What the body is
holding
The body holds what it means to complete. It is intelligent — everything you have lived, it has worked to process, and most of it has moved through and completed quietly, without you ever needing to notice.
Some experiences arrive faster than the system can meet in the moment, or in times when there was more to manage than there was safety to feel. So the body does something wise: it holds them. It keeps what it means to finish, and it waits for a better moment — carrying the experience forward, intact, until the conditions exist to complete it.
That holding is intelligence at work — a protective pattern doing exactly what it was built to do. And it moves the moment the conditions are right: through safety, breath, time, and the right kind of attention, the body completes what it began, on its own, in its own order, the way it has always known how. It simply needs the space.
That space is something an environment can give.
The retreats are held in the mountains north of Chiang Mai, in a region the body recognises before the mind does. Here, the nervous system has room to settle — held by the land, the forest, the water, the open sky, the slower rhythm of a place that asks nothing of you. As the system settles, it reads safety from everything around it, and the deeper layers begin to move. The breath opens. The fascia softens. What has been held finds the conditions to complete. This is the environment the work is built around and one of the living conditions that makes the healing possible.
"After surviving a plane crash, I lived with daily pain for five years. Nothing worked until I came here. For the first time, I felt safe enough to heal. What happened next changed everything.” — Tanja
Click the play button to listen to Tanja’s powerful healing journey.
Our Main Area of
Expertise
Chronic Pain
Pain is rarely what you think it is.
The boots did not cause the back pain. The exercise did not cause the shoulder. The injury you can name is almost never the whole story — it is the place the body has chosen to hold what it could no longer carry somewhere else.
Pain lives in the nervous system. Two people with the same injury will have entirely different experiences of it, because pain is shaped by stress load, emotional state, history, and the meaning the system has assigned to the sensation. This is why the same MRI can produce radically different pain levels in different bodies. It is also why managing the tissue alone so often fails. The signal is not in the tissue. It is in the system interpreting it.
Simba has worked with chronic pain and injury for twenty-five years. Internal Alchemy was developed out of that work, in collaboration with Dr. David Berceli, founder of TRE.
The work meets pain at its source. It restores the conditions the body needs to complete what it started — the unfinished response, the held tension, the protective pattern that has long outlived the moment it was built for.
What follows goes deeper than relief. A body that feels like yours again. A nervous system that has stopped bracing. Pain that stops being the thing you are trying to escape and becomes information you can read.
That shift is the work. The relief follows from it.
Sacred Relationships
The patterns that shape how you relate live in the body, not the mind. They live in how you breathe when someone gets close, in where you tighten when conflict arises, in what you do before you have decided to do anything.
The shutdown, the reactivity, the wall that goes up a half-second before you knew it was going up, the same argument running on a loop you cannot seem to step out of. These are nervous system patterns, built early, often before language, and running underneath every relationship you have.
You cannot think your way out of something the body installed before the thinking mind existed. Insight alone has its limits. Understanding alone has its limits. The pattern only changes when the body that holds it is given the conditions to complete what it has been carrying.
This work brings those patterns into direct experience rather than analysis. The same nervous system, fascia, and somatic processing that release pain in the body also release the protective shapes that have been running your relationships. What becomes available on the other side is presence — the capacity to actually be with another person without bracing, performing, withdrawing, or managing.
The work is the same whether you arrive alone, as a couple, as a family, or as an organisation. The container changes; the body's intelligence stays the same. Including, and often beginning with, the relationship with yourself.
Embodiment for Practitioners, Leaders & Entrepreneurs
The work you do runs on your body.
Holding space for a client, leading a team through pressure, staying present when something difficult is moving through the room — none of this is cognitive work. It is nervous system work. And the bandwidth of the body underneath it is what determines how much you can hold before something starts to give.
Most practitioners, leaders, and entrepreneurs are operating at the edge of what their system can carry. The fatigue that does not lift on a weekend off. The reactivity that arrives faster than it used to. The numbness that has crept in around what used to feel alive. These are signals from a system that has been giving without being resourced.
There is also another truth in this work: you can only take another person as far as you have gone yourself. Not what you understand. What you have lived. The people you work with feel the difference, even when they cannot name it.
Embodiment is what closes that gap — the movement from understanding something to actually living it in the body.
What becomes available is steadier presence under pressure, clearer decisions, and a body that recovers faster than it has in years. The depth you can meet in another grows because your own depth has grown.
Internal Alchemy was developed in part for this — for the people whose work depends on the state of their body, and who have rarely been met at the level they meet others.
Your Personalized Retreat Experience
No two bodies arrive carrying the same thing, and the retreat is shaped around yours — not a program you arrive into, but a process built from what your system actually shows.
It begins before you arrive, with a holistic assessment that maps where your body, your nervous system, and your life are right now, and what you are here to meet.
From there, the retreat is yours to shape. How long you stay, how deep you go, how many sessions you do and at what pace — these are decisions made around your needs, your capacity, and what you have come to meet.
Some bodies want a short, focused immersion. Others need the spaciousness of a longer stay for the deeper layers to settle and move. Both are right; what matters is that the container fits the work. You can design this yourself, or co-create it with us. Fun fact: this image is Simba's father, during his three-week immersion (2023).
What's Included:
Everything you need is included and taken care of, so your full attention can stay with the work.
The meals, the room, the transfers, the rhythm of the days — all of it is arranged for you. With the practical layer handled, your energy is free to go where it matters: inward, into the work, into the rest and integration that let it land.
Included in every retreat experience:
Opening Consultation.
Every conversation begins here, before anything is decided. A direct, unhurried call with us to explore what is asking to be met, what kind of support would actually serve, and what a retreat could look like for you. There is no cost and no expectation. Some people book from here. Others take what surfaced in the conversation and continue on their own. Both are welcome.
Holistic Assessment.
Before you arrive, we begin with a deep-dive consultation that maps your body, your nervous system, your current state, and what you are here to meet. This is the foundation the entire retreat is shaped around — what your body is ready for, what to prioritize, and what depth becomes available across the days you are with us..
Private Accommodation.
Your own quiet room at our partner venue in Northern Thailand, with air conditioning, fan, and private bathroom. A space to rest, to integrate, and to be alone with what is moving through.
Curated Meals.
The food will be shaped around your assessment, the depth you are working with, and the focus of your retreat — adjusted for any dietary needs or preferences you bring. All meals included.
Integration Space.
Time built into each day to be alone with what is moving — to walk, to rest, to be still, to allow what surfaced in a session to land before the next one begins. The integration is part of the work, not separate from it.
Practices Between Sessions.
Tailored practices and supporting materials, if needed, to take into the spaces between sessions, so the work continues moving in your body throughout the retreat.
Airport Transfer.
Pick-up and drop-off, so arrival and departure remain part of the held container rather than something to navigate alone.
Laundry Service.
Taken care of, so your attention can stay where it belongs.
Bonus Follow-Up Session.
A one-to-one session with us once you are back home, to support the landing — letting the work settle into your daily rhythm, your relationships, and the environment you are returning to.
This is your space.
Your journey.
Your healing.
Crafted by you. Supported by us.
Held by something far greater that wants you to come home to yourself.
“I came here burned out, medicated, and numb. I’m leaving radiant, pain-free, and finally alive. I thought I needed a holiday. What I found was soul rehab.” — Kim
Click the play button to watch her story of transformation.
How It Works
Every retreat is a co-creation between you and us, and it moves through a few clear steps.
You apply: Start by filling in the application form with your information, what you are wanting to explore, and any questions you have — about the setup, the structure, the pricing, or anything else. The price list below will give you a sense of how retreats are shaped and what they involve, so you can come to the conversation already knowing the shape of it.
We reach out: We read every application personally and reply to you directly — answering your questions and beginning to understand what would genuinely serve.
We talk: The next step is a free consultation, with no expectation either way. This is where we explore what is asking to be met, map what a retreat could look like for you, and shape the length, depth, and rhythm together. Some people book from here. Others take what surfaced and continue in their own time. Both are welcome.
You confirm: When you are ready, your retreat fee secures your place, and your dates are confirmed. From there, the preparation begins.
Download our price list to see example retreats at different lengths and depths, with everything that's included laid out clearly.
From there, you can shape your own setup around your needs — or co-create it with us once we've seen what your assessment shows.
"As a clinician, I’ve been to healing centers around the world. But this—this was something entirely different. A rare fusion of professionalism and deep personal presence. My nervous system felt held in a way I’ve never experienced.” —Dr. David Berceli, Founder of TRE®
Click the play button to tune in to what made this experience unlike anything he’s ever known.
MEET YOUR HOSTS
Simba
CO-FOUNDER OF LIVING WITH THE SPIRIT
I have been working with the body for 25 years, as a bodyworker, a TRE® Certification Trainer, a craniosacral therapist, a martial artist, and an energy healer since early in life. I have over 100 certifications across somatic healing, bodywork, energetics, physiology, and TCM.
What I kept returning to was the same thing: the body already knows how to heal. The work is always about restoring the conditions that allow it to do so.
Internal Alchemy grew out of that understanding, developed in collaboration with Dr. David Berceli, and refined through years of practice with people navigating pain, trauma, disconnection, and the particular exhaustion that comes from holding space for others without knowing how to resource yourself. This is the work I do. It is also the way I live.
Sara Marie
CO-FOUNDER OF LIVING WITH THE SPIRIT
I have spent the last nine years exploring how the body actually works — in my own life first, as the place I feel and understand everything before I bring it to anyone else.
What I keep coming back to is that everything lives in the body. The patterns we carry, the truth we have stopped letting ourselves feel, the life force that gets held down to keep us functioning — all of it lives here, and all of it moves through the body when the conditions are right. I work with the spine, the fascia, the breath, the nervous system, and the field that holds all of it.
The work I do with women is about coming back into the body and opening what has been closed. As the connection returns and the centers come online, what was being held starts to move — and underneath it is their own truth, their own power, and a way of living that comes from the body rather than from holding it together.
Move In With Us
The deepest version of this work happens when you stay fully inside it.
For those who want to go all the way in, we open our own home in Chiang Mai, Thailand.
You move in with us, into the place where we live and where this work is always running. For the days you are here, you are inside the container completely and held from waking to rest.
This is a short and deep immersion: three days, fully inside the home, shaped entirely around you. Everything is included and everything is held — the home, the sessions, the meals, the rhythm of the days, the presence of both of us around you throughout. The work stays alive in the silent hours as much as in the sessions, and your body keeps moving the whole time.
This is for one person at a time. To explore it, note this option on the retreat application, and it begins with a conversation.
Our Credentials
By devoting our lives to the inner healing process, we have become experts in Stress Resilience, Trauma Treatment, Nervous System Regulation, and Holistic Detoxification. We believe in the art of teaching self-healing so that you can heal too.
Swipe through to check out our credentials.
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