ACTIVATE YOUR INNER HEALER™
Gather • Experience • Transform
Golden Hill Retreat Center is honored to welcome gifted facilitators from Texas and beyond who bring their own unique retreats, workshops and transformational experiences to our peaceful grounds. From meditation and movement to spiritual exploration, creativity and holistic wellness, each gathering offers a new opportunity to connect, learn and return more deeply to yourself.
A sacred place for meaningful gatherings and inspired experiences.
Golden Hill Retreat · Coldspring, Texas
Step into a sacred weekend of grounding, activation, embodiment, celebration and integration. The Embodied Awakening Retreat invites you to reconnect with your body, awaken your inner energy, expand your awareness and return home with a deeper sense of presence, clarity and aliveness.
Theme: Grounding into Presence
| Time | Activity |
|---|---|
| 3:00 PM – 5:00 PM | Arrival & Check-In |
| 5:00 PM – 6:00 PM | Welcome Tea, Opening Circle & Intentions |
| 6:00 PM – 7:00 PM | Dinner |
| 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM | House of Essence — Egyptian Oils Experience & Sensory Ritual |
| 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM | Cacao Ceremony |
| 9:00 PM onward | Free Time |
Theme: Energy, Expansion & Expression
| Time | Activity |
|---|---|
| 7:00 AM – 8:00 AM | Morning Yoga & Breathwork |
| 8:00 AM – 9:00 AM | Breakfast |
| 9:00 AM – 10:00 AM | KAP Session |
| 10:00 AM – 10:30 AM | Integration, Journaling & Sharing |
| 10:30 AM – 11:30 AM | MAP Session |
| 11:30 AM – 12:00 PM | Integration, Journaling & Sharing |
| 12:00 PM – 1:00 PM | Lunch |
| 1:00 PM – 3:00 PM | Healing Services & Nature Time |
| 3:00 PM – 4:00 PM | KAP Session |
| 4:00 PM – 4:30 PM | Integration, Journaling & Sharing |
| 4:30 PM – 5:30 PM | MAP Session |
| 5:30 PM – 6:00 PM | Integration, Journaling & Sharing |
| 6:00 PM – 7:00 PM | Dinner |
| 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM | Costume Transformation & Preparation |
| 8:00 PM – 10:00 PM | Halloween Ecstatic Dance Journey |
| 10:00 PM onward | Free Time |
Theme: Reflection, Connection & Embodied Presence
| Time | Activity |
|---|---|
| 7:00 AM – 8:00 AM | Morning Yoga & Breathwork |
| 8:00 AM – 9:00 AM | Breakfast |
| 9:00 AM – 10:00 AM | Non-Dual Guided Meditation |
| 10:00 AM – 10:30 AM | Integration Break |
| 10:30 AM – 11:00 AM | Eye Gazing Practice |
| 11:00 AM – 12:00 PM | Closing Circle & Sharing |
| 12:00 PM – 1:00 PM | Lunch |
| 1:00 PM | Departures |
| After 1:00 PM | Optional Additional Healing Services & Personal Integration Time |
Why This Training Matters
As psychedelic therapies, ceremonial medicines, and expanded states of consciousness become more widely used, practitioners increasingly encounter experiences that can be difficult to interpret.
Most journeys unfold safely. Some become emotionally or psychologically intense. A small number may involve genuine medical or psychiatric emergencies.
The challenge is knowing the difference—and knowing what to do next.
This training was created to help practitioners recognize warning signs, understand the limits of their role, respond appropriately, and know when additional professional or emergency support may be needed.
Who Should Attend?
The training is designed especially for professionals, practitioners, facilitators, and support people who may encounter intense physical, emotional, psychological, or spiritual experiences in their work.
Two-Day Professional Training
Day 1 • Saturday, January 23 10-5PM
Learn practical frameworks for distinguishing between an intense but potentially manageable psychedelic experience and a situation requiring additional medical or psychiatric evaluation.
Explore practical ways of considering whether an experience may represent transformation, trauma activation, panic, psychological distress, or a potential medical or psychiatric emergency.
Understand when supportive presence may be appropriate—and when consultation, referral, or emergency medical services may be necessary.
Explore strategies for communicating with participants, families, healthcare professionals, and emergency responders.
Preparation, screening, observation, documentation, emergency planning, and collaborative care.
Day 2 • Sunday, January 24 10-5PM
Practical Skills for Safer Ceremonies & Retreats
Day 2 moves from discernment into practical emergency preparedness. Participants will explore how to respond when an unexpected event occurs in a psychedelic, ceremonial, retreat, or consciousness-expansion setting.
Practical emergency response education and CPR/AED training designed to help participants recognize, respond, communicate, and escalate appropriately.
CPR/AED certification may be provided upon successful completion of the designated training and all requirements of the applicable certifying program.
A Culture of Responsible Care
It requires discernment. It requires preparation. It requires knowing the limits of your role. And it requires relationships between medical, psychological, and ceremonial communities so that people can receive appropriate support when they need it.
We believe the future of responsible psychedelic care can be strengthened when science and spirituality are willing to sit at the same table.
Education. Discernment. Collaboration. Safety.
January 23-24, 2027 10-5PM
Space is intentionally limited to support hands-on practice, meaningful discussion, and interactive learning.
Vegetarian lunch is included each day.
Golden Hill Retreat CenterQuestions
The training is designed especially for psychedelic facilitators, sitters, ceremony leaders, shamanic practitioners, integration coaches, retreat staff, harm-reduction and peer-support professionals, breathwork and somatic practitioners, spiritual guides, and mental health or healthcare professionals interested in psychedelic support.
Participants will explore altered states, warning signs, medical versus psycho-spiritual crises, scope of practice, communication during crisis, emergency planning, observation, documentation, referral, and appropriate escalation.
Day 2 includes emergency response education and CPR/AED training. Participants who successfully complete the designated training and all requirements of the applicable certifying program may receive the corresponding CPR/AED certification from the authorized training provider.
No. The program provides educational training and a Certificate of Participation or Completion only. It does not confer a medical license, clinical credential, psychedelic therapy credential, or authorization to diagnose or treat medical or psychiatric conditions.
This program is provided for educational and informational purposes only. Participation does not confer a license, medical credential, clinical qualification, or authorization to diagnose, treat, prescribe for, or independently manage any medical or psychiatric condition.
The workshop is intended to improve general awareness, emergency preparedness, recognition of potential warning signs, understanding of professional boundaries, and appropriate escalation or referral. Participants are responsible for practicing within the scope permitted by their individual education, training, licensure or certification, and applicable laws and regulations.
Completion of this program provides a Certificate of Participation or Completion only and should not be represented as certification or credentialing in psychedelic therapy, medicine, emergency medicine, or mental health treatment.
CPR/AED certification is separate. Participants who successfully complete the designated CPR/AED training and all requirements of the applicable certifying program may receive the corresponding CPR/AED certification from the authorized training provider.
This training does not replace professional medical evaluation, emergency medical services, mental health assessment, or other appropriately licensed healthcare services. In an actual or suspected emergency, participants should activate appropriate emergency services and follow established emergency protocols.
Participation in this course does not create a physician-patient, therapist-client, or other healthcare-provider relationship between attendees and the host, Golden Hill Retreat Center, or affiliated organizations.
Held by the land, guided by experience, and supported by those devoted to creating spaces for transformation, connection, and remembrance.
Founder • Host • Wholistic Practitioner
Dr. Nelson Valeña is a board-certified Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation physician with a subspecialty in Brain Injury Medicine and more than 30 years of clinical experience.
Following his own recovery from a stroke in 2011, his work expanded into integrative medicine, energy medicine, medical hypnotherapy, shamanic healing, and psychedelic-assisted therapies.
Having participated in psychedelic work in both clinical and traditional ceremonial settings in the United States and internationally, Dr. Valeña advocates for safe, ethical, and responsible dialogue around psychedelic therapies.
As co-founder of Golden Hill Retreat Center and founder of the Entheogenic Practitioners Network (EPN), his mission is to help create meaningful collaboration among physicians, therapists, researchers, first responders, psychedelic facilitators, and traditional practitioners.
Host • Practitioner • Guide
Emergency Medicine Physician • Shamanic & Somatic Practitioner • Breathwork Facilitator
Dr. Stephanie Burgos is a board-certified Emergency Medicine physician whose work bridges modern medicine, nervous-system regulation, somatic practice, and sacred healing traditions.
Her years in emergency medicine have cultivated the ability to remain calm and discerning during medical, psychological, and emotional crises. Combined with her experience in shamanic, somatic, breathwork, and ceremonial practices, she brings a multidisciplinary perspective to psychedelic care.
Dr. Burgos will share practical insights into screening, risk assessment, medical contraindications, emergency recognition, and the discernment required when considering psycho-spiritual experiences alongside situations requiring professional medical or psychiatric intervention.
Host • Practitioner • Guide
Founder, Ancient Roots Alchemy • Trained First Responder • CPR/AED/First Aid Instructor • Advanced Master Herbalist • Trauma-Informed Practitioner
Valerie McKenzie brings more than a decade of experience across emergency response, medical, and holistic wellness environments, including more than six years supporting plant medicine ceremonies, breathwork, somatic practices, and integrative healing spaces.
Her work bridges practical emergency preparedness with trauma-informed and ceremonial approaches to care.
Valerie will provide practical tools for emergency response, early warning recognition, risk reduction, and safety protocols while emphasizing that effective emergency preparedness begins long before an emergency occurs.
Held by people. Supported by place. Activated through connection.