Why Co-Hosts Make Retreats Better

[00:00:00]  Dan Berger: Welcome to the Assemble podcast. I’m Don Berger, founder of Assemble Hospitality Group. We build purpose design spaces for small team offsites and retreats because the biggest things happen in the smallest rooms. This show is about retreats in all forms, corporate lifestyle, wellness, and even family reunions, and the culture shifts that happen when people step away from the everyday.

[00:00:24] You’ll hear lessons from operators, facilitators, and leaders who know how to design experiences that move the needle. My goal give you the playbook for building clarity, trust, and belonging on your team or in your community.

[00:00:40] Welcome to the pod April, Aleena and Christina, it’s great to have you, and it’s the first time I have multiple guests, so we are gonna try to do this in an orderly fashion. Before we get started, I wanna quickly read the bio and then you can say whatever you wanna say in terms of good to be here or similar.

[00:00:59] Christina Jenkins, April Millar and Aleena Hill are the founders of Wise Woman World, a heart-centered collective devoted to embodiment, transformation, and living in sacred rhythm with the earth and the body. Blending astrology, energy work, nervous system healing, and intuitive guidance. They support women in reconnecting with their inner wisdom.

[00:01:18] And life timing. Working through a model of shared power rather than hierarchy. The retreats create grounded, soulful spaces where women come home to themselves and rise together.

[00:01:29] Christina Jenkins: It’s suddenly be here. Dan.

[00:01:31]  Dan Berger: Thank you Christine. Oh yeah, I forgot you gotta say that. Thank you so much for being here.

[00:01:35] Christine. I wanna start with you, since you’re sort of the leader of this collective, if I may, I just read a bunch of stuff. Can you translate that to English for us?

[00:01:44] Christina Jenkins: I would love to. So we are. Women that care about humanity and we work with women. And the retreat model is one of the ways that we do this in the most profound way.

[00:01:57] So women, just a small number. There’s three facilitators, a chef and 11 women. So the ratios are very, very good for the participants, and it is an absolute container, a cocoon of transformation, a place of safety where people really come home. To themselves.

[00:02:17]  Dan Berger: So April, Christina just mentioned that you work with women who care about humanity.

[00:02:22] How do you find that? Like how do, what does that even mean? How do you know somebody’s connected to humanity before you accept them to the retreat?

[00:02:30] April Millar: Well, to be honest, women are mothers. They’re nurturers. We, in fact, it’s called the Wise Woman Revival. And so we are at this place. Typically, we attract women who have spent their lives.

[00:02:44] Overgiving over serving, literally giving all of their life force energy to their children, to their family, to their community, to their religion, to the whatever it is. And they’re coming back to this place of space of like, I’m depleted. I don’t even know who I am. Where do I wanna be? Like, what do I like?

[00:02:59] And so this is this innate connection to that spark that is still inside them, that they know they need to flourish. Because if they can. Ignite themselves. It really does honor all of, and saves all of humanity. So,

[00:03:18]  Dan Berger: so it sounds like, if I may, that what you’re saying is that women, given that they are different than men, they have a time of, essentially a time of nurturing, a time of focusing on themselves and they have a different need to come back into the world once they figure out that part.

[00:03:38] Is that fair to say?

[00:03:39] April Millar: Yeah. I mean, have you heard of the. The maiden mother and crone?

[00:03:44]  Dan Berger: No, tell me more.

[00:03:45] April Millar: Oh, you haven’t. It’s the triple goddess and it’s kind of the archetypal evolution of the woman. And so we have the maiden who is there to connect relationally with men and create a opportunity for, I guess, the maiden hood.

[00:04:03] And then we become mothers, and then in that motherhood we extend ourselves into rearing and raising children in the next generation. And then we move into crone, which is the wise woman. That is that time of life where it is. It’s the wisdom. It’s gleaning and taking everything that life has given us and we cultivate it into the medicine woman, the wise woman, the woman who comes and has, it’s the grandmother Willow, right?

[00:04:29] Like it is that energy of Ask Nana, ask Grandma, like she knows. Mama knows. So

[00:04:37]  Dan Berger: it reminds me of. Research done out of the University of Arizona by Professor Kenrick and colleagues, where they actually remodeled the Maslow hierarchy of needs. And instead of putting self-actualization at the top, they put parenting at the top because at the end of the day, that’s what we’re here to do.

[00:04:52] So self-actualization is. Two rungs below the top. So working from the top, it’s parenting mate, retention, mate acquisition, self-actualization, belonging, and then food, water, shelter. So fascinating. Aleena, I wanna ask you the question of feminine energy. It sounds like you, you honor feminine energy and you acknowledge the difference between masculine and feminine energy.

[00:05:16] Where does masculine energy come into your work?

[00:05:19] Aleena Hill: So. I think it’s fair to say that women experience masculine energy in. Their lives typically. And what I mean by that is we are on a 24 hour clock. That’s masculine energy. It’s constant output of energy. That’s masculine energy, right? Women typically, feminine energy is more of a cyclical.

[00:05:42] Sometimes we’re really productive and sometimes we’re really, our energy is just really low, right? So. It’s the holding of that in a space of understanding that it is our job as a human being. It’s my job as a human being in a female form to balance my masculine and feminine energy. So my world is asking for me to show up in a masculine way, in my masculine energy with output in the way that the world needs me to do it, for me to function in the world.

[00:06:13] And we’re offering at this retreat. Much more of a feminine energy experience. Come and be who you are and you don’t need to worry about food. You don’t need to worry about feeding anybody. You get to come and experience your energy in a container that is really just meaningful to you and you are taken care of because this is sometimes the first time.

[00:06:36] We have one participant that is coming to our next retreat that has never left her family. She has teenagers. She has never left her kids, so she is in constant nurturing. She’s in constant go. She’s in constant, you know, carpool, everything. And so this will be her first time coming and feeling her own energy and who she is and being taken care of in a really meaningful way.

[00:06:59] And that just to me, that changes things for her. That changes the trajectory. Of who she knows she is and how she contributes to herself, her family, and her community.

[00:07:12]  Dan Berger: I can only imagine how scary that might be after 18 years of really devoting yourself to just kind of facing this new chapter. Christina, I want you to walk me through a little bit what Aleena just said.

[00:07:24] What’s the how you know, what happens in your retreats that you accomplish this goal?

[00:07:30] Christina Jenkins: So one of the things that I love so much about our retreats is it is so personal. So through the lens of astrology and some other modalities, we really can get honed in on this person. And even if we’ve never met them.

[00:07:48] How do they want to receive what feels nurturing to them? And then we provide, the activities are pretty set, but we can modify and mold them depending on the needs of the group. And then when a woman comes in, she receives an entire book about who she is. And what this means is when you have vocabulary that describes things that you’ve never really been able to put a beat on, but you know it’s there, it really makes it real.

[00:08:18] So then you can sit with that throughout the retreat, so that personalization through the lens of astrology and then the movement, the somatic. The community of women coming together. So you’ve got that mirror effect, which is generally one of the things that I think is the most impactful in any retreat of any type, is you’re sitting with people who are mirroring things back to you.

[00:08:42] And so we also offer this safe container to look at the beautiful and the things that we feel less confident about, the things that we might even consider. Proudly what’s in ourselves, and it’s all within, again, the safety of the feminine container and being held and nurtured and loved with nothing to do because you’re completely taken care of in this safe space.

[00:09:07]  Dan Berger: You know, April, I’ve heard the term that a retreat is two retreats, a retreat for the people who are participating in a retreat for the people organizing. Walk me through what you all three go through. How involved are you in the retreat and when you come out of it, what do you feel?

[00:09:23] April Millar: Ooh, that’s such a good question.

[00:09:25] Especially for our particular retreat, because there are three of us, we have three teaching facilitators, and then obviously our chef that also nurtures in the food. But the participation or the preparation for the retreat is actually massive within the three of us. We do. Christina mentioned the workbook, the book that they receive each participant.

[00:09:50] We only take 11 people per retreat because they are getting a completely personalized book about themselves, that it’s full of reports on their midlife experience. On the connection and the things that we see as astrologers and on ways that can explain some of the big, huge transformational aspects of their life that they experienced.

[00:10:16] So they get to be witnessed by us. They get to feel like they’re not going crazy, that it made sense. They get to glean the wisdom, and they get to move on and create healing from it. And so we as facilitators are actually in their charts. We’re in their energy. We’re writing reports. This is an over 50 page booklet of them, each person, and so we spend the months leading up to the retreat, totally immersed in them.

[00:10:46] And so when we come, there is already this bond. The people that come are feeling so much love because we have so much love for them. We have seen them, we have seen the depths that they have been to and we can witness and honor them there. And then it really is this, I was a birth doula for 10 years and so I, I witnessed women giving birth and it actually feels like that same transformational energy that you are bonded for life.

[00:11:14] The women that I attended, their births of their children, it’s the same type of energy at this retreat. We get to really see their rawness and have so much compassion for them that they get to extend compassion to themselves and we’re bonded for life.

[00:11:29]  Dan Berger: You know, my wife and I had a lot of struggles in having a baby.

[00:11:33] My wife did 12 IVF treatments and we now have a daughter as a result of that, you know, that miracle. And we then use the surrogate because my wife has been, just been through it so much, and that’s been a part that I think’s been missing for her is kind of that experience. And I heard the quote, the mantra that says.

[00:11:52] My body is made to give birth and my baby knows how to be born. So that just came to my mind as you spoke. Aleena, I wanna talk a little bit about the brass tax of your retreats. How much should they cost first, and then we’ll move into the marketing of them, you know, what can somebody expect to pay?

[00:12:10] Aleena Hill: Okay.

[00:12:11] So just on the basic level, it’s 3,333 that we charge, and that’s typically Of course, of course. Thank you. So we love that. And that covers you, your food. It covers five days of complete being taken care of. It covers that book, which is about 20. What did we decide it takes? Each of us, I think 16 hours per person.

[00:12:41] So you times that by three. So we have so much time put into these really specific things. We do ceremonies, we do cacao ceremonies, we do sound baths, we do meditations. We have just a lot of expertise that we revolve around. So personally to these individuals. So depending on our location, sometimes we’ll have private room access that obviously that would cost more.

[00:13:09] But the brass tacks really is that we believe so deeply in transformation and we honor transformation and it is so important to each of us. It is, like you said in our bio. That archy, that remembrance that we are all on the, an even playing field. And just because your threshold is different than my threshold or your life experience is different than my life experience, doesn’t mean you deserve just this honoring and of who you are as a human and that your experie is valid.

[00:13:41] And so with that, we and that ethos of, of transformation. We give our heart and souls to this, and we feel like 3,333 is a deal.

[00:13:53]  Dan Berger: Christina, I wanna go back to you and talk about astrology. Tell me about the role astrology plays in your retreats. I think when we met, you tried to read my feet and I was very much against that because I have the world’s ugliest feet.

[00:14:07] But tell me about the role of astrology and why that’s so important in your work. First of all, why did you try to read my feet? Let’s start there.

[00:14:15] Christina Jenkins: Well, let’s, I, I’d like to go back and remind us that we read your astrology first.

[00:14:20]  Dan Berger: Uh, fair.

[00:14:21] Christina Jenkins: We read your astrology first. And I do also do the Toe Reading Academy, which is another place where I have some energy and some teaching expertise in reading toes.

[00:14:34] Almost like you would iridology or other somatic type reading modalities and. Our retreat is based on the lens of astrology, so if you ever wanna talk toes, we can definitely do that. But right now we’re gonna talk astrology, and that is because we have this gift of being able to see the stars at the moment you were born and what’s happened through that river of energy after the moment that you were born, and how that’s impacting things within your chart.

[00:15:09] Well. My philosophy is that it is not determinant, meaning I see this, so this is going to happen, but we can say, this energy was present. How did that show up for you? Here’s some ways that could have shown up for you, and I’d love to share an example. Actually the woman who had been the most times around the sun, she was in her seventies when she came to the retreat, and one of the things that we do that April had mentioned was called the midlife transits.

[00:15:38] Everybody who’s lucky enough to live to their midlife, meaning late thirties and beyond, gets to experience some of the dialogue that happens between what’s happening in the sky. And your birth chart, it’s oftentimes called the midlife crisis. We call it the midlife rebirth because it really is an opportunity to rebirth yourself.

[00:15:59] And this woman who was in her seventies, I had some insecurity. I thought, what can I offer her? She is decades passed this point in her life, and I just wondered if this, this part of the retreat even had relevance to her. And she was sitting on the ground. We often sit in circle and she looked up as we said this and she said, this changes everything.

[00:16:24] Because we were able to, through the astrology, give vocabulary and context to her experience. She was in that moment actually able to reframe the times that she thought she was crazy. The times that she thought that she had ruined things with her family or just derailed things in her life, she was able to put context and reframe that.

[00:16:48] So we saw that in this woman who is well past that. So imagine how impactful it is. And we’ve heard really dozens of testimonials for if you’re in it. Or you’re just past it. That context can change the trajectory of where you’re going. So it that’s why I love astrology.

[00:17:12]  Dan Berger: A quick pause to thank our sponsor, facilitator directory.com.

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[00:17:33] April, let’s talk marketing. Tell me a little more about how you market this retreat, and don’t tell me that every the right people come to it because you know they’re, they’re at their life moment or whatever. Tell me how you market this, because this podcast is for retreat organizers, so it sounds like you really have your audience honed in and you have your story dialed in.

[00:17:55] How do you find people to attend your retreats?

[00:17:58] April Millar: You know what? That is a really good question. And we’ve talked about like the older women, and we do attract older women, but we have people that have come from 29 to about 75. And because when you’re in it, you’re in it. And so it doesn’t necessarily mean that you can only come if you’ve been through your midlife or you’re in it because we also, it’s a wonderful way to prepare yourself as well.

[00:18:21] So as far as marketing goes. That is actually one of our weak parts because we are so in it that we are not really sure how to explain it.

[00:18:31]  Dan Berger: It’s for many,

[00:18:32] April Millar: okay. We have comrades in that, but we do a lot of word of mouth and we have had, as far as testimonials go as far as women who have have participated in the retreat.

[00:18:46] We have like, I would say a hundred percent transformation rate. And as far as people reflecting back to them, their life shifted after the retreat. And so

[00:18:56]  Dan Berger: do they attend more than once?

[00:18:58] April Millar: Yes. Actually we’ve had probably 15% now that we, that we’re on our ninth retreat of this same format. And so we’ve probably have 15 to 20% that have repeated and we have over 50 women that have come.

[00:19:13] So it’s a beautiful experience and kind of one that is almost like. What’s the secret bar that you like? You, you have to speak easy almost. It’s like you almost have to know someone who knows how to get in to understand how cool it is, and so that’s why we do our best with social media. We do our best with explaining to people, but for the most part, it’s like getting somebody and hearing their experience and how it’s changed them.

[00:19:41] Maybe we need to start a podcast to just start interviewing all the, all the women, because honestly it’s been tricky to convey to the, the masses what this retreat is, how it can help and what it does for you.

[00:19:54]  Dan Berger: Thank you for sharing and it is something that a lot of retreat organizers struggle with. I wanna touch on Aleena, the post retreat community, but before I go there, I just wanna talk about the fact that you have co-hosts for the retreat and now, right there is a multiplier.

[00:20:08] So I would imagine that other retreat organizers can collaborate in order to double their network and get more people. Aleena, I wanna talk with you about the roles, obviously, given that they’re co-hosts. Talk to me about that. But first, talk to you about the community and what happens after the retreat.

[00:20:26] Are they all hanging out? Are they talking on WhatsApp? Are they still friends to this day? What happens after the retreat? And then tell us more about the roles of each organizer.

[00:20:35] Aleena Hill: Yes, yes. We have several that have really become best friends. I mean, there’s some that we probably don’t know, but for example, there are three women that came to the last retreat that meet together every week.

[00:20:49] We are in personal contact with almost every, actually, every single one. ’cause it’s hard as a facil, we are doing our own transformation with these ladies and we don’t. We’re not standing up there being like we know everything. We’re in it with them. And so they’re like, April said, there’s this huge bond.

[00:21:06] So the community is really tight, really strong, and we actually have created a community within our business that once a month we meet together and it’s called Moon Wisdom Circle. And we do connections. We do our work with the moon workbooks, we work with the rhythms of nature. We work with our own rhythms.

[00:21:27] We hear each other, we support each other. Just kind of creating this space where when you’ve gone through something together, it’s so nice to know that you can be a hundred percent yourself in these circles. And so, yeah, so we have, we continue that transformation month to month with our community that women can join.

[00:21:46]  Dan Berger: Christina, tell me about the roles each person plays and how each of you shows up differently. You’re obviously the, the master astrologer. What do April and Aleena do?

[00:21:55] Christina Jenkins: Talking about the team is one of my favorite things. When this retreat kind of downloaded in. I knew I did not want to do it by myself.

[00:22:06] Aleena Hill: Mm.

[00:22:08] Christina Jenkins: So I came back and I said to April, ’cause at the time we were bus, April and I were already business partners. And I said, basically I have this idea, I want you to do this with me, but I’m doing it anyway. And. And I have these team members that are coming in. So in the original retreat, I gathered just a group of my inspired really cool friends, and it was an experience that was very transformative and a little less cohesive.

[00:22:37] It doesn’t mean it was less transformative, it just means there were different facilitators that didn’t. Necessarily spend time together outside of the retreat. We came together as a team for the retreat. Then we all came together as, as this cohesive team and as the facilitators for this retreat. And that really changed everything because now it’s all together.

[00:23:00] We are all a hundred percent, not just on the same page, but on the same. Pathway on this page. So I am an astrologer. April is also an astrologer, and Aleena is in her own right, getting pretty darn good at astrology and really specializes in the somatics. And so we come together in these roles. All of us hold space, all of us have our separate things that we manage and facilitate and teach and sit, and we each have.

[00:23:31] In our own personalities. It’s kind of fun to see which one of the participants is reaching out to the different people, because even though they might have come in as one of my besties, and then they meet April and Aleena, and now they’re texting them more than they’re texting me not for anything other than there’s a resonance or this is the right person for me at this time.

[00:23:51] So it really opens up the entire experience to everyone, and honestly, as a retreat facilitator, not having a team. Is never something that I want to do. I am always interested in the team because it’s an up level for every single person.

[00:24:06]  Dan Berger: Yeah. I’m reminded, when I did the Hoffman process, there were five facilitators and each participant was assigned to one of the facilitators so they can do one-on-one work.

[00:24:15] Unfortunately, I found that. It wasn’t my choice, which I think made it a little more difficult because sometimes you don’t connect with the right person. So giving people the choice and seeing what happens naturally is a great idea. April, I wanna talk about co-hosts. For folks listening, obviously retreat organizers or those who want to enter the field, what would you suggest are the top three things they should look for in a co-host?

[00:24:38] April Millar: Ooh, honestly. If you can get their astrology, actually it would be really helpful to, I’m not even joking.

[00:24:46]  Dan Berger: You would be great. The Kool-Aid. Okay. I love it.

[00:24:49] April Millar: Just come to me and I’ll tell you if you’re gonna be compatible or not. Just kidding. But for real, I think it’s finding somebody who has the same vision as you so you can be on, on the same trajectory, but you also compliment each other’s strengths and weaknesses.

[00:25:05] So like Christina’s an incredible networker. She’s so good at making connections. And then I’m not great at making the initial connection, but once we’re connected, I’m great at maintaining relationship. And then Aleena, she’s so good at the enthusiasm and cheerleading. Like if you have news that you wanna share with someone, you go to Aleena because she’s gonna give you exactly the, the response that you have, and you’re gonna feel so loved and so inspired and motivated.

[00:25:31] So it’s just like we each have kind of the ability to kind of step into different role in a different strength. So if you have the same strength as someone, that’s great, but also I would look for somebody who perhaps does something a little better that you aren’t as good at. So,

[00:25:50]  Dan Berger: so if I can summarize what I heard.

[00:25:52] I heard you say three things. I heard you say astrology. You gotta make sure there’s a fit and you don’t have to use astrology. You can use a personality assessment, but some sort of fit totally. The second thing is the same vision for what’s happening, and the third one is perhaps different roles in order to really level up and make one plus one equals three.

[00:26:08] Aleena, let’s go back to you real quick. And one of the things I read when I introduced the three of you was intuitive guidance and inner wisdom. Do you find that most people are intuitive? Do you find that you have to find, like do you get that out of them? And what does it mean the nervous system healing?

[00:26:25] Are these two things connected? Do you first have to do nervous system healing and then intuitive kind of exploration? Or walk us through what those two things mean.

[00:26:34] Aleena Hill: Okay. So to answer that question plainly, no. And yes, because the way we view transformation, and honestly, I believe all transformation comes from.

[00:26:48] Including your body and your mind’s experience, because sometimes we tell ourselves these stories, right? And then it creates feelings, and those feelings are felt in our body, and sometimes they can get stuck there. And then those thought loops just create and keep going and going. So. Just like maybe some negative thought loops, positive thought loops, it doesn’t matter.

[00:27:12] But the nervous system is responding to that feeling that is held in the body, right? So when you talk about intuition, when people mostly speak about intuition, they say, I felt that I knew that. I understood that I had that. So it’s usually this mind body connection experience. And so it’s just really cool that.

[00:27:36] Mainstream education has kind of started to realize that when you. Bridge the mind and the body so that they’re talking to each other and that those stories and those feelings are moved through the body. Then there’s create space in the body, in the energy field, in the nervous system specifically, and there’s a lot of research and science on this that now you’re able to hold and create a new neural pathway.

[00:28:01] So a lot of what we teach at our retreats is. Accessing your intuition through your nervous, the safety of your nervous system. But that has to happen when you connect your mind to your body. And I know that probably is a lot to digest, but it really is. To learn something and to understand it and get it, you have to move it through your body.

[00:28:24] So that’s why we connect Somatic movement and specifically with everything that we teach, because it is our responsibility to make sure you get it on every level. We don’t want you going home and being like, oh, I have a Scorpio Moon. But what does that mean? What does that even mean? Like no one cares that you have a Scorpio moon, but that means that in my body, I feel truth deeply and my relationships, it’s so important that I trust you and I trust myself, and I’ve created this life and these stories.

[00:28:56] And these neural pathways that have told me not to trust myself, but I just went to this retreat and they told me who I always knew I was. And now I feel it in my body, and now I can move forward in the trust that I know who I am because I now have a neural pathway that’s connected from my mind to my body, from my body, to my mind, to my experience.

[00:29:18]  Dan Berger: You know, that’s the reason why we call the gut the second brain, right? I mean, it’s got more nerves outside of our brain. And one of the things I’ve heard, I’ve been suggested to speak of is to say, instead of I’m feeling to say my intuition is telling me, or my gut is telling me, because then you’re talking about a different part of, of the body that people really understand.

[00:29:39] Christina, I wanna wrap up. With you and I wanna talk about advice for burgeoning retreat organizers. Nine retreat under your belt is no joke. If somebody wants to start a retreat, what do you tell ’em to do besides get a cohost, which you suggested earlier,

[00:29:54] Christina Jenkins: know the purpose of the retreat. What are you doing?

[00:29:57] And then everything gets to focus in on that. All activities, all integration, everything is focused on that one purpose. I think location is vital. I think having a good location is really important that supports the purpose. So it’s all these things going to the purpose, the activity, and if you plan the activities in advance, then you know what kind of a space you need to have.

[00:30:24] So for example, we’re having one of our retreats over at Assembled Boise, the place that is yours. We know that that supports our purpose within that, and then believe in it. If you’ve got a retreat you wanna go to and you can’t find it. You create it.

[00:30:42]  Dan Berger: Hmm.

[00:30:42] Christina Jenkins: Because believing deeply in what that retreat has to offer people makes it such an easy invitation.

[00:30:49]  Dan Berger: Hmm. Thank you for sharing that. Well, ladies, this has been an awesome conversation. I want to thank you for joining me. And if people wanna learn more about what you do, where can they go?

[00:31:00] Christina Jenkins: thewisewomanworld.com.

[00:31:02]  Dan Berger: Excellent. Excellent. Well, again, thanks very much and I appreciate your time.

[00:31:07] Christina Jenkins: Thank you, Don.