Retreats

Welcome, Beautiful Quester

I have zero doubt that the Universe, Spirit, God (whatever Great Mystery you pray to) led you here.

If you’ve landed on this page, chances are you’re feeling stuck. Scared. Maybe even trapped in a situation that feels impossible to escape.

You are in a labyrinth, and this page is about the escape hatch out of it.

Labyrinths are layered, confusing, and disorienting, no matter who you are. But here’s the thing…

Feeling stuck is a gateway to sweet sanctuaries that are about to unfold for you.

You can’t yet imagine this from where you stand. But…just wait.

Because I’ve had to find those escape hatches…again and again and again, on my nearly two-decade-long Spiritual Quest.

Through many falls and rises in that labyrinth, many false doors and secret passageways, I came into a profound love coupled with intuition, wisdom and grit that birthed a torch I can hold for women like you, who are navigating that same stagnation, confusion, toxic relationships, and silent suffering.

I know those steep, twisted halls intimately. Believe me, I’ve stumbled through them. Whispered prayers into their shadows.

Here’s what I’ve learned:

Even the darkest labyrinths are doorways to the most incredible landscapes. Sometimes those doorways are hidden. Often, they are hard-won. But they always there.

So how did I get here?

To a place of peace and purpose—where ushering women out of labyrinths has become my life’s work? Grab a cuppa my dear, and wrap yourself in one of those cozy blankets you keep around for a rainy day. I’m 47, but it’s taken at least 9 lives to get here.

I must say… It feels a little funny writing an “about page” when I’ve written a 412-page memoir—and that only got me to age 35. So here’s the kinda quick ‘n dirty… but also the bright hope in the dark night.

The Invisible Labyrinth of “making it”

I was neck-deep in the corporate world, wearing a costume of success. A wall of awards. A closet of Louboutins. A calendar full of swanky parties and “important” meetings… and a soul quietly dimming.

My anxiety was ramping up as I neared the young women’s panic zone– age 30, and with no ring from my so-called “devoted” tech tycoon boyfriend to show.

Beneath it all, questions began to rise.

The labyrinth shows spirals: Breakdown to Breakthrough…

Back then, the questions made me feel insecure and scared, like I didn’t know all there was to know.

Now I know: The Spiritual Quest always begins with a question.

Usually whispered. Often desperate.

Sometimes it comes mid-chaos, mid-fight, or mid-collapse, when you’re gasping for sanity or simply trying to exhale under the weight of a life that may be the one you dreamt of, but doesn’t feel the way you thought it would.

Your questions may sound like this:

Is this all there is?

Am I crazy?

Is this really love?

Who even am I anymore?

What if I leave?

What if I stay?

Deep exhale, Spirit led you here. It’s so hard to celebrate the breakdowns.

But the happy news is that breakdowns happen when you’re ready to know the truth of who you really are.

When you are ready to do what you came here to do.

Breakdowns are the bridge to your liberation.

Breakdowns point the way to the magic that lives inside you.

I didn’t know any of that at 28, when my Quest took off like a rocket… on a collision course.

I’d just found out the man I’d spent six years loving had cheated on me—with a woman he met on the social network he started. And just like that, he discarded me like a three-day-old Thai takeout.

To make things worse?
My best friend—who’d married his best friend—chose him.
So did the rest of our friend group.

I was kicked out of our beachfront home, alone and devastated. Trying (and failing) to piece myself back together in the messiest of ways.

This was before Instagram therapists, podcasts, or life coaches.
Before “healing” was a hashtag.
I had no guidance. No support.
And absolutely nowhere to go.

I was sure I’d made massive mistakes and totally ruined my life.

Just when I thought I would die alone surrounded by cats, a spiritual teacher appeared (this was super “out there” in 2006, btw). He helped me see: I wasn’t broken—I was awakening. I’d been living by illusions handed down by the overarching culture and suffering HUGELY as a result. 

“Since working with Emily, my life has changed dramatically in ways I never thought possible. And it’s nothing gimmicky or outlandish. Everything about my journey has always been there within me, and Emily has simply been my teacher/guide/coach, and helped me see the things that were possible for me to create on my own.”

–Kate, Palo Alto

The labyrinth of marriage.

Enter Husband #1:

The tall, handsome Texan who’d just quit drinking and was building recovery centers to help kids get clean.

He mirrored my spiritual curiosity and talked about “doing the work.”

He treated me like a Queen, matched my independence, and even though I never thought a sober country club cowboy would be my guy, our Aquarian souls seemed to understand each other.

We spontaneously married in the Sacred Valley of Peru. So romantic. We’ll learn what romance really means soon enough…

Our time together was brief but potent.

It was a bridge out of the party-fueled chaos of chasing approval and acceptance—and into a new world of creative wonder.

After 32 years of believing I wasn’t one of the “artsy types,” I discovered creativity wasn’t just alive in me, it was a roaring, untamed wellspring!!!

I wrote my bestselling memoir The Quest: From the Hollywood Hills to the Amazon Jungle, One Woman’s Search for Enough.

I picked up a guitar and started singing.

Wrote songs.

Painted huge, wild canvases.

Took the mic in improv.

Danced burlesque with a wiley sisterhood.

What surprised me most? The way creativity and spirituality don’t just intersect—they amplify each other. They’re sacred co-conspirators. When they move together, they don’t just inspire—they transform.

Together, they alchemize:
Resentment became Gratitude, even for disasters and heartbreaks.

Insecurity became Soul-rooted confidence.

Competition became Collaboration, where sisterhood blooms.

Stuckness became Flow, creatively, emotionally, spiritually.

Silence became Expression, a reclaiming of voice and power.

Fear became Trust, born from lived resilience and divine remembrance.

This duo liberated me from the soul-sucking labyrinth of perfectionism and opened a portal to my richest self.
But…

Just when I thought I’d finally found solid ground, life twisted again. The vows Husband #1 made couldn’t hold the woman I was becoming.

My vision of self—and of life—expanded dramatically. He couldn’t rise with me. His addictions resurfaced, and our marriage unraveled.

So what does a newly divorced 36-year-old do? 

The escape hatch of divorce….

To my surprise, divorce was thrilling.

Dating, this time rooted in self-worth and creative fire, (without an agenda for the ring!!) felt like entering a whole new universe.

Suddenly, I was a man-magnet. Calling the shots. And you know what? I loved it.

I found deep love and a sexual awakening with a sensitive hipster filmmaker—who was and IS still the kindest guy I know.

I was older, wiser and knew better than to center the man. We put the relationship on the slow cooker and enjoyed an agenda free beautiful relationship.

I felt radiant and optimistic… even invincible at times. I started coaching and hosting retreats on the side of my corporate gig. And yes—I went through with the egg-freezing procedure. It was surprisingly easy. They retrieved some unheard-of number of eggs.

All was so very well… until it wasn’t.

About a week after the procedure, I felt a stabbing pain in my vagina, like I was being jabbed with a fireplace poker 24/7.

I couldn’t wear jeans, couldn’t have sex, or even sleep !!!

The labyrinth of physical distress.

I saw every doctor under the Los Angeles sun. Tried Candida, Keto, and Body Ecology diets. Hyperbaric chambers. Plant medicine. Hypnosis. Spent $50,000 searching for answers….

And finally—I found a small opening that led to a big escape hatch.

Now, at 47, I somehow feel better in my body than I did at 27. The body-wisdom I earned in that brutal labyrinth is priceless. She taught me how to listen. How to surrender. And what holistic healing really means.

And then….

You’re probably thinking, holy smokes, there’s more?
Totally get it if you need a pee break.

These labyrinths are like those damn Russian nesting dolls. Escape one… only to find yourself in another. Always looking for the gifts hidden in the rubble, I continued on my Quest hopeful and curious.

The Labyrinth of the false hero

At 38… after nearly a decade of Questing, I received a clear hit of intuition, and slipped out of the golden handcuffs of the labyrinth of corporate life, said a sorrowful but aligned goodbye to the filmmaker (our karma was complete) and leapt into the lush Costa Rican jungle my soulmate landscape, Santa Teresa… and into the arms of a charming Frenchman.

At first, it felt like the dream—the fairytale I wasn’t sure existed but here it was.

We had cosmic synergy. Or so I thought. We will learn that projection is part of the false portals of the labyrinth.

Together we built Sunrise Mountain Retreat Center. I birthed two beautiful babies (sans eggs on ice) at 39 and 42. Surfed with the sunrise, bathed in tidepools and built a soulful community. I was literally living my dream life.

There was just one pestering leeeeetle detail…

The Frenchman was unhinged. He would fly off the handle over the most seemingly mundane things.

But because he was the Renaissance Man of my ego’s dreams—a soul surfer, spiritual explorer who spoke three languages, built his house with his own hands, cooked like a Michelin chef, cleaned up after himself, and was a hands-on, deeply present father who didn’t lie around smoking weed, bingeing video games, watching porn, or cheating—I couldn’t see it clearly at first.

My mind just couldn’t make sense of the Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde mindfuckery I was living inside. I saw an intriguing and complicated man. Someone so devoted—to me, our family, and our shared vision. 

The Labyrinth of Domestic Abuse…

I don’t know about you, but I was conditioned to believe that abuse was something that happened in trailer parks. To “unlucky” women with smeared lipstick and broken dreams. At the hands of pot-bellied, beer-breathed men in stained wife-beaters.

Not to university-educated women. Not to corporate execs or artists. Not to healers. Not to mindful mamas wearing linen and vocabulary that includes “nervous system.”

To reconcile the cognitive dissonance, I rebranded his volatility as “passion.” Nicknamed him my Fiery Frenchman.

Meanwhile, my light was dimming. I was slowly losing my voice, my clarity, my agency—in my own home, and in the world. I chalked up his dismissiveness and sideways digs to cultural differences. If I wasn’t careful I could commit no less than 15 faux pas before I’d even had my celery juice.

I’ve found abuse can scream or it can be like being poked with a thousand tiny needles.

Either way it slowly chips away at your light. Your lust for life dims. Your creative fire flickers. Your mind loops in confusion, guilt, anxiety, and fear.

For years it didn’t even occur to me that this could be my story. Despite my body crying out to me with recurrent UTIs, shingles and insomnia, It still didn’t occur to me that I was living with an abuser.

Nope, that would never happen to ME! So I forged ahead with my Fiery Frenchman.

We bought 200 acres of untouched jungle with pristine waterfalls and rivers.

We planned to build a community of other families to enjoy this Oasis, and a larger retreat center for family retreats. We built our dream home with 180-degree views of the sparkling Pacific. Well, that mountain turned out to be a sacred mountain of truth—one that cracked me open and forced me to see that I was, once again, inside YET ANOTHER labyrinth. But this wasn’t just any maze. This one was darker, more insidious than all the others. There were no clear exits, only loops of confusion, guilt, shame, and fear. It was a hall of mirrors, reflecting back a distorted version of myself, until I could barely recognize who I was.

I had to reckon with the reality that who I thought was devoted and passionate I got your back no matter kind of love with a complicated person, was actually a web of psychological, emotional, spiritual, sexual, and financial abuse—woven by a masterful narcissist. I asked myself the hard questions:

How did I, a spiritually grounded, financially independent, self-aware woman, end up here in this labyrinth of domestic abuse?

After extensive research—and hearing countless stories from women who had also escaped—I learned something crucial: narcissists don’t prey on the weak. They seek the resilient, the bright, the deeply empathetic women who see potential in everyone and everything.

Looking back, there were red flags. But by the time I saw them waving, I was already in too deep.

My spiritual self gaslit me: have compassion for his trauma.
My intellectual self rationalized it: these are just misunderstandings between cross-cultural lovers.

So I stayed. And gave. And unwittingly handed over my power and resources to him—all under the guise of his “helping.”

Meanwhile, he became even more unhinged… and I became terrified. 

The Labyrinth of Urgent Reckoning

Somewhere in that terror, I got fiercely protective.

I wanted to escape to California and stay with my family and sort out this mess from a continent away, but nope. Turned out the stain of domestic abuse just wasn’t a fit for their manicured lawns.

So after a particularly crazed event involving him performing a blood sacrifice (truth IS stranger than fiction), I stuffed a few things into trash bags and fled with my children to the capital city of San José.

The Labyrinth of loneliness…

Theres always chaos after the fall and fall. Mine was like a cyclone. Domestic violence order. A crooked Central American legal system. An unhinged smear campaign. You will learn chaos after an exit is to be expected.

With the protection order in place, I returned to our retreat center—and wound up in a surprise urgent rescue mission of the property managing a 10 person construction team in Spansh while solo-parenting two kids on summer vacation.

My nervous system was hanging on by a frazzled adrenal gland.

Not only that… one of the arms of my business was helping women call in love. I’ve helped literally thousands of women transform their lives and call in love, by teaching them to love themselves.

And here I was in an abusive relationship!! Oh how the labyrinth kept turning and twisting.

Sharing The Terrible Truth…

So… even though most everyone told me not to do this—I shared the squeeze I was moving through on Instagram.

And the support I desperately needed arrived.
Messages. Calls. Comments. Thousands of them.

Each one a lifeline.
Each one a reminder: I wasn’t alone.

Those messages confirmed what I already knew in my bones:
This particular strand of labyrinth is not rare.
Women from every walk of life are waking up to the same knowing—something is deeply, deeply broken.

My crown chakra cracked wide open.
The dots connected.