Living Sanctuary Embodiment Retreat
January 2027
Santa Fe, New Mexico
What happens when we slow down enough to truly feel our yes, no, and maybe?
In the snow-covered mountains of Santa Fe late January 2027, as the outer world quiets for winter we will be creating space to turn toward the inner landscape, in our Living Sanctuary Embodiment Retreat.
In the rhythm with the season, we invite you to a space of practice, education, and integration across mind, body, and soul.
8 or 11-Day Winter Retreat
We welcome both individuals and couples. Couples may remain in their existing relational pairings or explore practices independently.
Practices are not romantic or sexual and practices do not have to involve touch at all. All evidence backed practices offered are opt-in, or opt-out and there is never a requirement to engage in practice unless explicitly chosen within clear consent agreements. Each individual is unique in how best they learn.
Module 1: Mind Body Soul Integration
8- day option
January 26- February 2
Or…
Module 2: Held
Genital Mapping
11-day option
January 26- February 5
Continuation for those wanting to go deeper
Module 1: Mind Body Soul Integration
Core Retreat (8-days/7-nights)
All participants attend this container
January 26-February 2
The core retreat is a structured somatic and relational education space with theory and opportunity for practice.
All evidence backed practices here are opt-in, consent-based, and fully participant-led.
“You don’t have a soul. You are a soul. You have a body.”
– C.S. Lewis
Our bodies often hold what the mind cannot yet name. Through Internal Family Systems (IFS), somatic awareness, breath, and relational practice, we will explore how unconscious patterns shape our relationship to ourselves, one another, and the natural world.
Together we will deepen cognitive understanding and experiential practice:
✓ The Wheel of Consent
✓ Education on Power dynamics and how this can affect choice, without awareness.
✓ Waking Up the Hands
✓ Clear relational communication
✓ Feeling and honoring our yes, no, and maybe in real time
✓ Deepening understanding and education of why “no” can feel so challenging to give or receive and how we can create new neural pathways, that shift how we experience no.
✓ Asking for exactly and only what you want
✓ Giving and receiving from attunement rather than performance (in all asked for touch practices, clothes stay on and there is no genital touch)
✓ Internal Family Systems education; witness or have opportunity to volunteer and participate in a live demo and have opportunity to journal and get to know your own “parts”
✓ Clothing optional yoga as a mindfulness practice in a desexualized space
✓ Breath-work practice
This retreat is rooted in one central aim…
Greater self-agency through embodied awareness, choice, and presence.
Participants are always empowered to opt in, opt out, pause, or change their mind at any time. Attend or not attend any of the sessions.
We will explore what supports honest communication, and what interferes with it -including conditioning, fear, shame, fawning, dissociation, and inherited relational patterns. Many individuals return to our retreats again and again for practice and deepening.
The final day/evening we will take a trip to Temple Canyon Sanctuary, land that has been held sacred by indigenous people for thousands of years, that now is owned by the -not for profit- ‘Shanti Christo Foundation’.
Upon leaving the land, we will visit Ojo Caliente, one of the oldest health resorts in the United States, originally established in 1868, famous for being one of the only places on Earth featuring four distinct, healing geothermal mineral waters-Iron, Soda, Arsenic, and Lithia- in naturally sulfur-free pools
Following our time at Ojo Caliente will be a home-cooked meal created by Israel when we arrive back home.
Participants only attending the 8-day retreat will check out by 10:00am the following morning, February 2
“The wheel is a practice, not a formula. Like meditation or yoga, the Wheel of Consent isn’t something you learn once, master, and move on from.
It’s a practice you return to, again and again.In that ongoing practice, we develop skills and capacity to notice what’s really happening between people, in real time, amidst everything messy, delightful, and dynamic about being human.
The more you practice it the more natural it becomes.”
– Dr.Betty Martin
Module 2: Held
EXTENDED EMBODIMENT MODULE
(DAYS 8–11)
Limited to 6 participants
Must attend Module 1 to attend Module 2
February 2–February 5
Begins at 1:00pm on February 2
This is a separate and distinct advanced practicum within the retreat offering, with its own scope of practice and informed consent requirements.
Intention:
Education and reclamation of genital embodiment, autonomy; experiencing one’s body as belonging fully to oneself, with increasing clarity, presence, and agency.
This module focuses on advanced somatic and relational embodiment education, including:
✓ Nervous system awareness in relational and embodied experience
✓ Education and deepening awareness of Self-Energy and the ability to recognize and name “parts”
✓ Refinement of consent, boundaries, and choice in real time
✓ Cognitive education on genital anatomy, creating new neural pathways through mind/body awareness
✓ Somatic education and practice in Genital mapping (solo and optional practice with a peer partner)
✓ Somatic tracking of sensation, emotional response, and internal signaling
✓ Awareness of protective patterns such as freeze, fawn, shutdown, and over-adaptation
✓ Relational communication under embodied activation
✓ Stronger relational clarity and communication
✓ Expanded capacity for consent, choice, and boundary expression
✓ Deeper integration of sensation, emotion, and nervous system responses
✓ Increased embodied autonomy and self-trust
Within this advanced module, we include education and guided exploration of genital mapping as a somatic awareness practice. Solo or option to have a peer practice partner.
Genital mapping practices are always opt-in, can be declined at any time, and are never required for participation in this module.
Learn more…
What is Genital Mapping?
Genital mapping is a somatic, non demand, educational practice often used in Somatic Sexology and holistic healing. It uses mindful, solo or asked for – consent-based touch in a clear container to explore the genitals, helping individuals identify anatomy, areas of tension, or numbness, pleasantness and supports the release of physical or emotional trauma.
Why We Offer This Module
Trauma-informed somatic practices and Internal Family Systems (IFS) has played a significant role in our own healing and reconnection to embodied autonomy. We have also witnessed these approaches offer meaningful support to others, especially in cases where primarily cognitive or “top-down” therapeutic models did not fully address the deeper layers of experience.
A note from Lauren
I came to this work after years of limited access to accurate education about my anatomy, consent-based touch, and embodied choice. Like many, I had learned to override my own internal signals in medical settings and intimate relationships, often deferring to external authority while losing connection to my own somatic knowing.
A turning point for me was entering an educational, non-romantic, fully consent-based somatic learning environment where I could explore sensation and anatomy within clear structure, boundaries, and choice.
Through education, training and practice, I have learned to communicate preferences in real time and to trust my body’s signals as valid and meaningful. I also learned to become self-honest and ask for what I truly want, without filtering- this is where deeper healing continues. Trusting myself, honoring my body; deepening my ability to communicate my choice, needs, fears and wants and know my value.
Through practices such as somatic mapping and guided educational touch exploration within strict consent agreements, I began to unwind patterns of shame, numbness, and disconnection, I began to allow more Life, bliss and innocence to return to awareness.
Over time, this supported a broader reclamation of agency, clarity, and self-trust in my life.
This is why I bring this work forward: because embodied autonomy is not conceptual – it is built through direct experience, attunement, and can be supported by clear containers of practice.
A note from Israel
I come to this work from a background of deep confusion around consent, sexual needs, sexual repression, touch, distortion and manipulation. It has been and continues to be a long journey of unravelling the places within that imagined that sex was the answer to the sense of unworthiness that lingered in the foundations of my being.
It was through the conception of my child 13 years ago, and the fall-out from this unplanned event, that I began to seriously question my sexual nature and how I was operating in the world. This catalysed me into this work through the necessity of my own healing.
Fast forward to now and I have learnt so much through the Wheel of consent, IFS and my ongoing relationship with Lauren. The Wheel has show me the depth of distortions that I have held around asking for what I want, holding a boundary and knowing that I have the right to say NO! Seeing how the inability to be direct led to a hundred different manipulations in an attempt to find the antidote to my own self-debasement, through other.
The IFS teaching me the vision and the tools to meet the parts that were centred in lack and unworthiness, parts that often imagined that salvation came through a woman’s body.
I continue in this journey, meeting my parts and learning in these spaces that we share.
Containers for Learning
Educational Self Genital Mapping Practice (inclusive of genitals)
We will be offering guided self-body mapping, with potential to deepen your understanding of anatomy and nervous system regulation within your own body.
These practices invite participants to mindfully map their own anatomy, explore sensation, experience their own body awareness, and notice areas that may hold fear, numbness, grief, shame, or disconnection.
- Increase sensory awareness in the pelvic and genital regions
- Create new neural pathways through mind/body connection and awareness
- Practice noticing patterns of holding, protection, numbness, or over-activation
- Develop capacity to track sensation without overriding or dissociation
Participants may remain fully clothed or unclothed during self-guided practices.
This work is offered strictly as:
- An educational somatic exploration practice
- Not a medical, therapeutic, or psychological treatment
- Not sexual or relational in intent or framing
Opportunity for Peer Genital Mapping Practice (if opted in)
For participants choosing partnered exercises:
- Pairings are facilitated based on participant preference and safety considerations
- All practices are clearly structured and sequentially guided
- All practices are for educational purposes and touch is unilateral (clear roles and boundaries)
- The receiving participant maintains full authority over pace, location, and continuation
- It is fully receiver-led
- Any participant may pause or stop at any time without explanation
- Facilitators are present to support clarity, consent tracking, and grounding
When included, genital mapping practices in peer practice are always explicitly consent-negotiated in advance and only occur within clearly defined educational parameters.
Where physical contact, including genitals, is part of a practice:
- Gloves are used
- Practices are non-sexual in framing and intention
- Unilateral structure is maintained
Screening and Appropriateness
This module is not appropriate for individuals currently experiencing:
- Acute psychiatric instability or dysregulation
- Significant difficulty asserting or changing boundaries in real time
- Inability to distinguish internal sensation from external pressure or suggestion
Participants are encouraged to self-assess readiness for intensive somatic and relational learning.
Facilitators may at any point during retreat recommend only the Core Retreat if that better supports participant stability and integration.
Closing of module
This module concludes at 4:00 PM on February 2 followed by the final shared dinner experience at Izanami (10,000 Waves).
About Lauren and Israel
Lauren and Israel bring over 30 years of combined experience guiding others in the fields of spirituality, Yoga, Tai Chi, and embodied healing practices.
Over the last eight years, their work has deepened into Clarity Breathwork, Somatic Sex Education, Internal Family Systems (IFS), and the Wheel of Consent® created by Dr. Betty Martin.
Lauren is a Certified Somatic Sex Educator, and Israel has trained extensively in the Wheel of Consent with Dr. Betty Martin, as well as through the Somatic Sex Institute. Together, they have also completed both the “Like a Pro” and “Working with Groups” trainings through the School of Consent.
Both Lauren and Israel are trauma-informed Internal Family Systems Counseling Association trained Practitioners.
This retreat marks the eighth embodiment retreat they have co-created together, both nationally and internationally. They are passionate about creating nourishing, grounded spaces where people can slow down, reconnect with themselves, and grow in authentic community, and Santa Fe holds a special place in both their hearts.
They are committed to offering embodiment work in safe-enough, evidence-backed containers rooted in care, choice, curiosity, and respect. Their intention is to cultivate spaces where diversity is welcomed, where consent is practiced and arrived at together, humanity is honored, and each person is empowered to move at their own pace.
What 's included?
Module 1 : 7 nights + 8 days Or for Module 2: 10 nights + 11 days
Your room stay is included.
All meals included EXCEPT our final dinner out will NOT be included.
Our trip to Ojo Caliente historic hot springs is NOT included and is $65 per person.
Transportation to hot springs and land IS included.
Transportation to and from airport is NOT included
Getting there
Santa Fe airport is 15 miles from our retreat location. You can get a uber or possibly share a ride with other participants arriving at same time.
Albuquerque airport is 65 miles and you can also get a uber or bus or train from here. Googled search to discover options.
Not included
Last night meal together, we will be dining out
Transportation from airport to location is not provided.
Fee for Soaking in hot springs at Ojo Caliente ($65) not included
Final dinner out at Izanami restaurant, located at 10,000 waves is not included.
- Lauren and Israel’s retreats are not for profit, so everything you are paying goes directly for your accommodation. After you return home if you feel inspired to give them a donation for their time, energy and facilitation creating and holding the space, that is welcome but never expected.
Guidelines Agreement Required
-
*Be sure you are in agreement with guidelines before signing up for retreat*
- Unless you come with your partner- there are no new couple bondings during our retreat together.
- No having sex with new people you meet during our retreat time together. This keeps the focus on the whole. This is how the space of every retreat we have created has been held and is respected by all participants.
- No recreational drugs or alcohol during our time together. This keeps a clear mind when making decisions for ones self, and supports attunement to the nervous system without outside influence.
Retreat Pricing + Accomodation options
Includes all meals for 8 day retreat participants; includes all meals except final dinner out for participants of 11 day retreat
Bedroom 1: King Bed + 2 En suite
Single Occupancy
Module 1 @ Single Occupancy = $1350
Module 1+2 @ Single Occupancy = $2150
Shared Occupancy
Module 1 @ Shared Occupancy = $1000 Per person
Module 1+2 @ Shared Occupancy = $1650 Per Person
Bedroom 2: Queen Bed + En Suite
Single Occupancy
Module 1 @ Single Occupancy = $1088
Module 1+2 @ Single Occupancy = $1688
Shared Occupancy
Module 1 @ Shared Occupancy = $850 Per Person
Module 1+2 @ Shared Occupancy = $1350 Per Person
Bedroom 3: King Bed + En Suite (Bath Tub only)
Single Occupancy
Module 1 @ Single Occupancy = $1150
Module 1+2 @ Single Occupancy = $1800
Shared Occupancy
Module 1 @ Shared Occupancy = $900 Per person
Module 1+2 @ Shared Occupancy = $1450 Per person
Bedroom 4: Queen Bed + Private Bathroom (Shower only)
Single Occupancy
Module 1 @ Single Occupancy = $1000
Module 1+2 @ Single Occupancy = $1580
Shared Occupancy
Module 1 @ Shared Occupancy = $750 Per person
Module 1+2 @ Shared Occupancy = $1210 Per person
Bedroom 5: King Bed + Shared Bathroom
Single Occupancy
Module 1 @ Single Occupancy = $930
Module 1+2 @ Single Occupancy = $1410
Shared Occupancy
Module 1 @ Shared Occupancy = $730 Per person
Module 1+2 @ Shared Occupancy = $1180 Per person
Bedroom 6: Queen Bed + Shared Bathroom
Single Occupancy
Module 1 @ Single Occupancy = $830
Module 1+2 @ Single Occupancy = $1210
Shared Occupancy
Module 1 @ Shared Occupancy = $610 Per person
Module 1+2 @ Shared Occupancy = $890 Per person
Sleeping Bag: Shared bathroom
Module 1 = $550
Module 1+2 = $830
An acknowledgement of where we will be spending our time.
Santa Fe is Home to 23 indigenous tribes, nations and pueblos, with Spanish and Anglo influences. The distinct southwestern feel of this land is palpable, a cultural melting pot of timeless enchantment, vibrant art scenes, with a rich blend of cultural history… a nourishing holding space for our time together.
Steps to book
Send an email to Lauren: titled, “Sante Fe” and let me know your name and if it’s only you attending or you and your partner/friend.
- Let me know that you consent to guidelines.
I will email you my Venmo or PayPal link to send me your $600 non-refundable deposit to book your reservation. (Unless your in sleeping bag option and non refundable deposit of $250 is due upon booking)
Then we can celebrate! You are booked!
Full payment is due: 20th Nov 2027.
Offerings
We are a sanctuary where humans are supported in full bodied aliveness, and the remembrance of divinity. Offering monthly Certified yoga classes, breath-work, Self-empowerment through Certified Intimacy Education and educational retreats held in pristine locations.
