Vibrant HeÂrt Retreat
Creative Arts & Embodied Expression Retreat
A Soulful Liberation Experience for Women
Nosara, Costa Rica
November 2 - 8, 2025
Vibrant HeÂrt Retreat
Imagine waking up in the lush jungle of Costa Rica, stepping onto your private balcony to journal and meditate with the enlivening sounds of nature all around you — the soft rustle of leaves, birdsong, the sun filtering through the trees. You start your day with soulful movement, breathing and stretching beside a tribe of women who uplift you and celebrate your vibrancy and authenticity.
You’re immersed in self-care, nourishing your body with living foods, sharing stories and laughter with sisters, expressing yourself through creative practices and moving and breathing more expansively than you have in years.
This is a space where you can press pause on the demands of everyday life and return to your center — where the sacredness of your feminine energy, creativity, and deepest desires is honored and held.
The Vibrant Heârt Retreat is for the woman who is craving a reset — a chance to reconnect with herself, to breathe deeply and authentically, and to explore the power of her own expression. Whether you feel disconnected from your creative flow, overwhelmed by the weight of the world, or simply in need of a pause, this retreat offers a sanctuary of sisterhood, healing, art-making, and self-discovery.
awaken Your Vibrant Heârt
November 2 - 8, 2025
Costa Rica
awaken your soul's magic
This 7-day journey is more than a retreat; it is an immersive community experience and medicine journey of awakening, healing, and nourishing our creative fire and guiding light within.
Nestled in our lush retreat oasis in the Nosara peninsula of Costa Rica, we will co-create a vibrant and nurturing feminine space for you to blossom in your true essence, creativity, and authentic life path.
We will weave through somatic and creative practices of inner exploration, Earth-based rituals and elemental connection, breath and embodiment, and commune in a sacred plant medicine ceremony for healing and feminine awakening. We will celebrate creative expression and self-discovery through art therapy techniques, explore shamanic energy healing, heart-opening cacao and rose ceremony, and the medicine of deep connection in a family on a soul journey together.
the Vibrant HeÂrt journey
Our intention for this experience is to create a safe and space for personal evolution and remembrance of your true nature, to activate your creativity, and to give you tools to integrate your inner shifts into your daily life back home.
You will be supported with and through:
- Setting heart-centered intentions for this journey together
- Awakening your creativity and self-expression
- Nourishing your mind, body, heart, and soul
- Strengthening your intuition and self-love
- Clearing emotional and energetic blockages
- Expressing your unique strengths and gifts
- Deepening connection to your feminine essence and power
- Integrative practices to support and deepen your experience
- A strong and loving, heart-centered soul family
why creative liberation?
As women, our creative energy is the pulse of our feminine power — it’s how we express our truth, process our emotions, and birth new realities into the world.
For generations, women have been conditioned to silence their voices, question their worth, and disconnect from their innate creative force. Reclaiming that energy isn’t just about making art — it’s about remembering who we are beneath the roles and responsibilities.
By liberating our creativity, we reconnects with our joy, our intuition, and our capacity to live fully, unapologetically, and in alignment with the heartbeat of our soul.
Who is this retreat for?
Vibrant Heârt is for women ready to reclaim their creative and vibrant essence, to express themselves fully in the world and embody their unique gifts and sacred purpose in life – all within a soulful community of sisters, where nourishment is priority, healing is playful, and plenty of art is made!
This experience might be for you if:
You are craving a pause — a reset — a deep exhale from the busyness of life.
You feel a pull toward creativity and greater self-expression but the weight of perfectionism, work, and daily responsibilities has dimmed your spark.
You long to express yourself freely and return to what truly lights you up inside.
You desire to reconnect with your feminine essence — your body, your voice, your sensuality.
You find yourself standing at a threshold — a crossroads, a new chapter, or the edge of a dream not yet born.
You feel open to exploring the healing and awakening power of creative expression.
You are yearning for soul-aligned sisterhood — a circle of women where you feels seen, safe, and celebrated.
You feel called to explore sacred plants and consciousness-expanding experiences for deeper healing and inner truth.
You may already be on a spiritual path, but are ready to go deeper — to embody it, live it, breathe it.
You are purpose-driven and know, deep down, there is something more waiting for you.
What's Included:
- Two preparation coaching sessions (one each from Kristen & Kaleigh)
- 7 days and 6 nights in a shared accommodation at Sol Sanctuary
- Transportation from Liberia to and from our retreat center
- Opening Cacao Ceremony
- Breathwork sessions
- Daily yoga classes
- Workshops on personal empowerment, embodied expression and creative liberation
- Art materials and creative explorations
- Somatic journey + optional microdose ceremony
- Waterfall excursion + other surprises
- Personal retreat preparation session
- All other activities and exercises during the retreat
- All meals during the retreat (primarily local and organic)
- Private beach access and a chlorine-free pool
- Closing ceremony
- Post-retreat group integration sessions + resources
Our retreat activities
Creative Arts Therapies
At the heart of this retreat is the belief that creativity is medicine — a sacred gateway to your inner world. Through a variety of expressive arts practices including painting, intuitive drawing, collage, and playful mixed-media exploration, you’ll be guided to unlock the wisdom and emotion stored in your body and soul.
These practices aren’t about being “good” at art — they’re about reconnecting to your authentic voice, releasing stuck energy, and expressing the beauty, chaos, grief, and joy that live inside you. Led by trained facilitators including an experienced art therapist, these creative sessions offer a powerful space for personal reflection, emotional release, and soul awakening. Whether you’re reigniting an old passion or discovering your creative spark for the first time, you’ll leave feeling liberated, inspired, and deeply connected to your inner artist.
Yoga & Transformational Breathwork
Each day, you’ll be gently guided back into presence through breath and movement. Our nourishing yoga sessions are designed to support your feminine body — intuitive, grounding, and expansive — helping you to soften, release tension, and reconnect with your life force. Whether you’re a seasoned yogi or just beginning, these classes meet you where you are, offering space to deepen your relationship with your body in a compassionate, joyful way.
Our breathwork journeys offer a powerful portal into your inner world. Using conscious connected breathing, you’ll access expanded states of awareness, unlock emotional blocks, and reconnect with the truth of who you are beneath the surface. These sessions are both deeply healing and creatively activating — awakening clarity, insight, and the vibrant aliveness that lives in your heart.
Cacao Ceremony & Embodied Relating
During a deeply nourishing Cacao Ceremony, we’ll tap into the wisdom of this sacred plant to awaken the heart and reconnect with our inner selves. Cacao has been used for centuries in ceremonial settings to foster emotional openness, intuition, and creativity. More than just a drink, this rich, ceremonial-grade Peruvian cacao serves as a powerful yet gentle plant medicine, guiding you into a state of deep presence and connection.
During this experience, you’ll be invited to slow down, tune in, and fully embrace the moment. Through mindful intention, breath work and authentic relating practices, you’ll explore the heart’s wisdom allowing love and clarity to flow freely.
Open your heart, build meaningful connections, and explore your intuition and true essence within. Together we will co-create an evening of grounding, meaningful connection with one another, and a special connection with this sacred plant teacher – a beautiful opportunity to journey within.
Somatic & Shamanic Journeying + (Optional) Microdose Plant Medicine Ceremony
We will explore the innate wisdom held within our bodies and the support from our spiritual guides, opening the space to journey inward with an optional microdose of of nature’s ancient medicine. (With or without a microdose, you will be guided through an altered state of consciousness through a shamanic journey utilizing sound, somatic experiencing and your own intuitive gifts.) This ceremonial experience will invite you to connect with your higher self, receive insight, and gently dissolve the layers that obscure your innate wisdom and creativity.
For many, this ceremony becomes a turning point — a chance to release old stories, reconnect with a deeper truth, and awaken to the beauty of life from a soul-centered perspective. Supported by experienced facilitators, integration practices, and a loving sisterhood, you’ll be held every step of the way as you explore the expansive terrain of your own consciousness.
Earth Rituals + Nature Immersion
This retreat is an invitation to come home to the Earth — to slow down, attune to the rhythms of nature, and remember that you belong. Through intentional rituals and immersive time outdoors, we’ll work with the elements as sacred allies for healing, inspiration, and reconnection.
You’ll be guided in earth-based practices that help you feel rooted and alive — from beachside rituals and forest meditations to waterfall visits where you can cleanse and renew your spirit. These elemental experiences offer a powerful mirror for your own cyclical nature as a woman: fluid, radiant, ever-changing, and deeply wise.
By aligning with the Earth’s energy, you’ll not only awaken your creativity and vitality — you’ll remember that you are nature – wild, worthy, and wonderfully whole.
Integration + Nourishing Soul Care
The Vibrant Heârt retreat is a sanctuary for deep rest, reflection, and gentle integration, alongside our transformative workshops and practices. We believe that healing and transformation don’t happen through constant doing — they flourish in the soft, spacious moments in between.
You’ll have time each day to unwind by the pool, walk along the ocean, journal beneath the trees, or simply be. Our schedule is intentionally spacious, with built-in moments for rest, reflection, and connection — so your nervous system can settle, your insights can land, and your body can fully receive.
You’ll be nourished with vibrant, lovingly prepared meals and held in the warmth of sisterhood — in honest conversations, shared laughter, and quiet moments of presence. Deep soul care is not an afterthought – either on this retreat, or in your life! Intentional time for nourishment and integration is an integral part of your creative unfolding.
Meet Your Facilitators
Kristen Yates
Kristen Yates is a breathwork and somatic guide, integrative therapist, artist and yoga instructor, and plant medicine facilitator who supports people with embodying their true nature and awakening their innate healing capacities within. With a background in psychology, trauma-informed somatic therapy, relational work and integrative wellness, she weaves Eastern and Western healing modalities to create safe and potent spaces for transformation.
As a multi-faceted facilitator, Kristen guides her students through a journey of returning to their bodies, integrating their soul parts, and emerging with a deeper connection to their most authentic expression and creative gifts. She believes we all hold a deep wisdom in our bodies, and weaves movement, breathwork and embodiment practices with energy work, shamanic healing and intuitive guidance into her workshop and retreat spaces.
A nomad at heart, she shares her time between Oregon, Mexico, and the Sacred Valley of Peru and regularly facilitates retreats, workshops, and ceremonies worldwide.
Kaleigh Smith
Kaleigh Smith is a 200-hour certified yoga teacher, astrologer, expressive arts therapist-in-training, and devoted mother to a bright little girl. She is completing her Master’s in Expressive Arts Therapy and holds a deep background in ancient astrology, weaving celestial insight with creative, therapeutic practice. Rooted in a person-centered approach, Kaleigh believes that each individual holds the answers within—her role is simply to help clear the noise so that truth can rise to the surface.
Using astrology alongside expressive arts modalities like writing, painting, and collage, she guides others in regulating the nervous system, healing old hurt stories, and returning to a sense of inner wholeness. A Pisces Sun, Kaleigh brings intuition, empathy, and soulfulness into every space she holds. She calls the vibrant hills of Chattanooga, Tennessee home.
Sol Sanctuary Retreat
Nestled in the heart of Playa Grande, Guanacaste, Costa Rica, Sol Sanctuary is more than just a retreat center — it’s a sacred space where nature and soul meet. Surrounded by lush jungle and just a short walk from the pristine and rather secluded Playa Grande beach, this eco-luxe haven offers an immersive experience that invites you to slow down, reconnect, and remember your place within the natural world.
The sanctuary features private and semi-private bungalows, each thoughtfully designed with comfort and sustainability in mind. Enjoy the soothing sounds of the jungle from your private patio, relax by the pool with its waterfall and swim-up bar, or gather in the open-air yoga shala nestled among the treetops. We will nourish our bodies with farm-to-table meals prepared from fresh, local ingredients, including produce from the on-site garden and eggs from resident chickens!
Wildlife Protection Alliance
One reason we love Sol Sanctuary is their dedication to protecting the local wildlife of the region. They are a member of the Wildlife Protection Alliance, and are currently building a small wildlife hospital right on the premises (underneath the yoga shala!), to assist terrestrial and marine wildlife that have been injured by human interaction such as electrocution, vehicle accidents, and wildlife trafficking. Profits generated from retreats at Sol Sanctuary are reinvested back into the Wildlife Protection Alliance. 💚
Our Accommodations
Your home in Costa Rica is designed for comfort, relaxation, and connection with nature. Shared bungalows will house between 2-3 people, some with a private kitchen area (although all meals will be included, of course!)
All accommodations offer spacious rooms with comfortable mattresses, a private patio with hammock, and a private ensuite bathroom with hot shower. .
Shared accommodations will be allocated first-come, first-served!
Join us in Costa Rica!
Shared Room
$2247 (Early Bird until Sept. 1)
($2497 after Sept. 1)
Private Room:
$2647 / $2997 (Early Bird / Regular)
We ask for a $300 deposit to reserve your place. The remaining 50% will be due one month before arrival, and the final 50% will be due one week before arrival.
Life in Costa Rica
During our seven days together, you will be nourished by organic, farm-to-table meals, pairing healing and nutritious whole foods with vibrant flavor and the joy of dining together with our soul family.
We are a short walk through a private forested trail to the beach at Playa Grande, where you can cleanse in the turquoise waters and enjoy a quiet and secluded space (our beach is not in a popular tourist area!) Our private pool is an epic spot to cool off or relax on the covered beds while enjoying an afternoon iced tea.
Our jungle yoga shala is an elevated, open-air structure looking right into the treetops of the surrounding jungle, and will be available for your use in between sessions.
Another amazing feature of our space: Leatherback sea turtles are an endangered species, therefore the entire Playa Grande coastline is devoted to the protection of this rare nesting ground. Playa Grande is actually the second largest nesting site for leatherback sea turtles in the world!
Travel logistics
You will fly into Liberia Airport (Daniel Oduber Quirós International Airport – LIR) and you will have your transfer already arranged to bring you to our retreat center (about a 2 hour drive.) You may also fly into San Jose (SJO) if you prefer, but you will be responsible for your transportation to Liberia.
We are happy to support with any travel/flight questions you have!
We recommend you to purchase your outward ticket before entering Costa Rica, as you mayb be asked to show this before boarding. (The tourist visa for Costa Rica is 90 days for Americans.)
Questions, want to get in touch?
Love from past retreats:
One thing that really stands out about Kristen is this spectrum of depth, the huge capacity she has for depth on a deep, soul, love, compassion level – and then her capacity for joy, play, humor, and dance... she just has this huge capacity and breadth for all of the things – feeling the emotion, and the experience of life. For me, being around Kristen and being taught by Kristen is really just to experience life in the fullest.
Leaving this retreat, I’m walking away with a very peaceful heart - something that isn’t always easy for me. I can easily get in my head and be very self-critical, and that was one of my intentions coming in was to tap into my inner self worth and self love. Walking away I feel very loving of myself, I feel so much peace in my heart and love for myself and a deeper love for others. Ultimately, that’s what I want – to live a life of love, and I really feel like I got to deepen that here at the retreat with all the wonderful people, beautiful facilitators, and beautiful Bali! It’s been an incredible journey.
I’m walking away with a sense of individuality and more understanding of myself and the ways that I’m currently showing up in the world - and how I can shift that to something that I want more. Maybe I want to show up differently than I have been - and I feel like this really made that clear and brought that to light.
I came into this feeling introverted and in my head, and the shared journey and adventures and yoga and ceremony and creative exercises cracked open my heart and allowed me to be relaxed and open and really flowing both in my personal and professional development.
Kristen is an awesome facilitator who really created a transformational space for us all on the retreat. She possesses the perfect blend of being a strong leader with great skills (especially yoga!), but also an equal member of the family we formed together.
More Love and Feedback:
Since you opened my eyes to my truth I now wake up every morning with a lighter heart because now I know what's my purpose. You helped me to see the potential in me and that's a beautiful gift to give to anyone in this world! And finally you helped me to find a business ideas that is related to my story and my life experiences which is what I have been looking for, for so many years!
