FULL BLOOM
A Half-Day Somatic Retreat · Held Regularly in Barnstaple
Release, reconnect and remember what you actually want from this life.
9:30am – 2:30pm · 6 women only · £77 including lunch
Something in you has been holding on for a long time.
Maybe you can't name it exactly. There's just this weight that lives somewhere in your chest, your throat, your shoulders. The one that's been there so long you've started to think it's just what you feel like now. You keep going. You manage. You hold it together for everyone around you.
But your body knows. It's been knowing, quietly, underneath all the doing.
You are not broken. You are full, full of things that have had nowhere to go. Stress that never fully left. Grief you swallowed. Tension that moved in and stopped being a visitor. The exhaustion of being the one who holds things together, day after day, without anyone holding you.
What you need isn't more rest. It isn't talking it through again. It's somewhere safe to put it down. To let your body do what it already knows how to do - release, soften, open - when it finally feels held enough to.
Full Bloom is that space.
A Day To Come Back To Yourself
This is a small, intimate gathering — just six women. A morning and early afternoon that is fully held, completely guided and genuinely safe, where your only role is to arrive, and let yourself be led.
Everything outside waits. The phone, the mental load, the list of things you haven't done yet. None of it comes through the door with you.
You don't need any experience. You don't need to know what you're carrying or be ready to talk about it. You just need to arrive in something comfortable, with a willingness to give yourself this time.
Your body will do the rest.
What The Day Holds
Grounding and Somatic Body Work
We begin on the mat, gently. You'll be guided to notice what's already here — where your body is braced, where the breath is shallow, where you've been holding without realising. We're not trying to fix anything. We're just making contact. Meeting what's been waiting.
Trauma and Tension Release
This is one of the most quietly powerful things your body can do for itself — and it doesn't require you to relive anything, explain anything, or be ready. When your nervous system feels safe enough, it knows how to let go. This practice gives it the conditions to do exactly that. Women often describe this as the moment something they've been carrying for years simply begins to move.
Ceremonial Cacao and Nourishment
Ceremonial cacao, held with intention, served as a moment of genuine care. Before we go deeper, you are nourished. Fed. Tended to. A morning snack so your body feels looked after from the very beginning — because this day is about receiving, and that starts here.
Breathwork
Slow, progressive, guided through the nose. The breath reaches places that thinking simply cannot. You don't need to know what you're holding or where it lives — your body already knows. The breath gives it somewhere to go. Women often feel things soften in here that have been tight for longer than they can remember.
A Slow, Nourishing Lunch
A healthy lunch, eaten together, slowly. This is not a break from the work — it's part of it. The morning has asked something of you. Now you are fed, gently held in conversation, and given space to let what has already shifted begin to settle.
Journaling and Guided Visualisation
After lunch, the quieter layers. Journaling that asks the questions you haven't been given space to sit with — and a beautiful guided visualisation that lets you feel, in your body, what it is to be lighter than this. To know, not just in your head but in your chest and your belly and your breath, what your life feels like when this weight is no longer yours to carry.
how you'll feel when you leave
Your shoulders will be down where they belong.
Your breath will be sitting lower in your body than it has in months — slower, fuller, landing somewhere deep in your belly. Your chest will feel open in a way you might have forgotten was possible.
Women who have come to this retreat have gone home and slept — properly, deeply, the whole night through. They've woken the next morning and noticed their shoulders are somewhere different. That a weight has lifted, not just emotionally but physically, from the body itself.
You'll have been in a room with five other women who understand what it is to carry a lot and keep going. Who witnessed you without judgement, without advice, without needing anything from you.
There is something in being held gently by other women that is genuinely difficult to find anywhere else.
And underneath all of it — something quieter. A sense of being back inside yourself. Grounded. Clear. Like the version of you that got a little lost somewhere along the way has just been handed back to you.
I'd gently encourage you to keep the rest of the afternoon free. Whatever your body asks for, follow it. The work continues long after you leave the room.
Held by Lauren Lepley
Lauren is a trauma-informed somatic practitioner and breathwork facilitator who has built her practice from lived experience. She knows what it is to carry more than your body was designed to hold, and she knows what it takes to come back from that, because she has done it herself, from the body up.
Her women's circles have become a trusted, safe space for local women to do real, meaningful, body-led work in a room where they are genuinely seen and held. This retreat is the longer, deeper version of that container — for the days when an evening isn't enough. When something in you needs proper time, proper space and somewhere truly safe to land.
• • •
These retreats run regularly throughout the year, with just six spaces each time. When they are gone, they are gone.
If something in you softened while reading this, trust that. Your body always knows what it needs.
"I felt so safe being extremely vulnerable. You held me, spiritually and physically."
- Danielle
"I got home and slept for 3 hours. Then cooked dinner, and slept again. Went to bed and slept the night through. A weight has most definitely been lifted, physically and emotionally."
- Anne
"I wasn't sure what to expect. There are no expectations placed on you. The feeling of being supported, held gently by other women — it's truly special."
- Annie B
The full DEtails
Date: Hosted regularly, next available date in the booking link below
Time: 9:30am – 2:30pm
Location: The Sanctuary Studio, The Plant Bar Cafe, Barnstaple, North Devon
Spaces: 6 women only
Investment: £77, including morning snack, ceremonial cacao and a healthy lunch
What to bring: Comfortable clothes you can move in on a mat, a journal and pen, a water bottle, and a willingness to slow down
No experience is needed. Everything is fully guided, gentle and trauma-informed. Come exactly as you are.