HELD is for the woman
who's finally ready to put the weight down.
A private 4-day ancestral healing retreat in Lisbon for high-achieving Black women in burnout or a major life transition.
You've been holding everything together.
You know what exhaustion actually feels like. You’re the kind of tired that a vacation won’t fix.
You’re sick and tired of playing a role and pretending that everything is ok. Maybe you’ve been performing for so long that you've stopped recognizing what you actually think, what you actually want, and what your body is actually trying to tell you.
You're the one people call. The one who handles it and all figures it out.
You do it because you’re good at it and because you can.
But, somewhere between building a career, carrying the family, and doing everything right, you stopped being able to hear yourself.
You’re probably in a transition right now. It doesn’t have to be dramatic, and it might be so quiet that you can’t pinpoint exactly what’s shifting.
But you just know that something is off.
Your body has been telling you in whatever language it has available: inflammation, exhaustion, or the low-level hum of symptoms that won’t go away, no matter how much ashwaganda you take. There’s no diagnosis, but your nervous system absolutely understands that something is different.
And underneath all of it, there's something you haven't said out loud yet, maybe because it feels ungrateful, maybe because you don't quite have words for it:
I have everything I need. And I feel so guilty saying this, but something is completely wrong.
I've heard that more times than I can count. Usually, from women who have the résumé, the salary, the family, the respect, and who are privately wondering if this is all there is.
If any of that landed, you're in the right place.
HELD:
A Private Ancestral Healing Retreat in Lisbon
A curated journey home to yourself.
HELD is a private 4-day retreat in Lisbon for high-achieving Black women who've lost the thread of their inner signal. I teach you intuitive listening, how to hear and trust your body again, so you leave with clarity on what you actually want next, a nervous system that knows how to return to safety, and a skill you'll use for the rest of your life.
You don't have to make decisions or plan your days. You don’t have to manage a thing.
Your only job is to show up. I've got the rest.
How it works
Before you arrive
You fill out a detailed intake, so I understand where you are, not just logistically, but emotionally, energetically, ancestrally. I use that to begin designing your retreat before you ever land in Lisbon.
While you're here
Each day has a rhythm: morning space for rest and reflection, a late-morning check-in with me, and two curated healing sessions chosen specifically for you. The schedule is intentional but not packed. The unstructured time is part of the medicine.
When you leave
You leave with more than a retreat experience. You leave with intuitive listening as a learnable, repeatable skill, a way of reading your body and returning to safety that you can use for the rest of your life.
"The wheels fell off my bus completely. I came to HELD devastated, burnt out, and lost. Asha created a container where I could finally put down my armor. I left knowing exactly what I needed to do next, and more importantly, I felt worthy of choosing myself."
— Dee, Former Social Worker
"I've always felt like an imposter in white-led spiritual spaces. Being held by a Black woman who gets it, that changed everything. I didn't have to explain or translate. I could just be."
— Shanice, UKWhat's included
Private accommodations in Lisbon's historic Bairro Alto neighborhood
Prepared breakfast and lunch each full day
Daily late-morning check-in with Asha
6–8 curated healing sessions, chosen specifically for you
Breathwork, Reiki, massage, sound healing, intuitive tarot, astrology, ancestral healing practices, I select what's right for you
Spacious, unstructured time for rest, reflection, and integration
Nightly self-guided ritual or journaling practice
Optional access to community classes at Asha's Place during your stay
Investment: €2,555 Payment plans available. I take 8–10 women per year.
What the wellness world gets wrong about burnout
Most of what you've heard about burnout treats it like a scheduling problem. Get more sleep. Set better boundaries. Take a vacation.
You've probably tried some version of that. And you probably already know it doesn't reach the thing that's actually wrong.
Burnout isn't a productivity problem. It's a worthiness wound.
It's what happens when you've spent years, maybe decades, proving yourself. Earning your place. Carrying obligations that were handed to you before you were old enough to choose them. Performing strength for everyone around you, because that's what was required, and because you were good at it.
That's not a time management issue. That's something that lives in your body.
And it doesn't get fixed by a spa weekend or a new morning routine. It gets addressed when someone holds space for you to put down the armor and teaches you how to hear yourself again.
That's what HELD is.
Rest that feels genuinely good, not earned, not guilty. Just good.
Being fully seen without code-switching, explaining, or performing strength.
Most women tell me afterward that they didn't realize how much they'd been holding back until they finally had a space where no one else was in the room, where they didn't have to manage how they came across, where something could finally move because there was nowhere left to perform.
That's not a small thing, for women who have spent their entire lives being competent in rooms that required them to translate themselves, to shrink, to smile, to hold it together, being witnessed without consequence can feel almost unrecognizable.
It's one of the things I protect most carefully about the HELD container.
Reconnection to your ancestral wisdom as a living, accessible practice, not a concept.
The felt-body experience of I am not broken. Not just knowing it intellectually. Knowing it in your body.
Trust in your own intuition again, instead of outsourcing every decision to logic or other people's opinions.
The life you journaled about starting to feel actually possible.
What you leave with
HELD is for you if:
You've done everything right and still feel completely lost.
You're the responsible one, the person everyone leans on, and you genuinely don't know how to receive.
You're in a major transition: career, identity, grief, geography, relationship. Or you're between transitions, and you can't name what's wrong, you just know something has to change.
You're analytically wired and skeptical of "healing spaces," and you're also at the point where logic alone isn't getting you there.
You want a private, curated experience where you don't have to manage anything, explain your cultural context, or perform okayness for anyone.
You have some experience with inner work, therapy, coaching, journaling, and meditation, and you're ready to go deeper into your body.
HELD isn't for you if:
You're looking for someone to tell you exactly what to do with your life. HELD gives you the inner clarity to make your own decisions; it doesn't make them for you.
You're in an active mental health crisis and need immediate clinical support. This retreat is not a substitute for that, and I'll always say so directly.
You want a vacation with wellness sessions attached. HELD is structured, intentional work. The rest is built in, but the rest is also part of the work.
Not ready for HELD?
There's another way to be here.
STAY: A Gentle Solo Retreat in Lisbon
STAY is for women who need rest, quiet, and a beautiful place to land, with the option to add healing sessions as they feel right.
Private accommodations in Lisbon's Bairro Alto neighborhood, a private garden, optional access to community classes at Asha's Place, and a 10% discount on all à la carte sessions.
You move at your own pace. You choose what you add. You rest first.
€111/night · 3-night minimum
Frequently Asked Questions
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High-achieving Black women and women of the African diaspora, typically attorneys, professors, executives, nonprofit directors, and others in leadership and service roles, who are in burnout or a major life transition and are ready to stop over-functioning and come home to themselves. We’ve held women between the ages of 27 and 72. The work is about where you are, not how old you are.
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There's something specific that happens when a Black woman who's been holding everything together lands somewhere she doesn't have to explain herself, perform safety, or translate her experience just to be in the room.
Lisbon does something to your nervous system before the retreat even begins.
Safe enough to exhale. Portugal is the 7th safest country globally. Women walk alone at night without a second thought. The hypervigilance you carry at home, the kind you might not even notice anymore, starts to loosen the moment you arrive.
Familiar enough to belong. Lisbon has a deep, living African diaspora community, including Angolan, Cape Verdean, Brazilian, and more. You won't be the only one in the room. At Asha's Place, you're not even a guest. You're expected.
Far enough to disconnect. A different time zone creates real distance from your inbox, your obligations, and the version of yourself you perform for everyone else. A new environment makes new patterns possible. That's not incidental, it's structural.
Direct flights from NYC, London, DC, and Toronto. Visa-free for US and Canadian citizens. Close time zone to the UK.
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HELD is designed for women with beginner-to-intermediate experience with inner work. So you've done some version of therapy, coaching, journaling, or meditation, but you haven't gone deep into somatic or ancestral practices. You don't need a spiritual background. Curiosity and willingness are enough.
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I work with analytically-wired, skeptical women all the time. Some of my most powerful sessions have been with women who arrived convinced none of this would work. You don't need to believe in anything. You just need to stay open. The body tends to respond regardless.
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Portugal is the 7th safest country globally. I moved here at 40 with no roadmap, and I walk home alone after midnight without thinking twice. Lisbon is an ideal first solo travel destination, walkable, English-friendly, and genuinely welcoming.
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Yes. I'll always work with you to structure something that fits. That conversation happens on the discovery call.
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Deposits are non-refundable but can be transferred to new dates based on availability. Full details are in the booking agreement.
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Yes. Post-retreat integration coaching is available at €6,000 for six months. If you know from the start that you want the full container, retreat plus pre-retreat preparation plus six months of integration support, that's available as a bundled journey at €7,777. We can talk through which makes sense for where you are.
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STAY is open to all women. HELD is designed specifically for Black women and women of the African diaspora. The work is most effective when held in a cultural context, and that specificity is not incidental. It's part of the medicine.