Retreat details
Join Martha Peterson on this Essential Somatics Retreat. What if you could actually understand why your back has hurt for the last decade? What if someone could explain why your shoulders won’t drop no matter how much you try to relax? What if there was a method that addresses chronic tension at the level of the nervous system instead of just treating the muscles?
That’s what you’ll discover in Portugal.
Most approaches to chronic pain treat the symptoms: tight muscles, restricted movement, inflammation. They try to lengthen what’s tight. Strengthen what’s weak. Manipulate what’s stuck. And sometimes it helps, for a while. But the tension comes back because the nervous system pattern that created it never changed.
Clinical Somatic Education works differently. You’ll experience pandiculation, actively engaging and slowly releasing muscles in a way that resets their length at the level of your motor cortex. You’re not forcing anything from the outside. You’re helping your brain let go of patterns it’s been holding unconsciously for years.
Explore all of this, and more, at Vale de Moses in the mountains of central Portugal.
Morning sessions with Martha Peterson where you’ll feel the difference between forcing and allowing. Afternoons are yours to walk, rest, or explore. Evenings quiet enough that you can sense how your body changes from one day to the next. This isn’t another wellness retreat. This is the understanding you’ve been missing, offered in a place quiet enough that your nervous system can actually absorb it. Plus, all Essential Somatics retreats are beginner friendly, or perfect for a refresh in your practice.
Martha Peterson
Founder of Essencial Somatics
Martha Peterson has spent over 20 years teaching people something revolutionary: chronic pain isn’t something you have to live with.
She’s the founder of Essential Somatics, a certified Clinical Somatic Educator, and author of Move Without Pain. She’s one of the leading voices continuing Thomas Hanna’s work in Clinical Somatic Education. But here’s what matters most for this retreat: She gets it.
Martha believes you deserve to understand what’s happening in your own body, that you’re capable of change, that transformation doesn’t require suffering or pushing through.
She’s been leading retreats for nearly 10 years at some of the most beautiful locations in the world: Mar de Jade in Mexico, Hollyhock in British Columbia (invited back 10 consecutive years), and now the mountains of Portugal. When you spend five days with Martha, you’re not just getting instruction. You’re working with someone who has dedicated her life to this work, who understands the neuroscience and the movement patterns, and who brings the deep compassion required to guide people through real change.