Conscious Intimacy:
pleasure as practice | India

What becomes possible when pleasure isn’t seen as an outcome, but a practice?

A somatic arts therapy retreat for individuals and couples
📍 Golden Tulip Goa–Mandrem, Goa
📅 December 4–7, 2026
You may attend individually or with a partner.

Many of us have learned to work, care for others, endure discomfort and keep going. Post trauma, sexual, relational or emotional, our relationship to pleasure can be severely impacted.

We may know far less about what helps us soften, what we desire, where our boundaries live, or how to receive care without feeling we must earn it.

Pleasure as Practice is an immersive retreat led by Neha Bhat and the Sacred Resilience team. Through somatic learning, expressive arts, sexual well-being education and relational inquiry, you will explore how your history lives in your body—and what you might choose to practise differently. Come on your own or with a partner. Your curiosity is enough to begin.

Applications are open. Places are intentionally limited.

is this retreat for me?

THIS RETREAT IS FOR YOU IF…

• you want to understand your individual relationship with pleasure
• become more aware of what your body communicates to you
• explore your capacity to receive, soften, enjoy and rest
• understand where shame, fear, control or inhibition enter your experience of pleasure
• notice how your history has shaped what feels safe, desirable or available to you
• become more aware of your wants, needs and boundaries
• understand the difference between performing pleasure and experiencing it
• explore desire without reducing it to sexual performance
• reconnect with sensuality, creativity, play and aliveness
• understand how your individual patterns enter your intimate relationships
• develop greater emotional and bodily literacy
• move beyond simply knowing your patterns intellectually
• build embodied practices that can continue after the retreat
  
  You do not need to be in crisis. You do not need to have a partner. You do not need to identify as particularly sexual. You can be queer, kinky, vanilla, asexual or simply curious about your own healing and liberation. Couples can then bring these discoveries back into their relationship with greater awareness. Because sometimes the deepest work we can do for intimacy is to become more intimate with ourselves.
  
  We will also introduce selected exercises and ideas from Neha Bhat’s forthcoming HarperCollins book, Untangled, which explores the transformation of our patterns in love and relationships.

WHAT THIS RETREAT IS NOT

This is not:

• a sex-performance workshop
• a tantric retreat
• a dating or matchmaking experience
• a romantic holiday with workshops added
• a promise to “fix” your sexuality or relationship
• a space for sexual activity between participants

the 3.5 day experience structure

ARRIVE on December 4 (Friday) — Day 1
December 5 (Saturday) — Day 2
December 6 (Sunday) — Day 3
LEAVE with tools and transformative insights on December 7 (Monday) — Closing morning

3.5 Days, 4 Therapists, Nature-filled Venue, Deep Embodied Healing Limited spaces. Individuals and couples are both warmly welcome.

DAY 1 — ARRIVE
Friday, December 4 | Arrival by 2 PM IST

SAFETY, ORIENTATION & THE ARCHITECTURE OF PLEASURE

We enter the retreat container slowly. We establish safety, consent and community agreements before beginning to explore one of the central questions of the retreat: What has my body learned about pleasure?We begin mapping the relationship between nervous system, body, emotional history, intimacy, pleasure and receiving.

DAY 2 — DEEPEN
Saturday, December 5

THE BODY THAT LEARNED TO PROTECT
We turn toward our individual patterns.

Through somatic learning, psychotherapy, expressive arts and experiential exercises, we explore how our bodies have learned to reach, withdraw, protect, control, perform, freeze, receive and respond. We begin noticing the difference between what we intellectually believe about ourselves and what our bodies actually communicate.
This day also includes Water Somatics and embodied learning around safety, sensation, boundaries and receiving.

DAY 3 — EXPAND
Sunday, December 6

PLEASURE, DESIRE & CONSCIOUS CHOICE
We explore pleasure as an intentional practice more directly.
What awakens aliveness?
What interrupts it?

How do desire, shame, inhibition, sexual well-being, relational history and the nervous system interact? And how can we begin developing a more conscious relationship with what we actually want?
Participants will be supported through multidisciplinary teaching, somatic and creative practice, sexual health education, individual reflection and facilitated experiential work.

DAY 4 — RETURN
Monday, December 7 | Closing morning
INTEGRATION & CLOSURE

The final morning is devoted to integrating what has emerged. Rather than leaving Goa with a temporary emotional high, each participant identifies what they want to practise differently in ordinary life.

We close by asking: What would it mean for pleasure to become a practice I am capable of returning to?
Departure after morning closure.

The Pleasure as Practice Retreat Team works within THE SACRED RESILIENCE™ APPROACH

Sacred Resilience™ works with the whole person rather than treating intimacy or pleasure as purely cognitive, verbal or sexual. We work across: mind → body → emotion → relationship → creativity → meaning → practice

This means you will not simply talk about pleasure. You will be invited to: notice it → experience it → understand it → communicate it → practise it

The retreat is held by a multidisciplinary team of four therapists and practitioners, bringing together expertise across sexual trauma and intimacy psychotherapy, individual psychological well-being, relational dynamics, expressive arts, embodiment and sexual health.

What is included and the investment:

INVESTMENT
Can be completed in two installments

🌸 EARLY BIRD
₹90,000 per person
Available for registrations received by September 30, 2026.
Sacred Resilience Alumni: ₹81,000 per person
(10% alumni rate)
R&R Practitioners: ₹76,500 per person (15% recognition rate)

🌼 STANDARD
₹1,00,000 per person
Applies October 1 – November 15, 2026.
Sacred Resilience Alumni: ₹90,000 per person (10% alumni rate)
R&R Practitioners: ₹85,000 per person (15% recognition rate)

🔥 LATE APPLICATION
₹1,15,000 per person
Applies from November 16, 2026 onwards, subject to availability.
Sacred Resilience Alumni: ₹1,03,500 per person (10% alumni rate)
R&R Practitioners: ₹97,750 per person (15% recognition rate)

Couples attending together: Two individual registrations at the applicable rate.

Alumni rates: Previous Sacred Resilience retreat/program participants receive a 10% alumni rate. Current and former R&R practitioners receive a total 15% recognition rate. Discounts are not cumulative beyond 15%.

Acceptance into the retreat is by application rather than automatic payment.

Travel to and from Goa is not included.

*YOUR INVESTMENT INCLUDES*

• 3 nights of beautiful luxury accommodation at the retreat venue (single rooms, luxurious double beds)
• breakfast, lunch and community dinners
• access to four nationally and internationally trained therapists/practitioners
• pre-retreat assessment and preparation
• assigned pre-retreat 1:1 support
• the complete 3.5-day intensive
• somatic learning and embodiment practices
• Water Somatics
• expressive arts-based experiences
• pleasure and intimacy psychoeducation
• sexual health and well-being education
• selected experiential exercises inspired by Untangled
• individual integration practices
• partnered healing exercises
• curated retreat materials and retreat kit
• access to resort facilities during the retreat
• structured post-retreat integration access
• access to the larger Sacred Resilience retreat WhatsApp community
  
  There will be no nudity, sexual touch, sexual activity or sexual practices between participants as part of the retreat. 

Boundaries and common questions

We regularly work with people from public-facing, clinical, creative and professional communities. Confidentiality is fundamental to this container. All participants are expected to protect the identities, experiences and disclosures of other participants. Our retreat team is trained to work with emotionally complex material and maintains clear professional boundaries around safety, consent and confidentiality.

WHY THE RETREAT IS INTENTIONALLY LIMITED

This is not designed to be a large-group programme. The depth of the work depends on: attention + privacy + skilled facilitation + psychological safety. We therefore intentionally limit participation. Acceptance is by application, allowing our clinical team to determine whether the retreat is an appropriate space for each applicant.

READY TO JOIN US?

1. Apply
   
2. One of our team therapists will reach out to you within 1–2 business days following your application.
   
3. Payment may be completed by UPI or bank transfer in a maximum of two instalments before the applicable deadlines
   
   See you in community soon!