TEW Reunion Retreat + Our NEW Year Cacao, Sound Ceremony + Community Circle

Community is one of those words we hear all the time — but for most of us, it’s something we long for more often than we actually experience.

Because community isn’t just about being in the same room as other people.

It’s not about shared hobbies, identical beliefs, or check-ins on holidays.

Real community — embodied community — is something deeper.

It’s belonging.

It’s being seen.

It’s being held without having to earn it.

It’s a feeling of knowing you are not walking through your life alone.

It’s family… the kind you get to choose.

And this year, between traveling to Nicaragua with Bella, planning the first-ever TEW Reunion Retreat, and preparing for our NEW Year Cacao, Sound Ceremony + Community Circle, I’ve been thinking a lot about what it truly means to build a chosen family — and how the TEW community has become exactly that.

A Chosen Family is Built on Shared Transformation

Transformation bonds people in a way nothing else does.

When you’ve cried next to someone on a yoga mat in Costa Rica…

When you’ve held hands with strangers who became family during a sound journey…

When you’ve stood barefoot in the jungle remembering the truth of who you are…

You don’t forget each other.

You carry each other.

And that’s what has happened inside every TEW training, every retreat, every immersion. Strangers walk in on day one… and by day seven, they’re laughing like siblings and supporting one another like lifelong friends.

This isn’t an accident.

It’s intention.

It’s safety.

It’s soul recognition.

When you put people in an environment where they feel safe enough to be their real selves, community becomes inevitable.

Returning to Nicaragua: A Full-Circle Homecoming

This year felt different.

Returning to Nicaragua with Bella — the country that healed me when I couldn’t heal myself — reminded me that community is not only something we build outward; it’s something that builds us.

I arrived in NICA nine years ago broken, grieving, and searching for meaning.

And I found it — in the land, in the people, in the way this place allows you to unravel and rebuild at the same time.

Now, to be able to bring my daughter here… and soon, to bring you here for the TEW Reunion Retreat… feels like coming home in the deepest way.

 This retreat is more than a vacation, more than a yoga week, more than a tropical escape.

It’s a pilgrimage.

A return.

A remembering.

And it’s designed to bring the TEW family back together — to gather in the place that shaped so many of my teachings, ceremonies, and initiations.

Community is Created Through Ceremony

Whether we’re in the jungle or in a studio in OCMD, ceremony has always been the doorway for connection inside TEW.

Ceremony slows us down.

It softens our armor.

It invites truth to rise gently to the surface.

And this year, for the first time ever, I felt called to offer an NEW Year Cacao, Sound Ceremony + Community Circle at home in Maryland — a chance for us to gather together as a community

and start the new year in a way that actually means something.

No rushing.

No pressure.

No materialism.

Just togetherness.

Just presence.

Just the medicine of being witnessed and witnessing others.

Community is built in moments like these —

moments where you breathe into your heart, sip warm cacao, listen to the vibration of sound weaving through your body, and feel the people beside you remembering parts of themselves too.

Chosen Family Is Not Found — It’s Created

Here is what I’ve learned:

You don’t find your people…

you create the conditions where your people can find you.

You show up honestly.

You lead with your heart.

You build spaces where vulnerability is welcome.

You model what it looks like to be brave and soft at the same time.

And over time, the ones who are meant to walk with you — even just for a season — show up.

That is the TEW community.

Deep listeners.

Brave hearts.

Seekers and feelers.

Humans who want more from life than to simply get through it.

You are my chosen family.

And every retreat, every ceremony, every gathering is another thread weaving us closer.

The Reunion Is Already Beginning

Whether you join us:

✨ In Nicaragua for the TEW Reunion Retreat — March 8–14, 2026

or

✨ At the NEW Year Cacao + Sound Ceremony + Circle — Jan 25

you are part of this story.

You are part of this family.

You are part of the energy that makes TEW what it is — honest, embodied, transformative, and deeply human.

Community isn’t built in one moment.

It’s built in the moments we choose each other — again and again.

And I can’t wait to choose you, gather with you, hold space with you, and grow with you in the year ahead.