Costa Rica Healing Retreat

Imagine spending a week in Costa Rica with twelve people who all came for the same reason: to stop staying stuck in the patterns they want to change and actually change them. Not just understand them better. Not learn how to cope with them. Not spend a week talking about why they exist. Change them.

That is the point of this retreat. You come with the things you want to be different by the time you leave: the relationship patterns you keep repeating, the insecurity you are tired of carrying, the fear that keeps making decisions for you, the anger, shame, avoidance, self-doubt, old experiences that still affect you, or whatever else keeps showing up in your life despite everything you already understand about it. Then we spend a week working on those things directly. You learn how to identify what is underneath them, how to find the beliefs and emotional patterns actually driving them, and how to use practical methods to change them. You watch the methods being used, practice them yourself, get help when something is not moving, and keep working until you know how to do the process without needing someone else to walk you through it.

And the expectation is not that you leave saying, "I learned a lot about myself." The expectation is that you leave different. The entire week is built around creating enough time, repetition, support, and focused work for meaningful change to actually happen while you are there. In my current work, people typically complete treatment in roughly 5-8 sessions. The leading method in the program is currently producing an average improvement of about 14% per session from each person's starting point - meaning that, on average, people feel about 14% better overall every session. A week gives us something normal weekly work never can: the ability to identify something, work on it, see whether it actually changed, discover what is underneath it if it did not, and immediately keep going. If something shifts on Monday, we can see how it feels on Tuesday. If another pattern shows up at dinner, at the beach, or in a conversation with someone in the group, we can work with that too. The goal is to make it increasingly difficult for the old pattern to survive the week unchanged.

I spent nearly 10 years working as a trauma-focused therapist and became the top-rated therapist in Salt Lake City before eventually leaving traditional practice and developing my own approach to healing. I did not leave because I stopped believing people could change. I left because I became increasingly interested in how much faster and more effectively change could happen if people were taught how to do the work themselves. That became the focus of the methods I developed and the free healing program built around them. This retreat takes that same approach and removes one of the biggest limitations of ordinary work: the clock. There is no one-hour session followed by six days of returning to the same routines and hoping the insight sticks. For a week, this is what we are here to do.

But the week is not going to feel like seven straight days of emotional labor. You will wake up in the jungle, eat breakfast with the group, do focused work in the morning, and then actually live. We will go surfing, head to the beach, slide down a natural rock waterslide, swim at night, sit under the stars, drink cacao, eat together, play games, laugh, get tired, get annoyed with each other, make friends, and have ridiculous conversations. That is not filler around the "real" retreat. It is part of it. Relationships bring out parts of us that rarely appear when we are sitting alone thinking about ourselves. Someone makes you feel insecure. Someone annoys you. You feel left out. You want approval. You pull away. You feel unexpectedly safe with people you barely knew three days ago. Those moments give you live material to work with instead of waiting for the next problem to happen after you get home.

As the week goes on, my role should become smaller. At first, I will teach the methods, demonstrate them, help you identify what is underneath what you are struggling with, and step in when you get stuck. Then you begin doing more of it yourself. You practice the methods, choose what fits, work alongside other people, and eventually teach what you have learned. By the end of the week, I do not want you dependent on me because something finally worked. I want you to understand why it worked, recognize when you need it again, and know how to use it on your own. That is what makes the week valuable after Costa Rica is over. This retreat is for someone who is genuinely ready for things to be different.

Maybe you have already spent years understanding yourself and are frustrated that understanding has not translated into change. Maybe you keep ending up in the same relationship dynamics, reacting in the same ways, doubting yourself in the same places, or carrying something that you are simply done carrying. Maybe your life is already good and you know it could feel significantly better. Whatever it is, come with something you actually want to be different by the time you leave. We are going to spend a week working on it, measuring whether it is changing, making the desired change, and teaching you how to confidently apply this same process when you need it.

Because the purpose of this retreat is not to give you a beautiful week where you temporarily feel better. The purpose is for you to actually become better in the ways you came wanting to change.

You don't come here so I can heal you. You come here so you can learn how to heal yourself.

Arbol Verde sits folded into the rainforest above Ojochal, surrounded by dense green, warm air, and the kind of wildlife that makes the place feel genuinely alive. The villas rise into the trees rather than shutting the jungle out, so mornings begin with birdsong, movement in the canopy, and sunlight breaking through enormous leaves. Monkeys swing through the trees around the property, exotic birds are frequent visitors, and even an ordinary moment—drinking coffee on the deck, sitting beside the pool, walking back to your villa—can suddenly become something you stop and take in. The property feels less like a hotel placed in Costa Rica and more like somewhere built into the landscape itself.

That feeling extends far beyond the property. Costa Rica is regularly recognized as one of the most naturally beautiful places in the world, and it is easy to understand why when you are there. Rainforest-covered mountains fall toward the Pacific, beaches and waterfalls are scattered throughout the surrounding landscape, and wildlife appears in places that would feel extraordinary almost anywhere else. There is a sense of awe built into everyday life there. Sometimes it is a monkey moving through the canopy while you are eating breakfast. Sometimes it is standing beneath a waterfall, seeing the ocean open up in front of you, watching a storm move across the mountains, or simply realizing how much life is moving around you at once.

That matters for a week like this. You can spend the morning doing some of the hardest and most meaningful work you have ever done on yourself, then spend the afternoon surfing, swimming, exploring a waterfall, or laughing with the group somewhere that looks almost unreal. The work can be intense without the week itself feeling heavy, because the environment keeps pulling you outward again—toward curiosity, beauty, movement, and connection. At night, the whole place changes again. The heat softens, the jungle gets louder, and because Ojochal is so removed from city lights, the stars can be spectacular. Some of the best moments of the week may be the simplest ones: night swimming, sitting outside talking with people you have grown close to, or looking up through the trees at a sky packed with stars.

There is also something about Costa Rica that is difficult to reduce to scenery. The energy of the place feels different. Life seems closer to the surface there—warmer, slower, and more present. You are surrounded by things that pull your attention out of routine and back into the moment. That can matter when you are trying to change something deeply rooted in yourself. Healing is harder when every part of your environment keeps reinforcing the same habits, pressures, roles, and patterns you are trying to leave behind. In Costa Rica, you are temporarily removed from all of that and immersed instead in an environment that constantly creates moments of awe.

The setting does not do the work for you, but it becomes part of the healing itself. Costa Rica creates the kind of environment where healing can begin to feel natural—where awe, beauty, movement, connection, and distance from ordinary life all work in the same direction as the changes you came there to make.

The week has a rhythm without being rigid. Most of the focused work happens in the mornings when your mind and energy are freshest. Afternoons give you space to get outside, experience Costa Rica, connect with the group, or simply let what happened that morning settle. Evenings are more open for questions, individual work, support, conversation, rest, or continuing something that needs more attention.

More importantly, the structure of the week changes as you do. Sunday is about foundations—understanding how the process works, identifying your goals, learning the methods, and beginning to recognize the deeper patterns beneath what you came wanting to change. Monday and Tuesday are more guided and intensive: we work through goals together, test whether the changes are holding, and keep moving into whatever remains.

By Wednesday, the work begins to shift more into your hands. You have enough experience with the methods to start choosing what needs attention, deciding how to work with it, and using the process with less direction from me. By Thursday and Friday, that independence grows further. You begin working alongside other participants, practicing the methods with less guidance, and eventually teaching what you have learned.

That progression is intentional. At the beginning of the week, I expect you to need me more. By the end of the week, you hopefully won't need me at all.

The retreat is $5,000 for the full week, and the price is designed to cover the experience as a whole rather than make you pay for it piece by piece. Your accommodations at Arbol Verde, meals, transportation during the retreat, planned activities, group instruction, individualized support, and access to me throughout the week are all included. Once you arrive, the goal is for you to be able to focus on the work and the experience rather than constantly deciding what parts of the week you can afford to participate in.

There are only 12 spaces, which means the retreat is small enough for me to actually know what each person came to change and stay involved in their progress throughout the week. My normal rate is $150 an hour, and during the retreat I will be available for roughly 12 or more hours each day between structured work, demonstrations, questions, individualized help, and whatever comes up along the way. Across seven days, that is up to about 84 hours of access, which at my normal rate would represent $12,600 in professional time alone. That is not 84 private one-on-one hours for each person, but it gives a realistic sense of how different this experience is from buying access one hour at a time.

More importantly, you are not paying $5,000 simply for a week of support. You are paying to develop a skill you can use for the rest of your life. Learning how to recognize what is driving you, change patterns that are hurting you, and know what to do when something new comes up is one of the most important skills a person can develop. Most people are never actually taught how to do it, much less in a way that produces real change.

That is what makes the investment different from paying for a vacation or even paying for a series of sessions. The week itself ends. The skill does not. You leave with the experience of having used the process repeatedly, seen what actually works for you, and learned how to apply it again when life gives you something new to work through.

And the $5,000 is not paying for that skill in some sterile classroom. It includes a week in Costa Rica, surrounded by rainforest, ocean, wildlife, waterfalls, activities, meals, connection, and the space to step outside your normal life while you learn it. The goal is for the retreat to be worth far more than what you paid for the week because what you are really taking home is something you can keep using for a lifetime.

There are only 12 spots available with shared beds. I know that shared beds aren't desirable, but it allows us to help as many people as we can.

Plus, who said that person isn't there to help you heal?