Yogaion Retreats
Women's Wisdom
Retreat
About the Retreat
Become the physical embodiment of your soul so that you discover the woman you were always meant to be. During the retreat we offer two different packages:
Womens Yoga & Surf
Womens Wisdom & Yoga
Both options will be a week full of yoga specifically for women, mindfulness meditations, menstrual cycle & fertility awareness sessions, herbal medicine workshops all for women's health topped up with surf if wanted. Rediscover your strength and living according to the natural cycles of life. This retreat is hosted by women for women. Each of the hosts will bring input on women's health & cycle (sense) awareness through our own field of expertise & via our own struggles & joys as a woman.
It will be a week of connecting, embodiment & laughter. Connection to our inner & outer nature.

be softer with you.
you are a breathing thing.
a memory to someone.
a home to a life.
-
Nayyirah Waheed
PACKAGES
Women's wisdom Yoga & Surf ~ 10 women's inspired yoga classes, 3 days surf, 1 women's workshop (menstrual cycle awareness) & 3 evening mindfulness meditations.
Women's wisdom & Yoga ~ 10 women's inspired yoga classes, 3 women's workshops (menstrual cycle awareness, women's health food workshop & women's mindfulness), 1 massage & evening mindfulness meditations.
About WOMENs Yoga
What is unique about Yoga specifically for women is that it is characterised in the practice of asana and movement, designed for the needs of women at all stages of life. We as women are cyclical beings, strongly connected to nature. Living in a very linear society where everyday life, especially on the work floor, demands of us an evergoing similar approach going against our monthly cycles, which even after menopause can still be felt if we become deeply rooted and connected to them. This type of Yoga gives us as women the ability to face the physical, mental and emotional challenges of contemporary life with strength, vitality, mobility, thoughtfulness and equanimity.
“Yoga: a gem for women - Geeta Iyengar
During the retreat we will specifically use yoga for women's health, focusing on what to practice during which phase of your menstrual cycle and overall practices for women's wellbeing.
“The body is your temple. Keep it pure and clean for the soul to reside in.”
- Geeta Iyengar
The experience of surfing brings us a feeling of a deep unity with mother nature. A deep sense of belonging. One that you can already feel even when surfing the smallest of waves. The power of the ocean & the humbleness that it creates. Everything ceases to exist when for a moment you get pulled a long with the energy of the wave. This is the side of surfing that's connects us innately as women to the ocean & to surfing in itself. The softer side, the connection with the ocean & the connection to yourself.
About menstrual cycle awareness
"Attune to your menstrual cycle & attune to the forces of nature" - Alexandra Pope & Sjanie Hugo
What if loving your menstrual cycle was the key to accessing your full authority and power as woman?
Did you know as a woman you are coded for power, and the journey to realizing the fullness and beauty of that power – your Wild Power – lies in the rhythm and change of your menstrual cycle.
Menstruality is the exciting new revolution happening in women’s health and wellbeing, healing and therapeutic disciplines, coaching, education and leadership, and feminine spiritual practice.
Menstruality is the female life process of menarche, the menstrual cycle, menopause and the mature years. It is the woman’s ground, her initiatory process and ‘the mother cycle’, out of which rises the initiatory path to motherhood that is conception, pregnancy, birth and breastfeeding.
Menstruality describes the precise and multi–layered biological, psychological and spiritual process of maturation within the female body. Menstruality is the actual lived experience of this process, the knowledge that a woman accumulates or grows down into, and the field consciousness that this embodied knowledge generates.
Menstruality is a language, a way of articulating a woman’s experience that is rooted in natural lore and the process of evolution. It is how women pass on our knowledge of our feminine life process from one to another. It is a shared way of being.
“The menstrual cycle is a living body of knowledge." - Alexandra Pope & Sjanie Hugo
About mindfulness meditation
If we learn to focus our attention on our breath, thoughts, feelings and physical sensations, we establish a strong foundation. A foundation from which we can expand our awareness to our actions and interactions with ourselves, other people and the world. We choose our behavior based on response and conscious choice instead of habits and automatic patterns. When we are aware, we can take care of our feelings of anger, frustration, anxiety, stress, fear and insecurity. When we are aware we notice all the little things around us that makes life beautiful and that lift our mood. When we are aware we feel more calm, joyful and alive.
"There is a voice that does not use words: Listen" - Rumi
"Menstrual cycle awareness is the woman's mindfulness practice" - Alexandra Pope & Sjanie Hugo












Prices per package
Shared 895€
Double 1015€ per person
Single 1425€
Included in this retreat
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6 nights stay at costa Vicentina retreat house
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3 healthy, abundant vegetarian meals a day [cooked and prepared freshly by loving hands every single day! Most of the food we will eat will be organic & or local.]
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all water & herbal tea
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10 Morning & Evening women's health yoga classes
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3 evening Mindfulness meditations
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all yoga mats etc
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swimming pool
SPECIFICAlly for the Womens Yoga & Surf
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3 days surf
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1 menstrual cycle awareness sessions
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(if wanted then it is also possible to do 2 days surf & 2 women's workshops )
SPECIFICAlly for the Womens Wisdom & Yoga
-
1 menstrual cycle awareness sessions
-
1 women's health food workshop
-
women's mindfulness
-
1 massage treatment
NOT includeD
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flights
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airport transfer
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travel insurance
Extras
Massage treatments (1 hour 45€ / 1.5 hour 60€)
Private mindfulness session (45€ per session)
Example day women's retreat
7.30 wake up to the sound of nature
8.00 Morning Yoga Class
10.00 Yummy Breakfast
11.30 Menstrual cycle awareness or Herbal medicine workshop
14.00 lunch
15.00-18.00 free time to chill by the swimming pool, go to the beach or just relax.
18.00 restorative yoga class
19.30 delicious dinner
20.30 Mindfulness meditation
WHEN & WHERE
4-10 September 2021 at the costa vicentina retreat house on the south west coast of Portugal.
Your hosts

Maria do Carmo Gallet
Menstrual cycle host
Maria is a menstrual cycle & fertility awareness facilitator and a doula. Her journey towards knowing her own body has led her to the path of women’s empowerment and she loves working intensively with women, and their cycles of life. Maria has inspired many women (and their partners!) to choose for healthy and body friendly options for menstrual management, natural birth control and fertility management. As a doula, she has successfully guided women and their partners on the most intimate journey of pregnancy & birth and is praised for her intuition and ability to know exactly what new mothers need.

Medical herbalist
Poppy holds a first-class Bachelor of Science (BSc) in Herbal Medicine from Middlesex
University , and is a member of the College of Practitioners of Phytotherapy (MCPP). She’s been practising as a medical herbalist for three years. Through completing her BSc, Poppy learned how to integrate conventional knowledge of anatomy, physiology, pharmacolo-gy and pathology with holistic medicine theory and practice. As a traditional medical herbalist, she specialises in treating long-standing (chronic) conditions in almost all body systems, and employs nutritional and psychosocial healing approaches as well as herbal medicines in her practice.

Mindfulness meditation
& assisting
Elisabeth (Liz) is a certified mindfulness teacher since 2012. She is currently following an advanced teacher training program with See True Mindfulness Institute in the Netherland. Under the name Dyota (.com) she hosts the 8 week MBSR training, workshops and other mindfulness activities in Portugal. She has been hosting mindfulness workshops for Yogaion since 2013. Besides being passionate about sharing mindfulness, she enjoys practicing yoga, surf and meditation and living a basic lifestyle in nature with her partner, 3 year old daughter and dog.

Yoga, organiser & facilitator
Shaini is a highly qualified Yoga teacher. She is forever a student following many classes & workshops with renowned Yoga teachers around the world. Her teaching is based on creating strength, flexibility & spaciousness within the body & soul through proper alignment, verbal and precise hands-on adjustments and bringing awareness into the practice. She creates a warm, safe & loving space, but also likes to work with playfulness.
Currently, she gives weekly yoga classes and with a lot of love organises Yogaion Retreats.