A Sacred Invitation to Return to Yourself — Playa Viva, Mexico

Join us at Playa Viva, a regenerative eco-luxury sanctuary on Mexico’s Pacific coast, for a transformational retreat rooted in healing, embodiment, and sacred remembrance. This is a call to gently release the wounded feminine patterns we’ve been conditioned to carry—patterns that show up as over-striving, shame, silence, or disconnection from our bodies, our pleasure, or our truth. Held in a circle of wise women and nourished by nature, you’ll be guided through authentic shamanic rituals, somatic practices, nervous system restoration, and deep rest. Together, we reconnect with the Divine Mother, who lives in all things, and reclaim the freedom, joy, and wildness that is your birthright. Come home to your body. Come home to the Earth. Come home to yourself.

Awaken to the Rhythms of the Earth

This sacred journey invites you to awaken and deepen your connection to Self—while remembering your innate belonging to Pachamama, the Earth Mother who lives within you and all around you.

Each day begins in beauty. Wrapped in the comfort of your open-air casita, you’ll rise gently to the sounds of the ocean and birdsong, perhaps sipping a warm herbal tea or fresh juice before walking the tree-lined path to our ocean view sanctuary. There, we’ll gather for morning practices of shamanic ritual, yoga, and meditation—designed to ground your nervous system, open your heart, and restore your relationship with the sacred intelligence of nature.

Our days will unfold in a nourishing rhythm: farm-to-table gourmet meals, healing ceremonies, wisdom circles, community rituals, and generous space for rest and renewal. Stroll the beach, relax by the pool, or explore our on-site regenerative farm, where coconuts, mangos, tamarind, cactus, and cashews grow in abundance. Visit the sea turtle sanctuary and rediscover the wild intelligence of the living earth.

Evenings will be filled with ceremonial music and chanting, led by Maiima and Christine, and a cacao ceremony led by a local indigenous medicine woman, and opportunities for reverence practices of remembering your connection to self, spirit and community.

This retreat is a homecoming. A week curated for restoration and remembrance—offering the perfect balance of personal space, soulful connection, and sacred time.

Together, we will explore the science and art of co-regulation and divine feminine liberation. You’ll be held in loving community, supported in your becoming, and invited to reclaim your most wild, authentic expression.

To come home to yourself. And, to return to the arms of Pachamama.

At Playa Viva, nature is not just your backdrop—it is your guide, your medicine, and your sanctuary. Nestled along a mile of pristine, private beach and surrounded by lush palms, this regenerative eco-luxury retreat center invites you to return to what is most essential. Fall asleep to the lullaby of the Pacific Ocean, and wake to birdsong and warm ocean breezes dancing on your skin.

There are single, double and triple casitas available.

All rooms are spaciously equipped, have private bathrooms, and pillow top mattresses. 

Other things to expect

Farm-to-Table Dining

At Playa Viva, our commitment around food is to deliver a farm-to-table dining experience that ensures you are served fresh, healthy foods from our own farm and other local farmers. We take health very seriously, and that mindset starts with the health of the earth and continues to include all living systems that support food production, including the producer, you and your family. We are conscious that each guest comes to the table with their own perspective and thus accommodate many diets, including Vegan, Vegetarian, Pescatarian, low to no sugar, gluten free and other special dietary concerns.

At the conclusion of this retreat, you'll leave: 

• Feeling lighter, well rested, and restored.

• With a more embodied sense of confidence, and authentic freedom of expression.

• With rituals to cultivate a relationship with the spirits of nature

• Feeling grounded, and having somatic experiencing skills to habituate a regulated nervous system. 

• Knowing how to create an altar for the Pachamama. 

• Inspired to show up fully for yourself and the women in your life. 

• With new friends and a sisterhood for life!

Please book your flight to Ixtapa–Zihuatanejo International Airport (ZIH) to arrive no later than 2:00 p.m. on arrival day. Upon landing, you’ll be warmly greeted by our team and transported via a scenic 30–40 minute drive to Playa Viva, your oceanfront sanctuary nestled between jungle and sea.

On departure day, you will arrive at the airport by 11:00 a.m., so please plan your departing flight accordingly. International flights require a 2–3 hour check-in window, so we recommend booking flights that depart after 1:00 p.m. to allow for a smooth and stress-free transition.

To ensure your seamless arrival, please submit the following no later than January 15th:

• Your flight itinerary 
• A copy of your valid passport 
• A copy of your travel insurance card
• Your signed liability waiver

We’re here to support your journey every step of the way. If you have questions or need assistance booking travel, don’t hesitate to reach out.

Amy & Christine will be your guides for the week.

Rooted in shared values of healing, social justice, Indigenous wisdom, somatic practice, and the creative arts, they bring a rich tapestry of experience to this work. They met at a vocal healing retreat and felt an immediate resonance—both personally and professionally. Drawn together by a deep respect for each other’s path, they chose to collaborate, weaving their gifts to create spaces of transformation, remembrance, and embodied connection.

Amy Nicholson, MS, SEP, LPC, LMT (Maiima)

Licensed Somatic & Animistic Psychotherapist | Somatic Experiencing® Practitioner | Hampiq Ñusta Paqo in the Inkan Tradition | Educator | Recording Artist

Maiima is a healer, teacher, and recording artist walking the sacred path of the paqo in the Inkan tradition. Her journey began in 2004, when the apus—mountain spirit beings—began to speak to her through dreams and song. In 2011, she received her first initiation from her teacher, Túpaq Ttito Kuntur, and continues to walk the path of the Ñusta Paqo under his guidance as a Hampiq Ñusta Yachachiq Paqo.

Together, Amy and Túpaq are co-founders of AYNI MUNAY AYLLU, a learning community devoted to the restoration of Andean Indigenous wisdom. Through AYNI MUNAY AYLLU, they offer donation-based classes in Andean cosmology and energy medicine, making these sacred teachings accessible to all.

With over two decades of experience in somatic, shamanic, and energetic healing, Maiima integrates Andean energy medicine, Somatic Experiencing®, and transpersonal psychotherapy to support nervous system regulation, trauma resolution, and soul embodiment. She specializes in complex and developmental trauma, PTSD, C-PTSD, anxiety, attachment wounds, and altered states of consciousness.

Amy is also the founder of a groundbreaking program in Ketamine-Assisted Psychotherapy (KAP)—a transformative approach that bridges neuroscience, somatics, and sacred ritual. Her KAP model is rooted in nervous system regulation and depth-oriented healing, offering clients a safe and integrative path to awakening and repair.

She holds a master’s degree in counseling and is a licensed psychotherapist, Somatic Experiencing® Practitioner (SEP), and licensed massage therapist (LMT). From 2005 to 2020, she served as Program Director and full-time faculty of the Therapeutic Massage Program at Madison College, where she helped establish one of the most respected programs in the region. She also developed and taught a cross-cultural study abroad course on traditional healing for the School for International Training.

Her music is a natural extension of her spiritual practice—songs received in ceremony, pilgrimage, and deep listening. Rooted in prayer and remembrance, her voice carries frequencies of healing and ancestral connection.

Today, she offers one-on-one healing sessions, KAP intensives, retreats, apprenticeship programs, group offerings, ceremonial music, and pilgrimages to Peru. Her work invites others to reconnect with the sacred, awaken the wisdom within, and walk in right relationship with the seen and unseen worlds.'

Christine Selda, Ph.D.

Founder & Visionary Shamanic Yoga Institute | Medicine Teacher | Yoga Teacher Trainer
Expressive Arts Therapist | Registered Clinical Counsellor | E-RYT Gold

My yoga is one of shamanic roots from the songs and bones of the earth, the mountains and the medicine peoples. I have had the great honour of answering my vocational calling to teach yoga since 1998 and studying with many of the masters of yoga as we know them today: B.K.S. Iyengar, Pattabhi Jois, Sivananda, Geeta Iyengar, Dr. Karandikar, Swami Durgananda. As I journeyed deeper in the study of yoga, I have come to disentangle myself from all of these lineages. I am grateful for the experiences and teachings received and I am very consciously stepping away from old structures and pedagogies that possess within them patriarchy and violence against women, children, and boys. For my yoga to be in alignment with who I am and what I stand for, my positionality is post-lineage; by standing apart and groundless, with no lineage to lean on, I lean into my own work and hold steady here.

In the river of yoga, the openness of being guides my teaching. My classes are crafted to attend to the layers of the self, from the superficial to the deep, through the practices of singing, devotional contemplation, meditation, the studying of scriptures, embodied prayer and breath. To embrace the full range of human potential and the ultimate freedom beyond duality and suffering, the play between the masculine and feminine as consciousness and light permeates my classes. My teacher is Shakti in her multiplicity of forms; always bringing me back to nature HerSelf.

I have been a voice for social justice since I was a teenager, and my work has always been about Stopping the Violence inside and out. I resonate deeply with an aspect of my career with the Howe Sound Women’s Centre Society, where I am the clinical supervisor for the children and youth PEACE counsellors. PEACE stands for Prevention, Education, Advocacy, Counselling and Empowerment in Stopping the Violence Work. I teach in Arts, Health and Society from primary schools to universities. I hold a Ph.D. in philosophy in which my dissertation was titled: The Women, The Artist, and the Yogini: An Arts-Based Phenomenological Study on Yoga and Expressive Arts with special attention to their political implications. My study revealed much of the #MeToo movement in yoga. I also wrote a thesis on shamanism and expressive arts. The pedagogy I pass forward is based on these three pillars of practice and philosophy: 1. Yoga 2. Shamanism 3. Expressive Arts. I continue to engage with the interplay between these methodologies of practice and social change.

I am part of the long line of women contributing to yoga by bringing it off the mat and into the world. My intent is to train safe teachers to work with the underserved and marginalized populations. Being yoga and living yoga is the mission: I strive to do this with integrity. I pray that I can serve in some way.

A $500 non-refundable deposit is required to hold your space. 

Final payments, along with all paperwork is due by October 15th

In the event that you need to cancel your trip, an email must be received by October 15th. After October 15th, all payments and are non-refundable and non-transferable

Travel insurance is required for this trip, in the event that you need to cancel for any reason. This is due by October 15th with final payment.

Feb 7th

Check in at 4:00 p.m.

After settling into your room, you'll have a group orientation to the property 

6:00 p.m. Enjoy a delicious plant based dinner together

7:30 p.m. We will gather for our opening circle

7:30 AM: Start your morning with a shamanic ritual to purify and ground,  followed by yoga and meditation practice. 

9:00 AM: Breakfast

10:30 AM  Nervous System Regulation Class, followed by any of the above depending upon the day: Shamanic Wisdom Teachings, Shamanic Journey, Dance/Movement, Group healing Ceremonies, Sound Healing

1:00 PM Lunch, followed by free time to rest, enjoy the beach and pools, receive a spa treatment, explore property.

If you're wanting to book a therapy service, the appointment times will be 1:30 and 2:30 p.m., for 60 minute services. If you're interested in booking a 90 minute service, your appointment time will be 1:30 p.m. Therapies are first come first serve and must be booked in advance. 

4:00 PM Wisdom Teachings, Shamanic Journey, Dance/Movement, Group healing Ceremonies, Sound Healing

7:00 PM DINNER

8:00 PM Evening Time will include one of the following, or time to rest and integrate:

Wisdom Circles, Song Circle, Drumming, Dancing, Sound Healing, and Fire Ceremony. 

We will curate these experiences based on what is in the best interest for the group. This schedule is not set in stone, but will be used as a guide for an organic and nourishing flow for our time together.

We will have an 8AM breakfast.

The airport shuttle will depart for the Puerto Vallarta Airport at 9:30 AM

Depending upon traffic, we plan to arrive by 11:00 AM