This start-of-year retreat offers an opportunity to deepen your relationship with yourself through embodied exploration, conscious reflection, and mindful movement. Through Meditation, Yoga, SATYA yoga, Restorative Yoga, expressive movement and reflection, this retreat is designed to support you in aligning with your true self for the year ahead. This practice is especially powerful as a tool for self-reflection and grounding during transitions. Join Leia Layus and Nkechi Njaka in this incredible experience to prepare to enter 2025 from a place of inner wisdom, wholeness and presence.
Who Is This Retreat For?
This retreat is open to anyone who is interested in somatic exploration, mindful movement, and intentional self-reflection. Whether you are familiar with Yoga or new to somatic inquiry practice, this experience will provide a safe, supportive space for all participants to engage with the body’s wisdom, explore inner growth, and prepare for the next chapter in their journey.
Key Themes We Will Explore:
•Reflecting 2024 year’s experiences and personal growth
•Releasing what no longer serves you
•Cultivating sovereignty, presence, and embodiment
•Preparing to exist more fully in your sacred self in 2025
•Exploring somatic practices for lasting inner alignment
Movement Modalities:
Vinyasa Flow Yoga: Leia's vinyasa classes are steady and graceful yet strong, incorporating both standing and balancing poses. These classes emphasize technique while working towards achieving a peak pose. Leia's Flow classes follow a rhythmic pace and focus on overall body stretching to promote a meditative state of mind. She integrates Eastern philosophy and self-inquiry into her classes, leaving participants feeling both energized and grounded.
SATYA Yoga: SATYA (Sensory Awareness Training for Yoga Attunement) is a deeply restorative and mindful practice designed to help you connect to the sensations in your body. This practice encourages gentle movements that work on a somatic level, inviting awareness and integration throughout the entire body. Through SATYA, we will guide you to slow down, feel into your body, and cultivate awareness of your inner landscape. This mindful movement practice serves as a way to release old patterns, ease physical tension, and create space for new energy to flow as we move into the new year.
Embodied Presence: Embodied presence is about becoming attuned to the wisdom held in the body and allowing it to guide us toward greater self-awareness through mindfulness meditation, expressive movement and reflection. In this workshop, we will explore how to be more fully present within ourselves and our bodies, using techniques that connect us to our breath, our movement, and our inner knowing. This practice is especially powerful as a tool for self-reflection and grounding during transitions.
What is included
•7 Nights accommodations
•1 Daily Morning Meditation
•1 Daily Movement practice: SATYA, Slow Flow, Restore, Explorative Movement
•1 Daily Workshop & Discussion
•3 Daily Gourmet Meals
•Opening Ceremony
•1 Bonfire Evening
•1 Sovereignty Ritual
•1 Closing Night dance party
•Private access to beach and infinity pool
•Optional treatments (massage, facial)
•Transportation to and from the airport (upon request)
PRICING PER PERSON | TYPE OF ROOM
Triple: $2800.00
Double: $3500.00
Single: $3900.00
Pricing Specials:
Ongoing Specials:
$200 off the total if you Pay the Full Balance
$100 off the total if you book with a 50% deposit
FEELS LIKE A YES!?
Please Email for interest and inquiries.
About Your Retreat Leaders:
LEIA LAYUS
As a yoga teacher and integrative therapist, Leia finds inspiration in the connection between psychology, Eastern philosophy, somatic movement modalities, yoga, mindfulness, creativity, and spirituality. Her classes blend Vinyasa, Hatha Yoga, and restorative Satya Yoga to provide foundation, grace, and ease. She accompanies her classes with her love of philosophy, poetry, and wisdom of East-West psychology.
Leia's journey has led her to study Vinyasa and Hatha Yoga with various San Francisco training programs, mentorship with Stacie Overby, and studies of the Yoga Sutra with The Yoga Well Institute. Her primary studies with Tias Little, of Prajna Yoga in New Mexico, have allowed her to weave together ancient wisdom with modern science to support the subtle body. Additionally, Leia is a graduate of the Integral Counseling Psychology program at the California Institute of Integral Studies, emphasizing an integrative approach toward mental health and overall well-being.
Nkechi Njaka
Nkechi’s journey is a web of science, art, and deep personal inquiry, all woven together by a profound commitment to understanding the intricate dance between the brain and the body. From a young age, Nkechi was drawn to explore how our thoughts and physical experiences shape who we are. This curiosity led her to Scripps College, where she immersed herself in the dual disciplines of neuroscience and dance. There, she discovered the profound connections between movement and mental processes, laying the groundwork for a career that would bridge multiple worlds.
After completing her undergraduate studies, Nkechi’s thirst for knowledge and deeper understanding took her across the Atlantic to the University of Edinburgh, where she earned her MSc in Neuroscience. Her academic journey didn’t stop there; she is currently pursuing doctoral studies in Creative Research at Transart/Liverpool John Moore’s University, further exploring the intersections of creativity, mindfulness, and human well-being.
Nkechi’s work is a unique blend of neuroscience, mindfulness, and artistic expression. As a practice-based researcher, she delves into how mindfulness and creativity are not just beneficial but essential for both individual and global well-being. Her findings have shaped her professional path, leading her to found The Compass, a lifestyle studio focused on guiding others toward mindful living, and co-found DreamWell, a sleep app that helps users cultivate restful, rejuvenating sleep through mindfulness.
Her contributions to the fields of wellness and mindfulness have earned her recognition from leading organizations, including Google, goop, Black Girl in Om, Wanderlust, Calm, Apple, and Forbes. As a 2017 YBCA Truth Fellow, a 2021 Kennedy Center Artist in Residence, and a 2022 Garrison Institute Fellow, Nkechi has been celebrated for her innovative approach to integrating mindfulness into everyday life. Her work has not only influenced individuals but has also shaped broader cultural conversations around wellness.
Nkechi is also deeply committed to social practice, using her platform to advocate for inclusivity and equity in wellness spaces. She identifies as a BIPOC/WOC, and her work reflects a deep understanding of the importance of diverse perspectives in the wellness industry.
When she’s not guiding people through mindfulness practices, Nkechi is a thought leader and public speaker, sharing her insights on the importance of integrating wellness, science, and creativity. She co-hosts the podcast Dating White, where she explores complex issues of race, identity, and relationships, and she is one half of RESONANCE, a music and mindfulness project that blends her love of sound with her commitment to mindful living.
Nkechi’s journey is one of continual learning, teaching, and creating—a journey that inspires others to explore the depths of their own minds and bodies, to embrace creativity, and to live with presence and purpose.