Back to Self Desert Retreat

Josie is a Certified Co-Active Coach, a Certified Yoga Instructor, and an experienced facilitator  with over a decade of experience in cultivating healthy relational practices within diverse communities.. Many years ago, Josie began her journey to wellness through the ancient practice of Yoga as a way to recharge from the daily stresses of work-life.  With the wear and tear of cumulative stress, a full work schedule, and a severe back injury; Josie was immobilized-not only in her body but in her mind’s relationship to her body. She turned towards wellness to regain her strength and connect back to her wholeness.  ​

 An interdisciplinary practitioner, Josie utilizes her expertise in holistic healing modalities to encourage self-awareness, self-care, and collective transformation.Josie draws on ancient wisdom traditions, Ayurveda, somatics, co-active coaching methodologies for personal transformation.

Nita Sims is a Somatic Psychotherapist, with a master’s degree in psychology from the California Institute of Integral Studies, who has been working clinically since 2018. She is also a Reiki Master, attuned in Tera Mai Seichem lineage and has been practicing Reiki since 2016. She’s a certified Yoga instructor and former collegiate athlete with a deep love for and connection to bodies. She is deeply intuitive and believes that all bodies hold great wisdom and capacity for healing, that validating natural ways of being human can be deeply transformative, and that reconnecting with one’s soul creates peace.  Her approach to healing and to life, is to support people in finding more confidence in their authenticity and to feel more freedom in their bodies and souls. She does this by supporting people to remove blockages to vitality and help them reconnect with their own divine nature. She is mixed race with mixed practices and utilizes an interdisciplinary approach to learning and healing. She overlays Psychology with Astrology, the Chakra System, Ayurveda, and Trauma Theory, in order to consider the whole being of the people she works with. She also believes that healing happens best when people have community. She is a recovering perfectionist and practices self -love and self-accountability whenever leading others.

Roni Alexandria is a model/actress and dancer from Minneapolis. After relocating to Los Angeles on a whim in 2011, she found herself on a journey of independence that was more spiritual than physical. Her intuition and infinite thirst for knowledge has made her adept at overstanding metaphysical, psychological and ancient esoteric sciences, such as astrology and tarot. After studying psychology at Arizona State University and becoming a Behavior Therapist for children on the Autism spectrum, her passion for mental health expanded. She has since become a certified Spiritual Holistic Health & Wellness Coach. Her  intention and focus is to help the collective remember their divine identity by realigning the mind, body and soul back to its original frequency. To the laws of nature and the ways of our ancestors. Her Sacred movement meditation class was designed to help women feel comfortable in their bodies and with their sensuality, allowing them to heal and embrace their divine feminine energy.

For 13 years, Kristen Sawyer (she/her) has worked to create inspirational, creative, and place-based workshops with youth and adults. A former classroom teacher of the beautiful awkwards (6th graders), Kristen earned her Master's in Education focusing on social emotional care and creative expression. She's always been a curious creature, with a background in cultural anthropology, and so she embarked on five years of teaching beyond the classroom in: Ecuador, Costa Rica, India, Brazil, South Africa, and Nepal. During that time, she worked with Naropa University, School for International Training, and National Geographic Student Expeditions. She returned stateside and shifted into outdoor education with teens, working as a Creative Writing instructor for Adventure Risk Challenge where she lived and worked in Yosemite National park for two summers. 

And then, as happened with many, 2020 changed everything. Kristen moved back to her hometown, Tucson, Arizona, where she launched Inner Compass Learning. Inner Compass offers workshops and 1-1 coaching to guide youth and adults to reorient toward healthy relationships with self, one another, and earth. While running Inner Compass, Kristen also works at Ironwood Tree Experience, a local environmental education nonprofit that strives to create resilient community by connecting youth with nature.  

You can find her talking with tree trunks, expressing musings through her weekly blog, Inner Compass Learning on Substack, reading books about any number of her passions from vulvas to hummingbirds to trauma and collective healing. She's excited to offer a nature-based experience for this workshop that helps each of us reconnect with the wild within ourselves by learning more about the deep beauty, and healing, of the Sonoran Desert.