Modern Goddess Retreat
An Intimate Experience for Mothers & Daughters
“Difficulty and challenges between mothers and daughters are rampant and widespread but not openly spoken about. The taboo about speaking about the pain of the mother wound is what keeps it in place and keeps it hidden in shadow, festering and out of view.”
Learn more about this intimate experience by clicking on the image above.
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What would it be like to have the relationship of your dreams with your mother and/or daughter?
No matter how good it is, what if it could be better?
Free of unhealthy mother-daughter patterns
Genuine and mutually enriching and respectful relationship
With more freedom to create new ways of relating and loving each other
With your daughter that is free of the patterns that might have affected your own relationship with your mother
Rooted in love, fun, and friendship!
about the retreat
Know · Heal · See · Love
Join a community of daughters and mothers who also desire to have a deeper and more authentic relationship with one another. In a beautiful and sacred location, supported by healthy food, daily yoga, nature, art, and play, mothers and daughters will learn to cultivate more honest and authentic ways of communicating, expressing themselves, and ultimately, deepen their trust for a healthier, more loving bond. Even good relationships will have the opportunity to improve in ways that may not even be clear today.
The journey we’ll take will start with KNOW. How well do we know and accept ourselves. How well do our mothers know and accept themselves. If we have daughters, how well do they know and accept themselves. What is our overall understanding of one another—the integral women and young girls that define our family and legacy.
From KNOW we will wander with compassion and grace into HEAL. We all have areas of our lives—relationships and events—that need healing. Healing is an act of courage and forgiveness, freeing us to experience new again.
From HEAL, our eyes will become more open to SEE. See more clearly who we are today, while acknowledging our need to be seen and to see others for who they truly are, free from the patterns and experiences that might have kept us or them hidden or less known. As a result, we have a relationship that is less authentic and safe, or at best, strained.
From SEE, we will end in the place we all desire—LOVE, exploring what it feels to love more freely—unconditionally without fear or expectation. Free to love in ways we were designed to love, starting first with self, moving intentionally to the important women in our lives.
Who should attend
All Ages: Together or By Yourself
Women of all ages are invited to attend with their mothers and/or daughters (age 9 or older) as well as women who want to heal the relationship with their mother or daughter alone (eg., mother or child has passed, is not geographically available or cannot travel, teenager who may not want to come, etc). Individual and group activities have been designed to be equally meaningful to the relationship process and overall experience.
A particularly special part of the retreat is the invitation for daughters as young as 9 years-old to participate. During the retreat, the young girls will have the opportunity to engage in their own meaningful activities and interactions, both together and with their moms. Full consideration of their tender development age and emotional safety will be ensured. The result will be a life experience they will never forget!
“Research shows that negative patterns between mothers and daughters are carried through the generations. This suggests that the earlier in life we can identify and choose to change them, the greater opportunity to break free from their impact. As a mother of my own 10 year-old, I want nothing more than this for my own relationship.”
what will you leave with
Growth in Your Journey
Literature defines Goddess as a "woman who is greatly loved or admired." Mothers and daughters are often the most greatly loved women in our lives. With great love, there can also be suffering and sadness.
During the retreat, we will reflect on and learn to honor both by inviting each mother & daughter, either attending together or alone, to:
Identify, understand and break free from mothering patterns that may be negatively affecting their relationship.
Create new, deeper, lighter, and healthier ways of relating and interacting that honor both mother and daughter, no matter their phase of life.
Know, see and appreciate the legacy of mother-daughter relationships in your family and life.
Embrace your feminine and motherly qualities with more choice and appreciation for self and one another.
Heal unresolved or confusing hurt with tools and practices they can use for a lifetime.
Love and bond with each other in new, more authentic and playful ways!
Our Time together
Example Retreat Schedule
Day 1
3:30pm Arrival & Check In
Session One: KNOW
Dinner
Evening Program: Self-Care
Day 2
Morning Activity: Walking Meditation
Breakfast
Session Two: HEAL
Lunch
Session Three: SEE
Yin Yoga
Dinner
Evening Program: Vision Boards
Day 3
Morning Activity: Reflection
Breakfast
Session Four: LOVE
Lunch & Photo Session
Integration and Labyrinth
2:00pm Close & Depart
why I createD this retreat
An Unlikely Calling
It was January, 2016, an inaugural all women’s visionary gathering at Esalen Institute on the coast of Big Sur. On Sunday morning, I sat listening and cheering for women who stood up to share and claim their work in the world. A question fell on my heart. What could keep these amazing women from doing this work in the world? What unknown or known, unresolved hurt, pain or buried experience could get in their way? As the women stood up, I started to pray. I asked God or whatever higher power they were being supported by, to clear these wounds from their heart. To free them from any pain or suffering that could get in their way.
Then God asked this same question of me. What will keep me from doing my biggest work in the world? The answer was clear. It was my relationship with my mother. Within moments, I heard something else, what I now believe was a calling. God said to me: you will heal the wounds between mothers and daughters. With that, he put four words on my heart: KNOW, HEAL, SEE, LOVE.
I fell to my hands and knees, tears streaming down my cheeks, shouting out to God from the depths of my being: anything but that, anything but that. Why? Because I knew that if I were going to get anywhere close to doing this work in the world, I would have to start with me. At that time, this seemed impossible. Unbearable. I was in so much pain I honestly did not believe I had it in me to do the work.
After a few weeks of digesting, I started to share what had happened that morning, and in that process, I started to do the work. I engaged my coach and we played through some specific situations where my heart had been broken in relationship with my mom. I recalled in detail what had happened, how I reacted, what did I want my mom to do that she didn’t or couldn’t, and what did I want to feel capable of doing, and did I? If not, why? And could I forgive myself?
At the end of a coaching session, the one that prepared me for the next step in my work, my coach asked me: What did I need from my mom now that I didn’t get then? My heart stopped. I stood up from my desk chair and got into child’s pose on the floor. And there it was — my mother wound. What did I need or wish I could get from her now? To be known, attention, her time, validation for the hurt, regrets, mistakes — intended or not, to be loved unconditionally.
The picture was getting clearer. At least I had words to describe my wound — the whole in my heart that had never been filled. I didn’t underestimate the power of this. I reached out to my women’s network. I shared my calling. The response was beyond clear. I got more tears. I received massive encouragement to stay the course. I received validation to trust myself to do this work.
Flash forward to today, and a lot of hard work behind me, I have changed the constellation of my relationship with my mother. I have forgiven her, and in that, have also forgiven myself. I have found the capacity to hold her with more faith. As a result, she found the capacity within herself to finally say three words I didn’t know I needed but had waited my whole life to hear. “I am sorry.” And I believe her.
Prior to my calling, we were on a path where anger, resentment, blame, withholding of love, shutting down or shutting out, and denial took center stage. A path that took massive amounts of energy from both of us, with no return. Today we are on another path. A path where acceptance, compassion, forgiveness, validation, and appreciation take center stage. At our best, there is a lightness and playfulness to our exchanges.
I don’t mean to make this sound easy, it wasn’t and continues not to be. I have to stay brutally honest about my choices today for being in relationship with my mother. I have to continue to share my story and all its dark edges and trust that this is an important part of the journey — this owning of my story. And even as I bring this work into the world, I have to stay in my own work, actively and intentionally. Most importantly, I have to hold myself, my mother and our relationship with lightness and when it falters, grace.