HEART:
RESTING INTO YOUR TRUE NATURE
A half day online retreat.
mind
body
heart
soul
spirit
This is not a formal, serious retreat experience.
It’s an irreverent invitation to show up, with raw, tender, messy honesty, right where you are.
What happens if there’s nowhere to go from here except, perhaps, deeper into presence?
Let’s find out.
Meet yourself in the moment.
Thursday, January 16th, 2025
11:00AM - 3:00PM PST
Or, if you know you’re in for more:
This is the second of a series of three half day retreats. If you know you’re in for more, you can sign up now for $450, or spread the cost out over three months ($150/ month).
Retreat 1: Mind & Body - Remembering Who We Are: October 17th, 2024 - recording available now.
Retreat 2: Heart - Resting into Our True Nature: January 16th, 2025
Retreat 3: Soul & Spirit - Inspiring the Ease of Simply Being: April 10th, 2025
Join me for one, or Join me for all three.
mind
body
heart
soul
spirit
For a long time, I've been rebelling against the idea that any of us are broken, or that we are problems to be solved, or that there’s anywhere we need to get to in order to be whole.
So.
I’m not in the business of convincing people they need to be connected to their hearts when they’re not. I’m not here to tell you to ‘drop into your heart’ and search for connection or love or compassion if you’re feeling disconnected, sad, numb, angry or hurt.
I’m far more interested in what happens when all of you - including your heart - gets to feel supported and held while feeling disconnected. Disconnection isn’t wrong - it’s an intelligent response that deserves tending. What if we treated it as such, and nothing about who you are or how you feel is a problem?
F#%K HIGH VIBE, F#%K TOXIC POSITIVITY, F#%K FORCING OURSELVES INTO FAKE COMPASSION.
It’s from this place and with this attitude that we meet for this retreat, to explore together a series of questions.
What happens when we’re estranged from our hearts? What happens when we feel we’re not listening to or living from our hearts? How do we let kindness in?
What happens when we’re walking around the world broken hearted from the amount of times we’ve been wrecked and we feel abandoned by our own hearts, by other people’s hearts, by God? What is there to connect with? How do we keep showing up?
What if we’re so hurt and so damaged and so out of hope that our heart feels absent or out of reach or like something we can’t trust? What else can we rely on?
How do we walk in a world with our boundaries intact AND feel so sensitive and impacted by everything we move through?
What might it look like to be moving through your day oriented towards your heart in a way that’s right for you, exactly as you are right now?
You might have guessed by now that this experience isn’t about learning tools or tips or tricks.
It’s not about being super formal and serious. It’s definitely not about being “high vibe”.
It’s about being real.
It’s a permission slip to be right where you are, and to find out what happens when you start to put down all the noise that tells you that where you are and who you are is not enough.
What if it is enough? What does that make space for?
During the retreat, we will circle these questions together.
Bring yourself, bring blankets and pillows, bring your journal, bring your curiosity and your rebellious streak. I will see you there.
Opening & arriving
Talk & discussion
Nervous system regulation practice
LUNCH BREAK
Group & community connection
Somatic movement practice
Mini talk
Nervous system regulation practice
Group share & Q&A
Closing practice
Our itinerary
You will receive audio recordings of the nervous system practices we do together after the retreat, so should you want to, you can come back to them again and again. These are the kinds of practices that deepen over time - the more you practice, the more they have to offer you.
I believe it’s the ultimate question - how do we rest into who we really are, and live that out in the world?
It might seem counterintuitive, but we do it lightly. Welcoming everything, we do it with humor. With tears. With rage. And always, always, with love.
Or, if you know you’re in for more:
This is the second of a series of three half day retreats. If you know you’re in for more, you can sign up now for $450, or spread the cost out over three months ($150/ month).
Retreat 1: Mind & Body - Remembering Who We Are: October 17th, 2024 - recording available now.
Retreat 2: Heart - Resting into Our True Nature: January 16th, 2025
Retreat 3: Soul & Spirit - Inspiring the Ease of Simply Being: April 10th, 2025
Join me for one, or Join me for all three.
Is this fr you?
The short answer: if something in you is resonating with or curious about what you’ve read so far, then yes. You belong here.
People have very different and unique relationships with their hearts. Some people feel deeply connected to them, others - like my assistant (shared with her permission) feel like they don’t have a heart at all.
This retreat is for you no matter where you sit on that spectrum. The enquiry we’ll enter into and the practices we will explore are designed to open doors to insights that will support you to live your life your way. No one-size-fits-all, no ideal to live up to.
You, your relationship to your own heart, your relationship to right here, right now. Every single part of you is welcome, exactly as you are right now.
Don’t have time?
When you don’t have time - it might feel counterintuitive, but that’s the perfect time to pause, and fill your cup. If you think about how it feels when you don’t have time for anything, there’s a particular kind of energy to it. A sort of forward agitation, the need to keep hustling to stay even half a step ahead. The problem is that the hamster wheel never stops, unless you step off.
Even for a little while.
And take a breath. Soften. Give yourself the gift of presence and a moment of grace.
I can offer you a moment, a gentle and kind place to rest, but it’s up to you to step off the wheel and take it.
This experience will feel a little like the retreat I led in Panama earlier this year, but in your own home (so you don’t have to get out of your pajamas if you don’t want to. In fact, I might not, either). Here’s what someone had to say about that experience:
Client Stories
“I feel noticeably more connected to the different parts of myself; more grounded, nourished, and integrated; and emboldened to dream big for myself and the world. I learned (or maybe, was reminded) that healing is possible, wounds do not require attention permanently once treated, and the water carried by marred buckets is no less valuable for the scars.”
THIS. This is part of what I want for all humans everywhere.
Retreat 1: Mind & Body - Remembering Who We Are: October 17th, 2024 - recording available now.
Retreat 2: Heart - Resting into Our True Nature: January 16th, 2025
Retreat 3: Soul & Spirit - Inspiring the Ease of Simply Being: April 10th, 2025
Or, if you know you’re in for more:
This is the second of a series of three half day retreats. If you know you’re in for more, you can sign up now for $450, or spread the cost out over three months ($150/ month).
Join me for one, or Join me for all three.
Who am I?
hi
I’M SHELBY LEIGH, MA, LPC
Shelby Leigh is a highly sought-after trauma therapist, twice-certified coach, consultant, and Licensed Professional Counselor. Her methodology is a seamless weave of nervous system regulation and co-regulation support, somatic practices, attachment theory, and trauma-informed mindfulness.
When away from work, you’ll find her driving down a dirt road, taking in gorgeous views, road-tripping, wandering in the woods, rafting a river, midnight canoe stargazing, flying somewhere tropical, typing half-written memoirs, taking long naps, chasing sunsets and asking herself frequently “what is the MOST loving thing I can do in this moment?”