The Healing While Black Retreat 2026
JUNE 20 - june 27, 2026 - NOSARA, COSTA RICA
PRIORITY REGISTRATION is open!
Our Stories. Our Rhythms. Our Flow.
RHYTHM & FLOW:
The Healing Power of Story, Sound, & Movement
Dr. Shelly Harrell
Meditation & Journaling
Featuring Leslie Salmon Jones & Jeff Jones (Afro Flow Yoga)
Healing Movement, Embodied Storytelling, & Live Music
A spa vacation is for pampering.
A retreat is for healing.
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If you need to get away, to exhale, to rest and reset, to restore and renew, to feel some deep soulful joy, to connect with others, and to reconnect with your whole interconnected self--
Mind-Body-Heart-Soul-Culture-Community-Nature-Spirit...
THIS RETREAT IS FOR YOU.
Nestled in the lush green of Costa Rica and steps from the ocean, our "Healing While Black" retreat holds you in a safe space of care-in-community, is infused with culture, and tends to the healing needs of Black people.
We will offer you some peaceful respite from the daily grind with opportunities for healing-in-community, as well as relational and personal healing time through a variety of experiences rooted in the cultural wisdom expressions of our people throughout the African diaspora.
​​​​​Take refuge with us at Blue Spirit Costa Rica
A beautiful property in lush jungle surroundings just steps from the ocean.​​​
This is the breathtaking Sky-Mind Hall where several of our community activities will be held!
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Check out the Preliminary Program Schedule and Retreat Activities
WE NEED THIS NOW.
​​In this historical moment that we are moving through, we need healing spaces for connection and care, culture and celebration, deep contemplation, enhanced consciousness, and for rooting, grounding, and centering in. As we witness and experience dehumanization, divisiveness and polarization, attempts at erasure and invisibility that target Black people and Black History, as well as ongoing racial stress and trauma-- there can be disruption of our rhythms and interruption of our flow.
We invite you to this retreat to reconnect to your peace, your power, your joy, your rhythm, and your flow.
We invite you to this retreat to immerse in the healing power of our voices, our music, our movement, our wisdom, and our diverse cultural expressions.
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We invite you to this retreat as a space of affirmation where your whole Black self, with all of its intersectionalities, is welcomed-- where our intention is to cultivate the experience of community where you feel "felt", seen, heard, and known.
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​We invite you to this retreat for experiences of rest, reflection, revelation, release, regeneration, and renewal as we connect, listen, write, meditate, move, and flow during a special week together. ​​​​​
Heal With Us.
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STORY.
JOIN US for healing through the reclamation of personal and collective stories, including those that are unremembered, untold, unfinished, undiscovered, as well as those stories yet to be born. We open space to witness and affirm the truth of our own testimony, and that of others. Together, we will co-create new healing stories that we can bring back home as sources of inner peace, strength, and joy.​
SOUND.
JOIN US for healing through the many ways that we create, express, and experience sound. The beautiful gift of music, soundwave frequencies, the sounds of nature, our unique individual voices, and harmony of our collective voices are all pathways to healing.
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MOVEMENT.
JOIN US for healing not only through movement of our bodies, but also through enhancing our awareness of what is moving within and around us. The retreat offers opportunities to tune in more closely to the movements and flow of what we sense, see, feel, and experience in ourselves, in our surroundings, and in our lives. How are you moving in the world? Who/what are you moving with? What energies, feelings, thoughts are moving within you and through you?
Interested? SIGN-UP FOR UPDATES
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A Special Message from Dr. Shelly
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​Our Voices. Our Stories. Our Testimony.
Our stories live within and between us.
They live in our bodies, minds, hearts, and souls.
They live in the lessons we have learned and experiences we have lived.
They live in what we move through and what moves through us.
They live in our music, our rhythms, our flow.
They live in the still and quiet places.
They live in our cultural-ancestral memory.
They live in our triumphs and our tears, our strengths and our suffering, our joys and our jolts, our rebirths and our reckonings.
They live in the powerful interconnections that link us with each other, nature, and Spirit.
They live in our Blackness.
Silenced, suppressed, and stolen stories can harm and prevent us from living fully in our deepest purpose, highest callings, and greatest life. Our HWB retreat provides a space to reclaim, re-create, and co-create healing and empowering stories that emerge from the synergy of our personal, inner journeys and our time with each other in community. ​​​
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There is healing magic in what happens when we come together in connection and care.
Let's tell stories, create stories, and heal... together.
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With Love,
Dr. Shelly
REGISTRATION INFORMATION
Accommodations
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Blue Spirit Costa Rica is a world-renowned retreat center that offers a wide range of outstanding wellness programs and services... READ MORE
An Intentional Black Space
The "Healing While Black" retreat is intentionally designed to provide a gender-inclusive space of healing and wellness for Black people of the African diaspora... READ MORE
Pricing
Retreat pricing includes TWO COMPONENTS:
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(1) HWB Retreat Program Fee. The fee includes all healing offerings and teachings from our incredible team of Teacher-Healers, as well as all on-site HWB events and activities throughout the retreat. The Program Fee ranges from $1300-$1800 with Early Bird, HWB Alumni, Pay-in-Full, and Special discounts available.
(2) Accommodations & Meals at Blue Spirit for 7 days and nights. This includes your single or double-occupancy room and 3 meals a day (gourmet vegetarian with fish a couple of times). Blue Spirit accommodations range from $1,335 to $2,850 for the week, depending on the room category.
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COMMUNITY
We are each other’s medicine. We do not heal in isolation but in relationship and in community. Our retreat will provide opportunities to ground in the truth of Ubuntu... READ MORE
MOVEMENT & YOGA
There are powerful healing resources in our bodies, our movements, and our rhythms. Embodied practices are critical for our health and well-being, as is turning in to what is moving within and between us .. READ MORE
CULTURE
Culture heals. We are intentional in offering a retreat experience where our African roots and our Blackness are centered, affirmed, and celebrated... READ MORE
MEDITATION
Meditation and mindfulness are critical wellness tools so that we don't get lost from ourselves, from each other, from truth. Meditation provides that sacred pause and invites us to be fully present... READ MORE
MUSIC & SOUND
For us, music, sound, voice, and healing are inseparable. They are cultural and ancestral. Sound carries energy. Music connects us powerfully across time and space. Music can energize our spirit and soothe our souls...READ MORE
NUTRITION
Honoring the sacredness of our body means consciousness of what we consume. What we put into our bodies impacts our mental, emotional, and physical functioning... READ MORE
