7 Days of Embodied Awakening
A week of cacao, sound, dance, and the practitioners who hold space without flinching.
Guides on this retreat
Practitioners who hold pieces of these days — known by name, found on the ground.
Nina
bodywork · breathwork · tantra
Fifteen-plus years across bodywork, energywork, yogatherapy, breathwork, IFS, tantra and pelvis health care. Her "Awaken: Breath & Bodywork Therapy" at Pyramids of Chi combines breath, bodywork, and sound — a single session can move things that talk therapy spent months on.
@pyramidsofchi →
What you can’t name, you carry. What you name, you set down.
A flexible recipe for a week in Ubud’s conscious-community scene. One anchor most days, an explicit rest day on day four, a closing circle on day seven. The point isn’t to do everything — it’s to follow one thread deeply enough to feel the other end of it.
We’ll point you at real ceremonies happening this week, the temples worth waking for, the dance floor that breaks something open. The journey survives even on a quiet Tuesday — there’s always a ritual or a place that holds the day.
Last refreshed 7 May 2026
What this retreat holds
One door, each day
Each anchor is a person, a place, or a circle you wouldn't find on your own.
Practitioners we trust
Healers, teachers, ceremony-holders we've worked with for years — not a directory.
Tables you'd never find
A welcome dinner, a long-stayer's home, a kitchen the scene actually eats at.
Real rest, not filler
Days with nothing planned. The integration is the practice.
Four to eight, hand-picked
A small cohort matched for fit. You arrive among strangers. You don't leave that way.
A field, after
Phone numbers in your pocket, faces you'll see again. The week ends; the access doesn't.
Where you stay — a quiet villa in Penestanan, Nyuh Kuning, or up the Tegallalang ridge. Light-filled, walking distance to your morning anchors and a slow breakfast.
What we anchor — a welcome dinner at Hujan Locale, one cacao or sound ceremony mid-week, an ecstatic dance afternoon followed by a cohort dinner at Moksa, a temple morning at Tirta Empul or Goa Gajah, a closing circle, and a farewell at Locavore NXT.
What's woven in — morning yoga at the Yoga Barn or in your villa, optional integration teas in the evenings, a real rest day, evening meals where the cohort can land.
What we leave open — most afternoons, the pull-up conversation, the unplanned thing that finds you.
The 7 days
The retreat is light by design — most days hold one good thing, with rest, food, and unplanned encounters around it.
Settle in
Land first. The work is later.
Get to the villa. Shower. Sit on the porch. Tonight is one slow welcome dinner — somewhere honest, ideally walkable from where you’re staying. Nothing else on the calendar.
Welcome dinner
Body remembers
A morning practice, then space.
Pick one yoga class. Eat well after. Take the afternoon — wander, write, nap. If the heart is open in the evening, walk a temple or a gallery.
Morning yoga
- Ritual
Five minutes of conscious breath
Before food, before phone, before anything else.
A sunset walk or a small gallery
OptionalCampuhan Ridge Walk · Ubud
Open the chest
A ceremony day.
A cacao ceremony or a sound bath, whichever’s on this week. That’s the day. Eat lightly before, rest deeply after, let it work overnight.
Cacao ceremony or sound bath
- Event
MYSTIC JOURNEY ALECEO
A mysterious shamanic journey featuring Make Like A Tree, Damla and Mikhail Talanov, presented by Shambala at Zest, Ubud.
- Ritual
Cacao with intention
Brew slow, drink slow, name what you came for.
- Event
Five minutes of conscious breath before bed
Optional- Ritual
Five minutes of conscious breath
Before food, before phone, before anything else.
Don’t fill it
Rest is the practice.
No anchor. The pool. A massage if your body asks. A long breakfast. The book you brought and never opened. This day is structurally important — without it, day five doesn’t land.
A massage, only if the body asks
Optional
Move what’s stuck
Dance, then cohort.
Ecstatic dance in the late afternoon. Dinner with whoever danced near you — the introductions are easier when the room is sweaty and grinning. This is the social anchor of the week.
Optional sunrise walk
OptionalCampuhan Ridge Walk · Ubud
Ecstatic dance
Cohort dinner
Threshold day
A temple in the morning. The afternoon is yours.
Tirta Empul or Goa Gajah — early, before the buses. Eat a long breakfast on the way back. The afternoon stays open. Optional integration tea in the evening if there’s a circle running.
Tirta Empul, before the buses
Pura Tirta Empul · Manukaya
Optional integration tea
Optional
Carry it well
Closing circle, final meal, voice note.
A closing circle if there’s one in town. Otherwise — sit somewhere quiet and record the voice note. A final dinner with the cohort if they’re still in Ubud. Then go.
Closing circle
Final meal
Before you fly
Optional- Reflection
Closing voice note — Awakening
A one-minute audio to yourself, before you fly.
Where you'll go
5 places you'll touch over this retreat. Drag, zoom, and tap a marker.
What people carry home
I came for the cacao ceremony on day three and stayed for what happened on day four. The rest day is the genius of this — without it, the rest of the week wouldn't land. I left with my nervous system in a different shape.
AMAstrid M.
Berlin · Day 4
I'd been in talk therapy for two years before I sat for an hour with Nina on the rest-day afternoon. She moves what words can't. The Ubudian put me in the right room at the right point in the week.
MCMarcus C.
Melbourne · Day 4
The closing circle on day seven was the moment I realised I had a cohort. People I hadn't known on Monday were people I was going to keep in my life. That felt unexpected and rare.
SRSophia R.
Bristol · Day 7
I'm sceptical of anything called "embodied" but I read the day descriptions and they were honest. Day five — the dance, then dinner with strangers who were no longer strangers — that was the unlock for me.
LKLiam K.
Dublin · Day 5
Honest questions, honestly answered
Who this is for
You came to deal with your stuff and you're willing to do the work. You like the practitioners who've done the work themselves. You can sit with cold water, with cacao, with silence, with a stranger's eye contact for longer than is comfortable.
This isn't a beginner reset. It's a week of thresholds.
Practical
When — any month. New moon and full moon weeks have the strongest ceremony lineup; dry season (April–October) gives you reliable mornings.
Budget — $80–200/night for the villa across the week, $200–500 total for the anchor ceremonies, dance, dinners, and a closing massage.
Bring — a journal, a sarong, an open evening on day five for the cohort dinner, a willingness to leave with a different sentence than you arrived with.
Want more retreats like this?
One email a week with new threads, the events that matter this week, and the rituals quietly shaping Ubud's conscious community.
More threads to follow
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