create Thera Foundation and Thera Yoga, a style of yoga specifically designed by Martine for treating trauma. Through these, she aims to make her highly effective trauma therapy and training more accessible to a wider community.
Martine has also trained in and incorporates elements of Medical Qi Gong and sound therapy, such as gong and crystal bowl sound baths, Internal Family Systems (IFS) and Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) in her offerings. Additionally, she is trained in and offers Yoga Nidra, a form of non-sleep deep rest. Martine is dedicated to helping others heal through the power of movement and the mind-body connection. Martine has worked and trained front line, clinical and non clinical staff and invited as a guest speaker at Trauma conventions and hosted retreats in Sri Lanka, Bali and Australia.
Bansi Shah, Co-host and Shades of Nature Co founder
With a lifelong passion for nature that began during her childhood spent in the wilds of Kenya, Bansi co-founded Conservation Safaris in 2007. For over 15 years, she has dedicated herself to sharing the evocative experience of safari with guests in East & Southern Africa, Latin America and beyond. She has observed the transformative power of nature on people, and made it her mission to help others connect with it in a deeper way.
The tragic and unexpected loss of her mother and sister in quick succession left Bansi overcome with grief, and her world shattered. It was in nature that she found solace, watching a new leaf unfurl in the garden, a school of tiny damsel fish darting around, a beetle crawling, and the vast horizons of the desert. Her time in nature brought her a sense of peace and belonging. It was a place she could rest and just be, with no expectations. This experience led her to become a Forest Therapy Guide, and to co-found Shades of Nature to help others experience their own connection to nature.
Bansi is trained and certified as a Forest Therapy Guide by the Association of Nature and Forest Therapy Guides (ANFT) in the USA and Nadur Centre for Integrative Forest Therapy in Ireland. She also serves as an Assistant Trainer with the ANFT for new guides. In addition, she holds a degree in Wildlife Biology (Adv, Hon I) from the University of Sydney, is a qualified Pilates and Yoga instructor, and a PADI Scuba Diving Divemaster.
Bansi’s happy place is in the great outdoors, and she has a particular passion for reptiles, hiking, scuba diving, and stand-up paddle boarding. Join her on a journey back to nature.
Mark Galley, Co-host and Shades of Nature Co founder
Mark’s journey began in the corporate world, where he worked for a large US-based company in both the UK and Kenya. But as time passed, he couldn’t shake the feeling that there had to be more to life. So, he made the bold decision to take a year off and sail the Pacific Ocean to ponder the meaning of life.
Although he didn’t find the answer he was looking for, the experience sparked a passion for adventure in nature. He became an avid scuba diver and adventurer, spending much of his time out on safari in Kenya and Tanzania’s national parks.
Mark wanted others to also have the opportunity to experience the wonder and awe of these incredible places, so he left the corporate world behind and co-founded Conservation Safaris. He now leads safaris to East and Southern Africa, giving others the chance to have their own epiphanies.
Mark is also trained in Qi Gong and yoga, with a particular interest in pranayama (breath work). He is fascinated by indigenous ways of knowing, such as the Aboriginal Walk-about and Native American vision quest. He spent a year studying and training in permaculture; a holistic design approach for creating sustainable human settlements and agricultural systems by mimicking patterns and relationships found in natural ecosystems. As a co-host of our retreats, Mark brings with him his varied experience and passion for nature, photography, astronomy and campfires.
In his free time, Mark can be found scuba diving in the tropics, playing his didgeridoo, or exploring the outback. He has an especially soft spot for hyenas.
Ready to start your journey?
Retreat Dates:
February 2023
Cost: $6,500
50% Deposit required at the time of booking. The remaining amount payable to be paid 45 days prior to the retreat start date.
Please contact us below if you have any questions or enquiries.
