Our
5-Day self-care retreat weaves together the human story, well-being strategies, nature, ancient wisdom, and sacred rituals to create a deeply restorative self-care experience. Through ceremony, movement, and connection, you will gently reset your autonomic nervous system, leaving with a renewed sense of calm, creativity, compassion, and connection—to yourself, to others, and to the infinite.
As we explore the properties of the quantum field, you’ll begin to understand the power of your mind to heal and create the future you’ve been striving for. Linear time is an illusion, and within the vast, interconnected ocean of energy that is quantum space, you’ll learn how to cultivate dynamic flow.
Guiding this journey, Dr. Paula Petry shares her transformative path—from decades of supporting mothers of children with disabilities to her personal healing through deep grief. Her spiritual exploration has led her to shamanic energy medicine, sound healing, Akashic Records, Psych-K, and Jungian dream analysis. Her wisdom, drawn from lived experience and profound insight, is also shared in her books A Mother’s Courage to Awaken (2020) and 24/7 Flow: Thrive Around the Clock (2024).
A unique element of this retreat at Il Tenuta is the opportunity to experience the healing presence of horses. Spending time in the field with the nine thoroughbred horses who call Tenuta home offers a powerful way to reconnect with yourself and the natural world.
Joining Dr. Paula Petry is Karen Mellers, an emotional wellness coach, circle facilitator, and natural wellness expert whose own 40-year healing journey informs her deep, intuitive work. With years of experience leading and mentoring within Weleda UK, where she guided a team of over 700 Wellbeing Advisors, Karen brings her wisdom and passion for holistic wellness to this retreat as a co-facilitator.
Together, we invite you to step into this sacred space, where transformation unfolds with grace, and healing happens on every level.
Paths to Self-Care offers a unique equine-guided quantum healing experience with nine formerly thoroughbred racehorses who reside at Tenuta.
Your equine experience begins before entering the field, with Paula’s signature Attunement Process — a gentle preparation that invites the nervous system to relax and align with the natural world. This includes:
- Setting a personal intention
- Breathwork to calm the autonomic nervous system
- An energetic attunement with the horses through a heart opening and visualization process
- Wait to be invited in – teaching
- The basics of safely and respectfully interacting with horses
This process helps slow your heart rate, raise heart coherence, and harmonize your energy with that of the horses. It creates a resonant field — a quiet, welcoming frequency that lets the herd know we are approaching with presence and respect. The knowledge shared about being with horses helps you feel safe.
Small groups of no more than six guests are then invited into the open field. From a distance, Paula and the group silently call the horses — not with voice or movement, but through pure intention and heart connection. The herd responds, walking across the land to join the group, drawn to the shared field of awareness and calm energy.
As the horses near, the group will slowly move toward them, pausing, moving, pausing and waiting – intuiting the invitation from the horse to interact. The interaction will include slow movements, touching, looking into their eyes, allowing the horse to sniff and nudge and poke as you remain in a peaceful state; perhaps with an open dialogue with the horse as to what you are noticing and feeling about him/her. This energetic exchange is the way horses sense and clear the human auric field.
In 30 – 45 minutes we will end the process by thanking the horses for their attention and willingness to engage with us on our healing journey.
Note: Paula recently spent two months immersed at Tenuta di Paternostro, deeply connecting with the herd, as captured in this video and her poetic expression.
