Transformative Connections Barbados Retreat

Transformative Connections: Healing Trauma and/or Addiction Through 20 Embodied Practices
Mar 8th - Mar 15th 2025

This exclusive 7-night retreat is designed for those who are struggling with troubling behaviours, including feeling numb and deadened in your life, having difficulty making relationships, suffering with chronic bad habits or addictions, trauma, and/or feeling overwhelmed or anxious.

In cultivating your skill in "Focusing" practices, you will become more aligned with both your mind and body, gaining greater confidence and being better prepared to implement positive changes that enhance all areas of your life.

​​​Top Highlights:

• Through 20 embodied practices you will learn how to recognize and pay attention to your body’s capacity to heal.
• Learn the easy 6-step process called “Focusing” to help you to identify and change the way your thoughts and emotions are held within your body.
• Create a safe nest for transformation

By the end of this retreat you will have created your own personalised roadmaps for working on troubling behaviours. 
​​

Plus:

• Swim with turtles in the crystal-clear Caribbean waters
• Ride/swim with horses in the sea
• Enjoy beach time, local food, and inclusive activities
• Deepen your connection to yourself and others

The number of guests for the BTB retreat is limited so reserve your spot today and embark on a journey of transformational healing.

The Disconnect Between Mind and Body

Many paths for healing from trauma and addictive processes focus on changing our problematic behaviours. While this is important, the first essential step is understanding and addressing the roots of those behaviours. In most treatment approaches, the emphasis is put on thinking your way through the problems. That’s why most treatment approaches are not working!  We have forgotten that we live in our bodies, but our bodies have not forgotten us. When we treat the body as one whole living organism, we see how our mind and body are designed to  work in harmony.

20 Embodied Practices for Healing

Based on cutting-edge neuroscience, this retreat will offer you the opportunity to learn about how your body responds to stress. Through 20 embodied practices you will learn how to recognize and pay attention to your body’s capacity to heal. At the heart of these 20 practices is an easy 6-step process called Focusing. The steps help you to identify and change the way your thoughts and emotions are held within your body. Results are often felt immediately and are like an “Aha’ moment, relieving bodily tension and psychological stress, and bringing about considerable changes in insight and understanding. 

​

Cultivating Safety in the Body

Focusing helps you to feel safe in your body. Feeling safe in your body is essential for healing from Trauma and Addiction. Feelings of safety are monitored through your autonomic nervous system. This is the part of your body that shifts you into fight-flight-freeze when you are struggling with trauma and addiction. The problem is that your body gets stuck in this threat response.  It is impossible to heal when your body is stuck in a threat response.  Most therapeutic modalities do not directly address that. The 20 embodied practices work to regulate your autonomic nervous system and cultivate feelings of safety in your body. 

​

Creating a Safe Nest for Transformation

In the week that we are together we will create a ‘safe enough’ space through our 20 embodied practices. As your body begins to feel into the safety of our group, you will be able to access your own unique healing path. This path lies within you. This experience can be transformative. It comes through harnessing the power of your body’s natural healing process.

Often people struggling with addiction and trauma feel isolated and disconnected from those around them. Your body’s autonomic nervous system is wired to heal in connection and community. You will harness this powerful innate process by working with a focusing partner who accompanies you through the 20 embodied practices. As you begin to build safety with your partner and within our group, we collectively shift out of threat responses. Powerful healing and deep transformation begins.

Continuing Your Healing Journey

Making the transition back to your daily life can be disruptive to your ongoing daily practices. As you return home, we encourage you to continue with your focusing partnerships and your personalised roadmaps for ongoing healing work. In supporting your journey after we say goodbye, you can continue working with Jan through her online Community Practice Circles based on the 20 embodied practices starting April 2025. More information about this will be available through Jan’s website.

Your Hosts

This transformative retreat is based on cutting-edge neurosceince and is led by Jan Winhall, assisted by Nancy Falls.

Jan Winhall

Jan Winhall, M.S.W.  P.I.F.O.T. is an author, teacher and seasoned trauma and addiction psychotherapist. She is an Educational Partner and Course Developer with the Polyvagal Institute where she offers a training programme based on her book Treating Trauma and Addiction with the Felt Sense Polyvagal Model, Routledge 2021. Completion of four levels leads students to become Felt Sense Polyvagal Model Facilitators.

Her new book, 20 Embodied Practices for Healing Trauma and Addiction with the Felt Sense Polyvagal Model  will be available at this retreat and is the foundation for the programme.​

Jan is also an Adjunct Lecturer at the University of Toronto and a Certifying Co-ordinator with the International Focusing Institute. Jan is Co-Director of the Borden Street Clinic where she supervises graduate students. 

Nancy Falls

Nancy Falls is a trauma therapist who is certified as a  Focusing/Felt Sense Therapist and Coordinator with The International Focusing Institute. With over 25 years of experience as a registered psychotherapist, she provides individual therapy for adults and youth facing various mental health challenges.

Nancy has extensive experience in children's mental health, focusing on assessments and treatment. She provides treatment in the areas of trauma and addiction. Nancy is a Felt Sense Polyvagal Model Facilitator and teaches in Jan’s FSPM training program with the Polyvagal Institute. Nancy stays updated with the latest advancements in her field. Her client-centered approach empowers participants to access their inner resources for healing, enhanced by her embodied and experiential methods.