Why Women Need To Come Together: Healing the Feminine Through Retreat

In this episode of SHE Asked: Tools for Practical Hope, Anna McBride sits down with Ayurvedic practitioner Rima Shah to explore the deeper purpose of women’s retreats and why spring is a powerful portal for healing, renewal, and transformation.

Together, Anna and Rima weave ancient Ayurvedic wisdom with modern life, discussing the creation story of consciousness, the balance of masculine and feminine energy, and why women need intentional space to retreat, reconnect, and reset. They explore how seasonal shifts affect the body and mind, why spring is associated with Kapha energy in Ayurveda, and how warm, light, and dry practices can support physical and emotional balance.

Anna and Rima also share details about their upcoming Medicine of Spring Women’s Retreat in upstate New York, where breathwork, Ayurvedic meals, ceremony, journaling, and community will guide participants through a deeply intentional reset.

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Transcript

Old Friends, New Retreat Vision

SPEAKER_01 0:02

Welcome back to She Asked: Tools for Practical Hope. I'm your host, Anna McBride, and I'm so excited that you're here. I've got my good friend Rima Shaw on the episode today, and today we are going to be talking about spring retreats or retreats in general, the purpose of them, why we're collaborating on one. But I want to say I have known Rima for 12 years. And it feels like I've known you forever. When we met, it was for a teacher training for meditation. And immediately I just knew that you had a real sense of what balance looked like, what your understanding of how healing works from your cultural experience. And I had my own growing up front with an immigrant mother who operated not too differently, although culturally specific. And I really love that about you. It's that you really bring the wisdom from your grandmother, your family's heritage is right there with you. And so it's very authentic. And I always knew, like, when I'm listening to you, I'm getting it like straight from Mother India. And we we've been on retreats together, and I feel like we've got a real good sense of what a good retreat would be like. I'm just really happy that we're finally getting to do one together. So thank you for joining me today and talking with me about retreats.

SPEAKER_00 1:53

I'm so happy to be here, my dear friend of 12 years. And it's a beautiful topic for us because we've retreated together in places in the United States, but also overseas in India. And I think that shared experience of being in very different surroundings together brought us to this moment, really.

SPEAKER_01 2:17

Yeah, I think this has been building for quite some time. I always knew somehow, some way we were going to collaborate together. And I have to say, for those of you who know me for years, know that I had a yoga studio, a meditation studio called the Yoga Barn. And you were such a big support system for me. I don't know if you even know it, because I was sharing Ayurvedic information. I was helping a lot of clients heal their bodies with food. And you were always there for me as a resource. And so I think feel like I've been learning from you from the moment we met. And I've really loved that we have this shared passion for Ayurveda and healing.

SPEAKER_00 3:10

And I feel the same about you. I've learned so much from you. I think your big focus in life has been inner engineering, taking the duality of the mind and coming to a place of balance. And I feel like that's been a big focus for a lot of your career. And it's a gift that you share with the world because many people are afraid to go to those places in the mind.

SPEAKER_01 3:35

Yeah.

Creation Story And Elemental Wisdom

SPEAKER_00 3:37

But we can't heal our body without the mind. In fact, the mind is where we have to be. And I love all of the insights you've given me over the years. I I've reflected on a lot of the things that you've talked about. It's changed me, it's up-leveled my life.

SPEAKER_01 3:55

Yeah, I appreciate that. On this episode, this show, we'd like to start with a story. So I thought what I would share from my own perspective, and you can add to it, is this idea of Ayurveda's approach to the creation story. At the beginning, there was consciousness, there was space, and space existed and became lonely or curious, and decided to fold in on itself, to take a look at itself. And in that process of folding in, it created friction, which sparked the fire, and fire energy created the atmospheric change that then presented water. And so then rain fell down and it mixed with the ash, then earth was created. And all the while we had these winds that were contributing to both the fire and the flow of water and the creation of earth. So in that story, which I've always remembered, there is all of these elements that are a part of the universe and a part of us. And I've always appreciated because it involved curiosity, because it involved the desire for connection, that there was this real different approach to creationism that comes from this story that really opens us up to appreciating that the universe is in us. We are in the universe, we're all connected that way. And I love how the culture, the folklore of India has these stories that just help us to really understand and appreciate where we fit into nature. Can you share a little bit about your take on that creation story and what that's given to your practice?

SPEAKER_00 6:07

Yeah, it's everything because the creation story of the universe is all of our creations. And you brought up consciousness. Consciousness, it was known as the Sanskrit word called Purusha, and it means society of dwellings.

SPEAKER_01 6:23

Oh, I love that.

Purusha, Prakriti, And Knowing Ourselves

SPEAKER_00 6:24

Just like you said, it's unmanifest, vast potential. It was this vast space, but it still had consciousness. We are a story of consciousness. We are a story of spirit because that vast space above us, it wasn't devoid of consciousness. It was consciousness itself, but it desired to know itself. We call that primordial male energy, yang energy. It's solar energy to some extent, because solar energy tends to be more masculine. So Purusha desired to know itself. It decided to bind itself with Prakriti, which is the primordial female energy. It is matter. Consciousness desired to know itself, so it had to bind together with matter. Primordial female energy is matter. We birth babies. We can hold tissue inside of our bodies that can multiply and become a fetus, and we birth babies. So what women or feminine energy brings is form and matter. So when Purusha and Purkiti came together, some scientists would call this the Big Bang Theory. We just call it that consciousness desired to know itself and it bound itself with matter. And the moment that happened, the universe was born.

SPEAKER_01 7:49

Yeah. So I love a great thing exactly like that. Yeah, I love that it required the feminine to really get to know itself. And I think that's what I've come to appreciate about the importance of a retreat, is that it's an invitation for us to go in inward and remove ourselves from the hecticness of our everyday life to look at parts of ourselves that, given all the distraction that our lives can have, we can tend to say, I'll get to that. That's bothering me. I don't know what to do about that. And we need space and we need a good environment for that. And so I think that's the importance of a retreat. It's not only important to get to know yourself more and get away from the busyness of your life so that you can take the time for yourself. It's also about working on things that may be holding you back, and you're not even aware of that possibility. So tell me from your perspective, why is it so rare for women to retreat or give them, take the time for that process? What are you seeing with your Yeah?

Why Retreats Matter For Women

SPEAKER_00 9:14

And I love how you put that, Anna, that if we don't give ourselves space, we can't actually focus on the parts of ourselves that need healing. I love that you brought it so clearly. And it's something that we've tried to fool ourselves into thinking we can not do. Oh, I can deal with all my stuff because I have to be a very productive person. So I love that you brought that up. I already thought this perspective, and for women, women have always been the caregiving, nurturing role. That's the divine feminine energy, is the caregiver and the nurture. And in indigenous cultures, that was really revered. They were really allowed to be so whole in that. And that also allowed them to create spaces of retreat in Indigenous cultures because they were the caregivers, the herbalists, the gardeners, the medicine women, the ceremonialists. Yeah. But within that society was already placed times of rest and healing. One of the big things that I think women have come to know through readings because the book, The Red Tent, was very popular several decades ago, is that women bled. They followed the cycles of the moon. And they clearly understood every indigenous culture. You study Japanese culture, Mexican culture, Indian culture. They all understood that they used to all bleed under the new moon when the moon was the darkest. And every culture understood that you must retreat during that time. So they took two days to all be together. The women were together in the red tent. They fully understood it's not a time for you to be a caregiver, a nurture, a giver. And we've lost that in modern society. So we actually have to go back to our genetic DNA coding where we deeply know inside that this is extremely important for us. And not only for women to retreat, but for women to re retreat together.

SPEAKER_01 11:20

Yeah, that's a very good point. I myself was just, I'm just getting back from a retreat. I have a little bit of a tan. I was down in Mexico. I am really drawn to, because of my heritage, the Mayan approach to retreats. And so much of it is moon related and the focus of nature, like actually doing ceremonies within the jungle setting and being amongst these materials that are very authentically naturally wild and a part of the healing process involves that. And that women who retreat to these natural settings and together have a much more powerful outcome. I was just reading some research yesterday that showed that when women come together in retreat, that there is a higher percentage of healing that is experienced as an outcome as opposed to if it's mixed with uh mixed men and women. And I find that interesting. There definitely is something synergistic, even if you're someone like myself who is post-menopausal, and I still benefit from the biological being in connection through the biochemistry or emotional chemistry that happens in connection to other women. So powerful. So powerful.

SPEAKER_00 12:59

It is because not only do we go through a biological cyclical cycle, we're also going through phases of a life as a woman. And we go through the maiden phase, the mother phase. And many times people just want to say you go through the crone phase, but I feel like that's actually things that have been left out over time. Modern society just wants to make it very simplify it, but we're actually in the high priestess phase. And then comes the crone phase.

SPEAKER_01 13:30

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 13:31

So we each go through this phase and we share this commonality that can only be experienced by women.

SPEAKER_01 13:38

And I think what's wonderful is if it's a span of decades, right? Not just people in one particular phase, that we all rise together. We all heal from our shared experience. That's the point of retreat. Why do you think it's so important for people to retreat in the springtime?

Cycles, The Red Tent, And Community

SPEAKER_00 14:02

Beautiful. I think this is a great time to bring up that Ayurveda is a complete science. It had textbooks. It was considered an ancient medical system that still exists to this day. And Ayurveda has eight branches of medicine that include internal medicine, toxicology, surgery, pediatrics, obstetrics and gynecology, psychiatry. So we see these six in modern culture. And in fact, Ayurvedic medical system very much influenced the modern medical system. But there's two branches of medicine that are, I think, are actually starting to influence medicine, but they're so profound. The last two of the eight branches, one is called rasayana, which is root rejuvenation. 6,000 years ago, they understood that rejuvenation was as important as really understanding internal medicine. Wow. So there's ancient texts deeply detailing rejuvenation therapies. The eighth one is vajikarana, known as aphrodisiac therapy. And it isn't translated to mean, oh, let's all get in the mood to be intimate with a partner. It means that we need to keep our reproductive tissues so juicy and alive because that those reproductive tissues are the deepest layer of tissues inside of our bodies. And the ancients understood that when you have the deepest layer being so vital and strong, it will affect all the layers that come before that. And we're talking about plasma, blood, right, bones, nerves. And if we look at ancient cultures, they had eight to ten children. They were known to be very virile and strong. That's very much in the mythology of like ancient stories, this virility and this strength, and this fertility and this juiciness and this vigor and vitality. We need to really focus on these two branches of medicine because that is really what's going to push our collective health forward in a way where we can actually look at each other, be with each other, and feel strong and vital and juicy and alive.

SPEAKER_01 16:38

And so, for from a spring standpoint, why is spring an important time to retreat?

SPEAKER_00 16:45

So spring is the beginning. It is the beginning, it is the birth, it is a rebirth. And you and I both live in climates where we have four seasons and we go through this winter where we are among things that are dying or dormant. And we go into a cave, we go into our inner temple, we are doing so much work that if we didn't have spring to remind us that, oh, this is our time to rebirth, we would be very lost. So I feel like the fact that we're in four seasons, it shows the portal of spring so clearly. It is a time to really be balanced because if you balance yourself in spring, you're setting yourself up for all the other seasons that come.

SPEAKER_01 17:32

Okay. What I am looking forward to, what spring means to me, is it gives me an invitation to shift and change from the internal, being stuck inside and get out in nature and connecting with hikes in nature and really appreciating the different seasons in terms of the weather and the sun and really understanding and taking in the medicine that is available from the time of year. So tell me a little bit from an Ayurvedic standpoint, how is it that nature aids in the healing process?

SPEAKER_00 18:15

Yeah. So for North America and really the Northern Hemisphere, which is much of the planet lives in the Northern Hemisphere. We have some countries that fall into that southern hemisphere, but for the most part, most human life exists in the northern hemisphere. And for springtime, the energies of spring is cold, damp, moist, heavy, cloudy, sticky energy. I like to say it's the mud season for us in North America because all the snow is melting. But it's at and we are slowly warming. So what happens is the sun gets warmer as spring starts to unfold. And when the sun starts to warm and it starts to melt the snow outside in our bodies, that internal fire starts to warm and we start to melt our toxins. So what happens in spring? People start to notice that they have mucus discharge, that they are susceptible to colds and flus because every all your toxins have been very hard in winter, and now the springtime is melting it all, and your toxins are running out. It is a really hard time to not stay balanced because those heavy, damp, cold, sticky, cloudy energy can really overtake the physiology. Yeah. Really important to bring these Ayurvedic principles and rejuvenation and nature and exercise and worshiping the sun to balance yourself. So you don't get, you don't feel like summer brought you down, but you feel like you're meeting spring where it's at, and you can really access the gifts that spring has.

SPEAKER_01 20:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:05

Which is there's a lot of fertility in spring.

Spring As A Portal For Rebirth

SPEAKER_01 20:08

Yeah, there is. And I think that we can apply this actually even to mental emotional challenges that people have during the winter time when we're cooped up, when we're somewhat disconnected because of weather, we can feel a lot of aloneness, we can feel a lot of separation, we can have these moments of depression, seasonal affect, disorder, or things like that. And I think what's really great about spring is it's an opportunity to really shift mentally and emotionally. And I don't mean to just sweep it away to really open up and start to look at some of these feelings that have been trapped inside and we with them, right? Let's talk a little bit about what is it that women should expect? What are retreats really designed to do for a woman who is attempting to really embrace spring or embrace change or move into the new season? Talk a little bit about from your experience what your clients come to and how you help them build towards success in a retreat.

SPEAKER_00 21:23

Yeah. Another thing I want to bring up too is that winter, you brought it so clearly that it's a time of isolation. It's a time of that many people have less human contact. You tend to live in darkness. It's very dark. If we don't come together communally in springtime, then that heaviness of spring can actually bring forth sadness, depression, and lethargy. Because you're taking that winter energy and you're bringing it into a very heavy season. So retreat, spring retreat coming together, supporting each other is an extremely Important concept because if you're feeling tendencies from winter, it can get exasperated where you can actually be like, wow, I'm actually feeling depressed, and the sun is finally out and flowers are blooming. And why am I feeling sad or unmotivated or uninspired? So, retreat in spring is exponentially so powerful to bring that sense of community and balance and allowing you to see what has been dormant for the months leading up to this. It's very hard to be alone and have that perspective.

SPEAKER_01 22:41

Yeah. Yeah, retreats are really designed to be in community because we're not meant to examine everything about ourselves on our own. We don't have enough detachment. And I think like what I appreciate about an Ayurvedic approach to a retreat is that we look at every single aspect of energy that's within us and contributing to what we're experiencing, and then find a balancing approach using another element or another dosha. So speak a little bit about that, about how we determine like what is it that we need to bring into a retreat for someone.

Kapha Season And Clearing Sludge

SPEAKER_00 23:32

Yeah, spring is each season is a specific dominance of one dosha. So springtime is really kha season. And that's because the qualities that I talked about is very much what a kha person would be experiencing. That heavy, dense, cloudy, stable energy. That's really the energy of spring. And the beauty about Ayurveda is it's opposite cures like. So we want to bring warm, light, dry therapies into spring, no matter what dosha you are. And the beautiful thing about our retreat in spring is that we're gonna dive into people learning more about their doshic makeup, and we can get more specific on what each doshic type should do in spring. And that's the beauty that we're excited to bring to that. But warm, light, and dry therapies is really important. And I know from doing this work for 23 years that it works very well when we can have the experience. We can tell somebody you need warm, light, dry therapies. We can tell somebody you might have a propensity for sadness and lethargy. We can even tell them the tools, but the experiential learning that's when it sticks. And that's when it starts to have your aha moments. And you also realize in retreat, we are getting together to remind each other that we can support each other to change one, two, three, four, five percent of who we are. We don't want to a hundred percent change. We don't want to not recognize the new person that we're trying to become. We want to change a little bit. And that's what the power of transformation is.

SPEAKER_01 25:26

Yeah, I think you you touched on ritual and experiences. And what we have from Ayurveda is some really specific rituals that provide the experience that someone would need to be able to shift a little bit, whether that is in thought or that's physically, or both, right? And heal along the way. And and there's having groups come together and do this together is really quite powerful. Now, what I want to talk about now with you is both have been, as we said, on retreats together, both in this country and in India. And and I find what I think we agree on is that there was a way that we were being guided, meaning the training was very theory-based. I my experience was that we were given a curriculum and we were expected to progress and understand and digest and evolve to this version that they wanted for the teacher training. I'm being specific. And then when it came time for going to India and being guided there, there are significant cultural things that can get missed when you're not being guided by somebody from that country. There's even language barriers, and I found like the beauty of having you be my partner in crime is that we were able to translate for each other. We were able to really see what was going into the experience, like we could sort through the disconnect. And I really appreciate the fact that two experiences really led me to understand that there is a different way, a I'll say it a better way, in which when somebody is going through a healing process, through a growing process, through a self-reflection process, which is what a retreat is, there needs to be a good guide. I think it needs to be more experiential and not theory. And I think there needs to not be anything lost in translation. So, can you speak a little bit about what your experience was of what we went through in our trainings and how we're going to create something that's really different and special?

Designing A Women-Led Experiential Retreat

SPEAKER_00 28:03

Yeah, and I also think this is also the power of being woman-led. And I'm very excited about this because it's what we're talking about. One thing that I really thought about last night when I was contemplating this is something that also happens in retreats, which is really interesting, is participants tend to idolize their teacher because you see things in them that you really desire. And there tends to be this disconnect when you do that, because you're putting somebody on a pedestal. And I think you and I understand that there's a fine line between that, idolizing somebody, and having gratitude for the lessons that you learn. And I believe that there's important ways that we can hold people. Because when you idolize somebody, you're creating that disconnect and you're not allowing your yourself to be really guided and held in the way that you should. So I think one of the most important aspects is what we talked about doing things together in a group. When we do things in an experiential way or we're leading them through a practice, we're doing the practice with them. And it allows us to be on equal ground with them because we're all doing it together. And I think that's really important in the transmuting of the material we're trying to share.

SPEAKER_01 29:32

Yeah. Yeah, there's it's a really important concept, is that if we are not connected to the actual experience that we are leading people through, that people can get lost along the way. Not to say that everyone's going to have the exact same experience. It means that we want to make sure that everyone understands and trusts that we're not separate from the knowing or the experience because we'll be a part of it with them. We also have collectively over 40 years of working with clients between the two of us, and mine has been more mental health geared, and yours is obviously body, mind together, Ayurvedic healing. And I feel like when it comes to that, we there's been there's needn't be worried that they're being guided by people who have traversed this land before.

SPEAKER_00 30:36

Absolutely. I don't think we would be offering this if we didn't know so deeply that we are capable and wanting to hold the space and to guide people and not have them feel like they're swimming or they're lost or they can hear it, but they're not sure how to implement it.

SPEAKER_01 30:59

I feel I'm excited to be able to bring what we have learned together as well as with our own clients to this experience because people are going to have a very, I believe, a very special immersion into Ayurveda, as well as how to shift the narrative, the story that they've been carrying. So let's talk about the workshop or the retreat, excuse me, itself. What people can expect when they come to our retreat, which is already placed in a fantastic location of Hunter Mountain. We're going to be surrounded by a beautiful landscape of woods and little rivers. And so hiking is going to be a part of it. There's going to be outdoor connection with the fire ceremony. So we're going to involve that element. We're going to definitely have, I want, I so I want to hear from you like, what are some of the energy experiences that you look forward to us connecting with our guests?

Hunter Mountain Setting And Rituals

SPEAKER_00 32:09

We're absolutely going to create a welcoming portal. It's really important for us to set the stage. And we're very intentional about that. Really opening this circle together and then closing it when the time is ready. I think that's extremely important. But every aspect is we've created in such a way. So the Ayurvedic food is a huge part of this. We are going to create an immaculate spring Ayurvedic diet, but it's going to be flavorful and nourishing, and it's going to check all the boxes of people's health eating needs because human beings feel very confused around eating. And we might argue about what a good diet is as much as politics, honestly. But the beauty about Ayurveda and creating it in this way is for people to see that it's actually, in the essence, not complicated because the way that it's designed is that all human beings need six tastes. And we're going to dive deep into what those six tastes are during the retreat. Everyone is going to realize, wow, if I focus on that, I actually don't need to focus on calories and protein and nutrition. So bringing some simplicity of the medicine through experience because we're curating all the meals, all the snacks, all the drinks. And that's going to be interwoven into all of the other experiential practices that we're going to be doing. So I think that's going to be a key part of this. And then just having these beautiful sessions where we are very intentional about what we want to teach the participants. So I think every day we'll be practicing tools, they'll be able to journal about it. And it won't feel so overwhelming because we are doing it together. And they'll experience it over this two and a half days. So they'll feel confident to take that away. Sometimes you go to retreats and it's actually fabulous. Like sometimes you can just have an absolute fabulous experience. And then you go home and you're like, I'm back to the same stuff.

SPEAKER_01 34:28

Yeah. And I think like we're definitely, that was one of the things that you and I had talked about that we want to make sure that we send our guests back home with a roadmap on how to integrate back into their environments and bring the lessons that they will learn on our retreat back to their day-to-day lives. Because that's really the measure, I think, of retreat. Like you said, it's great to have your experience when you're there. It's another thing to take it back with you and put it to work in your life.

SPEAKER_00 35:03

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 35:05

Yeah. So I'm wondering if we're thinking about this retreat, we're set in a great location. We've got all the food that we've that they could possibly need or want on in this setting. And we've got the ritual experiences that we're all gonna go through together in two and a half days. I'm thinking, gosh, it's going to be nothing short of a transformation that we could have together. What is it that you think that a space needs to be, right? For someone to go through that transformation? What do you think people can count on? What is it that they need to seek out when they go to a retreat in order to have an outcome that is going to be shifting for them?

SPEAKER_00 36:02

I think making sure that the space feels safe, that they feel like they're a participant in whatever aspect, because everyone's going to come with different personalities. Somebody might feel like they really love sharing. They're very extroverted. Somebody else might just need to be quiet and take it in. The beauty with both of us having combined 40 years experience is that we it's very important for us that everyone feels like the space is a space of belonging to everybody. And what that allows you to not have to feel like you have to show up in a certain way.

Ayurvedic Food And The Six Tastes

SPEAKER_01 36:41

Yes. So you can be relaxed, you can participate to the level that feels great for you, good for you. I think what's also important is that the leaders be authentic, to be not performative, but really be genuinely invested in the experience of the group as well as the teachings that we're going to be bringing. And that's something I certainly don't need to remind you of, but I want to just extend that out to anyone who's considering our spring healing retreat, that it is for sure going to be something that they know that the two of us are coming from a space of genuine passion for Ayurveda, healing, and growth. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 37:41

I think this is like a woman's way to wellness. The medicine of spring, this retreat is a woman's way to wellness through breath, movement, diet, sound, ceremony, ritual, community. Even eating together is a profound radical act that we need to do more of. So I see it as a woman's way to wellness.

SPEAKER_01 38:07

Yeah, coming out of seclusion or whatever winter look like for our people and come and coming out into spring in an intentional collective. This is not going to be an escape. This is going to be an intentional retreat, which will help everyone who's participating in it grow in some ways. So if anyone's listening that feels that quiet nudge, right? Oh, this sounds like something I might be interested in. And they have this sense of I could use a pause in my life. Let's think about what is a gentle reminder or call to action that we could offer to them. What do you think, Rima?

SPEAKER_00 38:50

I think if you are feeling called to this, we want you first to reach out. If you're feeling called, but you're worried about how are you going to make the space? Or you need to talk about the financial aspect, or we put a lot of blockages on ourselves of our inner voices telling us, oh, or we're paying attention, but I can't do it. We want to really remind you to reach out to us because the I can't, we want to help you from the I can't to the I can because you deserve it. Because again, women, we've both have seen this in our practice. Women are very good at making excuses for not tending to yourself.

Integration Plans That Actually Stick

SPEAKER_01 39:36

Yeah. I certainly have had some recent experiences in my own family where when we put off what we really need, it can almost become too late. And I think I don't want that to be ever a reason why someone doesn't get to have the life experience that they want. And so we're creating an environment that's going to be comfortable, it's going to be an adventure, it's going to be healing, it's going to be collective. It's going to be transformational. And what I've noticed, like in my body, when I participate in something like that, I can't even describe how much growth happens, mostly from a possibility standpoint, but also from just the gentle shifts that happen in my perspective. And as you said, we can tend to, as women, to put our needs behind or to the side, right? I'll get to that someday, right? Or I'll get to me someday. Hey, this is the someday. This is the time. And so I really want to express like this is going to be a fun weekend. And you were going to grow together in a knowledge around how to really invite in these Ayurveda practices into our life in a simple way and yet very meaningful. So, what are you thinking in terms of how this will be a personalized yet collective experience for the people that are coming?

SPEAKER_00 41:26

Ayurveda is an incredible opportunity to bring a new language into your mind, body, and spirit. And I'm very excited to weave in this language throughout the weekend because we are in a time in the world where number one, we do need to come together in doing positive things. The world needs this. I think we all know this. But also it's also really important for us to have the language that connects us to the cosmos more than ever because we're feeling like a very disconnected race of people. So when we practice cosmic language, you really understand how the universe has your back. And we're not here right now in 2026 to talk about fluffy things. We want to dive into potent medicine. Yeah. We know how to do it and we're excited to do it. I want the participants or people that might be intrigued and interested to know that we want you to come with a curious mind. We want you to come with wanting to be a part of a group experience. And also Anna and I are testament to the fact of our friendship that we really actually believe that this community that we create in these beautiful mountains of the Northeast is going to be a connection that's going to serve you long after the weekend is over. These it's very common, and because we have such purpose for this retreat, I really feel that whoever comes, these are going to be people in your life that are going to support you. And we want that. We want that for you also.

What Safe, Transformative Space Requires

SPEAKER_01 43:16

That's right. I look back and I think that's how I met you. I met you in training, I met you on retreat, and we've always stayed connected. I connected with my sister from another land, and we have always grown in an appreciation of each other's knowledge and wisdom. And that's why I'm really excited to be able to bring this together and share this with people because it's made such a difference in my life to really learn through you about Ayurveda. And it's really informed the work that I do. And I'm excited for the people that have come on retreat with us because. They'll get to have the best of both. So, and any closing thoughts on what you want to share about this retreat or what you hope for it.

SPEAKER_00 44:13

Let's see. Let me just give myself a moment. Because I had a thought while you were talking. And I learned so much from you that I that I actually was pondering on the beautiful things that you were talking about. You know, what I think that I want people to take away with this is that we really need to do this right now. That's really what's coming to me is that we really need to come together and come together as women. It's really important. It's okay for us to take that prakriti, that primordial female wisdom, energy, the divine feminine that the world is longing for. And we fill ourselves with these ancient tools and bringing it into modern reality. That's the thing is that we want to bring this ancient wisdom, but for where we are now in modern life.

SPEAKER_01 45:14

Yeah. Yeah. We need the world needs women that are healed. And I think that taking this time away will not only benefit them individually, it's going to benefit the people that they live with. It's going to benefit the people that they work with. It's going to benefit the people with their community because the way they come back into those spaces really speaks to the healing that they will gain from the retreat.

SPEAKER_00 45:41

Yeah. And the world right now wants to remind us that we're divided, that we have a lot of things that we are in war with within ourselves and around us. But the truth of the matter is that the woman medicine, the medicine of woman, is we know that's part of the illusion of the world, that we're much more connected than we believe that we are. And we want that energy to be remembered.

Language Of Ayurveda And Lasting Community

SPEAKER_01 46:12

Yeah, I think I see that's part of the beauty of spring, right? Is that we get to co-create together this healing process that we will share in community and then send it out with the women back to where they live. So it just keeps growing, keeps expanding. And going back to the story that we started this episode with, it really is about getting to know ourselves on a deeper level, healing those parts of ourselves that might be keeping us from expanding or being the best, better versions of us. And the world really does need that. It needs it not only the feminine to come in and heal, but it also needs us to connect. The feminine energy needs to connect. And I think can't think of a better experience that they're going to have for that. But in the Catskills in in Hunter Mountain with you and me.

SPEAKER_00 47:20

Yes, we need to disconnect to reconnect.

SPEAKER_01 47:23

There you go. Yes, yes. Wonderful. It's been great talking to you about this retreat and learning more about all the great things that Ayurveda has to offer. And I'm excited more so now than ever about this retreat that we're going to co-lead at the end of May. Anyone who's listening that's feeling that quiet nudge, please look for the notes of this episode so that you can click the link, get your questions answered, please leave any comments, any need for follow-up, and we will get to you so that you can join us in May. And so, as always, it's been great talking with you, Rima, here on the She Ask podcast where healing meets practical hope. And so, until soon, everybody's been listening to me. I'm your host, Anna McBride. And until next time, be well.