Private Retreats

Private retreats and intensives for moments of transition, strain, reorientation, and change.

Available by referral or application.

What are Private Retreats?

These retreats are designed for people, pairs, and small teams who need more than a conversation, a strategy session, or a wellness break.

They create protected space to step out of pressure, tell the truth about what is happening, clarify what matters now, and begin reorganizing life, work, attention, or story around what is most real.

Each retreat is private, carefully shaped, and available online by Zoom or in person.

Three ways to work:

Attention Reset

Release overwhelm and return to clarity

Rewrite Your Story

Release and Rebuild

From Risk to Resilience:

Request a Conversation

Attention Reset

For people who feel scattered, overloaded, unclear, or pulled in too many directions.

Format:

Half-day, one-day, or two-day private retreat. Available by Zoom or in person.

Starting investment:

Half-day private reset: from $1,400
One-day private retreat: from $2,800
Two-day private immersion: from $4,800

Rewrite Your Story

For people at a personal threshold who need language, meaning, and a new way forward.

What is Rewrite Your Story?

Some transitions ask not only for decisions, but for a new story.

Rewrite Your Story is a private retreat for people moving through a season of major personal change: divorce, grief, reinvention, identity shift, burnout, creative transition, or the sense that an old life no longer fits.

This work creates space to name what has been, tell the truth about what is changing, and begin shaping the next chapter in both language and practice.

It may include deep conversation, guided writing, reflective inquiry, life-mapping, future-self exploration, and the creation of a written piece such as a story, letter, poem, or personal narrative.

This retreat may support:

divorce or relational transition
grief or loss
career or identity change
creative reinvention
a desire to understand the arc of your life more clearly
a need to reclaim voice, agency, beauty, or meaning
a season when the old story no longer fits

You may leave with:

a clearer understanding of the story you have been living
language for the threshold you are crossing
a more truthful sense of what is ending and what is emerging
a capstone written piece shaped from the retreat
concrete next steps for beginning to live the new story

Format:

One-day or two-day private retreat. Available by Zoom or in person. In-person is especially recommended for the two-day immersion.

Starting investment:

One-day private retreat: from $3,200
Two-day private immersion: from $5,800
Extended narrative immersion: from $9,500

Explore Rewrite Your Story

From Risk to Resilience

For leaders, founders, partners, and small teams navigating burnout, transition, strain, or strategic change.

From Risk to Resilience is a private intensive for people or teams at an inflection point.

It is designed for moments when the current structure is no longer working — when pressure, complexity, growth, conflict, burnout, or uncertainty have made it difficult to see clearly or move wisely.

Together, we look at what is unsustainable, what matters most, what needs to change, and what practical structures could support a more resilient next phase.

This retreat may support:

leadership transition
burnout or depletion
strategic reorientation
team strain or communication drift
cofounder or leadership alignment
major decisions under pressure
the need for clearer priorities and next steps

You may leave with:

a clearer decision or direction
a stronger understanding of what is not working
renewed alignment around priorities
specific agreements or next steps
a more resilient structure for the next 30 to 90 days

Format:

One-day, two-day, or custom intensive. Available by Zoom or in person. In-person is recommended for teams, leadership pairs, and more complex retreats.

Starting investment:

Private two-day intensive for one leader: from $5,800
Private two-day intensive for two people: from $7,800
Small-team retreat: custom, generally from $12,000

Explore From Risk to Resilience

How to choose

Choose Attention Reset if the central question is clarity, overwhelm, prioritization, or restoring your capacity to move.

Choose Rewrite Your Story if the central question is personal, narrative, emotional, or existential.

Choose From Risk to Resilience if the central question is strategic, organizational, relational, or leadership-oriented.

You do not need to know which retreat is right before reaching out. A first conversation can help clarify the best shape.

What is included

Each retreat is shaped around the person, pair, or team, but may include:

a private preparation call
a clear retreat focus and intention
one-on-one or small-group retreat sessions
deep conversation and discernment
guided reflection and writing
meditation, grounding, or gentle somatic awareness
attention mapping, story mapping, or decision mapping
support clarifying priorities, next steps, and structures
practical follow-through planning
a written summary, roadmap, reflection, or capstone piece depending on the retreat
one follow-up integration call

What you get

Depending on the retreat format, you may come away with:

a clearer understanding of what is happening
a stronger sense of what matters now
language for the threshold you are crossing
a decision, direction, or next step that had been hard to access
a 30–90 day roadmap
a simpler structure for attention, work, life, or leadership
specific agreements or next steps for a pair or team
a written reflection, story, letter, poem, or narrative piece
a renewed sense of steadiness, coherence, and inner room

Online and in-person options

Retreats are available online by Zoom or in person.

Zoom retreats work well for focused inquiry, writing, clarity, decision-making, and follow-through planning.

In-person retreats are especially supportive for deeper immersion, major life transitions, leadership pairs, couples, small teams, and work that benefits from spaciousness, walking, meals, quiet, and a fuller retreat container.

In-person retreats may be held in Austin or shaped around a location chosen together — a quiet hotel, a downtown stay, a wellness retreat, a private residence, or a more secluded natural setting.

For in-person retreats, the setting matters. Some retreats are best held in a beautiful hotel or walkable urban environment; others benefit from quiet, nature, spaciousness, and fewer distractions. Location is chosen based on the kind of support, privacy, and retreat container that would be most useful.

The retreat investment covers Carolyn’s preparation, facilitation, retreat design, written materials, and follow-up support. Lodging, travel, meals, resort fees, venue costs, spa services, and incidentals are arranged and paid separately unless otherwise agreed.

Custom in-person retreats in other locations may be available by arrangement.

About Carolyn

Carolyn Sinsky, PhD, is the founder of the Center for Existential Resilience, where she brings together her work in presence, story, emotional clarity, nonprofit strategy, and real-life change.

She supports individuals, couples, leaders, and small teams through moments of transition, pressure, and reorientation. Her work brings together deep listening, guided reflection, presence-based counseling, emotional resolution, meditation, story work, and practical discernment.

Her work is especially suited to people navigating thresholds — in life, leadership, relationship, vocation, story, or identity — who need space to reflect deeply and practical support for what comes next.

Read more about Carolyn:

Carolyn holds a PhD in Comparative Literature from Yale and has taught at Yale, Stanford Continuing Studies, and the Fashion Institute of Technology. She is an award-winning teacher with a long background in literature, close reading, writing, and the study of how people make meaning from experience — and how those meanings shape the choices they make and the lives they build.

Alongside her teaching and private facilitation work, Carolyn has supported mission-driven organizations through development strategy, institutional fundraising, funder engagement, project management, and the creation of practical systems for clarity, follow-through, and sustainable growth. This practical background informs her work with leaders and teams, especially around complexity, decision-making, organizational strain, and the structures that make meaningful work sustainable.

Carolyn has also spent many years immersed in meditation, yoga, somatic awareness, and contemplative practice. Her approach is grounded in presence, emotional honesty, careful attention, and the belief that meaningful change often begins when something can finally be named clearly.

A skilled one-on-one facilitator, Carolyn has guided individuals and couples through private retreats grounded in deep presence, careful listening, emotional clarity, and meaningful change. In this work, she draws on both reflective and practical capacities: the ability to listen deeply, organize complexity, ask precise questions, help shape language, and support real next steps.

At the center of Carolyn’s work is a simple question:

what becomes possible when we stop forcing clarity and create the conditions for truth to emerge?

Investment

Attention Reset
From $1,400 half-day / $2,800 one-day / $4,800 two-day

Rewrite Your Story
From $3,200 one-day / $5,800 two-day / $9,500 extended

From Risk to Resilience
From $5,800 for one / $7,800 for two / custom for small teams

These rates reflect the private retreat process itself: preparation, facilitation, retreat design, written materials, and follow-up integration support.

Lodging, travel, meals, resort fees, venue costs, spa services, and incidentals are not included unless specifically arranged in advance.

A 50% deposit reserves retreat dates. The remaining balance is due 14 days before the retreat.

Custom payment arrangements may be available for select private invitations.

Availability

Private retreats are currently available by referral or application.

Because each retreat is highly individualized, a first conversation is used to clarify fit, format, location, timing, and the kind of support that would be most useful.

The application is not meant to be formal or intimidating. It is simply a way to understand where you are, what you are navigating, and whether this is the right container.

You do not need to know exactly which retreat is right before reaching out. A simple note about what feels in transition and what kind of support you may be seeking is enough.

Request a Conversation

A note on care

These retreats are not psychotherapy, medical care, or crisis support.

They are best suited to people seeking reflection, clarity, personal growth, leadership support, spiritual inquiry, meaningful change, or practical reorientation.

If you are in acute crisis or need medical, psychiatric, or emergency support, this is not the right container.

Inquiry

If you are interested in exploring a private retreat, reach out with a few sentences about where you are, what feels in transition, and what kind of support you may be seeking.

You do not need to know exactly which retreat is right. A first conversation can help clarify whether this work is a fit and what shape would be most supportive.

Request a Conversation

Link to Private inquiries

Thank you for reaching out. I’ll read what you shared and respond personally.

Warmly,
Carolyn