Disconnect to Connect | Akanista Wellbeing

disconnect to connect:

A New Year, a New You

Step into a nourishing week devoted to healing the mind, body, and spirit through acceptance and compassion. Everything practical is taken care of, so you can arrive, exhale, and focus on yourself. This is a rare opportunity to deepen your relationship with yourself, cultivate self-compassion, and begin to release past traumas with greater clarity, confidence, and resilience.

A holistic path to healing

Designed for everyone, this retreat offers a supportive space to become your own best friend. The program brings together meditation, embodied movement, periods of silence, group workshops, inspiring stories, rituals, and beloved Dharma teachings with discussion. It is an invitation to pause, reflect, and rediscover what truly matters while letting go of what no longer serves you.

Held in January at the start of the year, the retreat offers the perfect moment to reset and explore a new direction. Over the years, these healing retreats have touched many lives, and their transformative power continues to inspire gratitude and courage in those who attend.

Many participants arrive carrying the weight of difficult life transitions — broken relationships, family challenges, childhood trauma, career changes, or a general sense of being lost. Rather than pushing these experiences aside, the retreat creates a safe space to acknowledge them, understand their deeper message, and begin healing from within. Through compassion and careful guidance, difficult emotions are given room to be seen and gently transformed.

Practices, support, and guidance

The retreat takes a holistic approach, integrating mind, body, and spirit through mindfulness, Buddhist philosophy, energy healing, creative movement, inner child visualisations, and hypnotherapy. There is also time to relax, reflect, and enjoy the support of the group. Each session is tailored, with some group input, and you are free to share as much or as little as you wish. Your pace, your voice, and your boundaries are always respected.

All workshops are led by trained therapists and guides with years of experience and professional qualifications. The central theme of the retreat is HEALING, with the intention of helping you acknowledge your situation, strengthen resilience, and move forward with greater compassion.

Experienced guides

This transformational retreat is facilitated by Karuna Priya, a former Buddhist monk, and Nitima Priya, an integrative holistic counsellor. If you are seeking change, deeper meaning, inspiration, or a way to reconnect with yourself, nature, and creation, this retreat offers a sacred space to support a more radiant version of you.

Location and focus

Set in an exquisite location in Wiltshire, UK, the retreat invites you to cleanse and revitalise through yoga, meditation, ancient Buddhist wisdom, detoxification, nature connection, inner journeying, and group work. Rooted in authentic Buddhist teachings, it combines healing, movement, wholesome foods, and daily meditations to support renewal on every level.

What you will explore

• How to calm an overactive mind
• How to care for your whole being
• How to experience the depth of embodied practices
• Philosophical talks for insight and realisation
• How to use compassion and mindfulness in daily life
• How to regulate emotions through creative interventions
• How to support yourself during difficult times
• How to live with courage, curiosity, and compassion
• Stories to enrich your meditation practice and spark new inspiration

Personalised support and heart-to-heart conversations

Nitima has been facilitating individual and group therapy sessions, as well as mindfulness classes, since 2011. Her experience includes supporting people navigating trauma, anxiety, addiction, and related challenges. Her approach helps uncover the deeper roots of suffering — such as fear of uncertainty, fear of judgment, feelings of unworthiness, and the need for external validation — and guides participants toward compassion, courage, and connection.

Through body-based movement meditation, creative workshops focused on the mandala as a personal universe, gentle rituals, and life reflections, Nitima helps participants better understand the connection between mind and body. With energy healing, Emotional Freedom Tapping techniques, and soft movement practices, she creates a space where you can feel safe, supported, and free from judgment.

Karuna brings the perspective of Buddhist philosophy, offering practical wisdom for meeting suffering with openness, authenticity, and acceptance. His teaching reminds participants that healing begins where they are, and that through compassion they can transform their relationship with themselves and, in turn, with others.

The retreat days are shaped by a blend of practices, classes, rest, and nourishment, allowing the group to explore the nature of the heart, awaken inner wisdom, and reconnect with the living spirit of the Earth.