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The 2023 RETREAT has been cancelled. If you are interested in attending a 2024 RETREAT, please give us your information so we can keep you updated!
A carefully crafted, four-day experience, created to guide you to a place of quiet power.
From sunrise to sunset, you will learn and grow with experts in psychology, art, yoga, fitness, meditation, Qigong, breath work, and physiology.
Rachel Sievers offers daily seminars on the art and science of quieting your world so you can hear the voice within you.
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Choose your experience:
Meditation?
Or a workshop on narcissism?
Sunrise Yoga?
Or a hike to Grant's Grove?
Visioning with a small group?
Or a massage?
You decide what your perfect day will look like.
MEET OUR EXPERTS
Rachel Sievers, MS, (MFTret.)
Rachel is a counselor, podcaster, and life coach with a Master's Degree of Science in Psychology. She runs an expanded, dynamic counseling practice that utilizes her experience as a psychotherapist and action-based methods to achieve tremedous results with her clients.
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She began her career working with families of foster and adopted children. Since then, she's worked in private practice using Dialectical Behavior Therapy, Affirmative therapy, and Gestalt therapy. She is trained in the Gottman Method and in Somatic Experiencing. She specializes in adults, couples, LGBTQ+ issues, trauma, and codependency.
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Her purpose is to uplift. Everything she does in life is aimed to uplift herself and others.
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Amy Figueroa is a Mixed Media Artist born and raised in Tulare, California with 30 years experience in her field. She specializes in Art Journaling in which she uses acrylic and watercolor paints, inks, pencils, pens, collage techniques, and creative writing to express emotion and self reflection.
Her love of the outdoors inspires her to hunt and gather rocks, sticks, feathers and more, to sketch or paint.
“The process of hunting for all these natural goodies is extremely meditative. If I arrange them on the ground in a way that’s pleasing to my eye, that in itself is satisfying. I can also sketch that layout, add some paint, and then write about how all of this makes me feel in my art journal. This process brings so much peace and I want everyone to experience it.”
Pat Bardone
Pat Bardone received his Doctor of Medical Qigong under Professor Jerry Alan Johnson Ph.D, D.T.C.M., D.M.Q. (China) at the International Institute of Medical Qigong, Overseas College of Medical Qigong Henan University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, in February 2012. He has trained in Qigong (chi kung) for 30 years.
Emie Locke is a Trauma Informed BodyMindSpirit Therapist certified in CranioSacral Therapy and Esalen Massage Therapy. She incorporates a Dream Tending skill set, embodiment and breathwork practices, and mindfulness work into her sessions. She is also a certified Sex, Love and Relationship Coach through VITA Institute with Layla Martin and a Tantric Spirituality Left Hand Path initiate with Ernest Morrow. Her overall focus and purpose is to help others live from their centered wholeness in order to connect more intimately to Body, Breath, Earth and Others.
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The container Emie holds for her clients is safe and transformative, bathed in Love,Truth, and Beauty. Her space allows the nervous system to down regulate, shadow and traumatized parts to be held lovingly and integrate gently, and for the client to experientially reconnect to their Soul Truth, Essence of Love, and inner empowerment. Emie meets you where you're at and will support you as go as deep and high as you are ready to go, bringing your unique brilliance into the world.
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David Castro is a Marriage and Family Therapist working in private practice in Visalia. He works with individuals using mindfulness techniques along with Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. David believes healing comes through building connection and community, helping each other feel a little less alone in the world. He believes creative expression, movement, and mindfulness are key healing processes that help transform lives.
David has been coming to Sequoia Lake since he was a child, and has organized their annual yoga retreat for three years. He has a background in visual art and practices yoga and Chi Kung.
He looks forward to meeting and serving you at THE RETREAT.
Paula Bayard
Paula Bayard graduated from Oregon College of Oriental Medicine and is a licensed acupuncturist practicing acupuncture, Chinese herbology, and nutrition since 2001. She was introduced to mindfulness meditation at retreats with Zen master, Thich That Hanh in 2005.
For over ten years she facilitated a local meditation circle. She loves helping find their own path to wellness. Paula’s passion for understanding healing developed over 20 years practicing Chinese medicine, nutrition, mindfulness meditation, and Qi Gong.
Paula knows from personal and professional experience that changing how we live brings deep healing to our bodies by balancing what has gone out of balance.
What heals our bodies also heals the world around us. We are not separate. We are in our place between Heaven and Earth, made of both and responsible to them, to ourselves and to our world.
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Alysia Schmidt
As a Certified Integrative Nutrition Health Coach from the Institute of Integrative Nutrition, Alysia Schmidt understands the importance of recognizing the mind, body and spirit as a complete and vital system. She specializes in helping clients come home into their bodies so they can learn to listen to what is genuine for themselves, be it the food they eat, the decisions they make or how they care for themselves. She also enjoys guiding people to healthy eating and physical activity that fits their lifestyle and preferences.
Alysia found health coaching through her struggles with overeating, fatigue, sugar addiction, anxiety, perfectionism and low self esteem. Empathetic and caring, she is focused on honoring fears and feelings and using them as guides for growth. She is dedicated to assisting others in awakening their own personal divinity and power, leaving behind old stories and habits for a vibrant and authentic life.
Before becoming a health coach, Alysia spent 15 years working for the National Park Service, many of those years at Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks, immersing herself in nature, learning about indiginous cultures and sharing it all with park visitors. This connection to nature and our humanness has helped her to facilitate healing and connection for her clients.
Cassandra Hein
Cassandra Hein is the creatrix of The Green Sage Bay, an intuitive facilitator of healing, a gymnast of 15 years, a licensed massage therapist of 10 years, an Akhanda Yoga teacher of six years, Usui Reik and Nuad Thai Yoga therapist, sound healer, and Neuro Linguistics Practitioner, aerialist, life enthusiast, and a kind being.
Cassie graduated from Cleveland Institute of Medical Massage in 2012 and has passionately practiced since. She fuses multiple modalities in her bodywork sessions, creating custom sessions based on each individual’s physical and energetic needs. She is trauma informed and prepared to hold space in sessions with grace and presence.
She is versed in therapeutic modalities including: deep tissue, trigger point, sports therapy, myofascial release, Nuad Thai Yoga as well as energetic practices: Reiki, Vagus Nerve Tuning Fork Protocol, and sound fusion.
She is an avid learner, reader, nature lover and traveller. She hosts workshops, weekly aerial and beach yoga classes, leads retreats and volunteers on regenerative farms.
She is excited to connect through massage and facilitate your healing!
April is a Registered Yoga Teacher with a Personal Training & Fitness Nutrition Certification. She hosts classes in her local studio in Visalia, CA as well as having an online presence on YouTube where she offers free Yoga videos to the public.
April has discovered how important Movement, Mindset and Nutrition are to balance mental, physical and spiritual health. She believes in a Whole Health approach to be able to Live Well.
She’s on a mission to help others to learn the skills to help themselves live a more quality life!
April understands that lean muscle mass and flexibility prevent injury as we age and set us up for success health-wise and now she wants to share it with you!
