Retreat Summary
You know the thing.
Maybe it’s the marriage you stopped examining a long time ago. Maybe it’s a relationship that quietly stopped fitting years back. Maybe it’s the career that pays for everything except the one thing it’s costing you. Whatever it is, you built your whole life around it, and around it, and around it, until working around it just became how you live.
That’s not weakness. That’s what women do. We get good at managing the “thing” so it doesn’t have to change.
Breaking Ground isn’t about tearing your life down.
It’s a retreat to stop managing it and start looking at it straight on. To ask who actually designed the life you’re living, and whether it was you.
You’ll leave with more than a feeling. You’ll leave with a plan you can actually start.
Who This Retreat Is For
If any of this sounds familiar, you're exactly who this was built for.
Something Feels Off
You know something in your life is out of alignment, and you've gotten very good at working around it.
The Truth You Avoid
There's a marriage, a relationship, or a career you've never let yourself fully look at.
Rules You Never Chose
You've been following rules you took on so young, you never thought to question them.
Tired of Pretending
You're tired of giving the polite answer when someone asks how you're doing.
Build What’s Yours
You're ready to stop managing it and start building something that's actually yours.
You don’t need to have it figured out. You don’t even need to know what “it” is yet. You just need to be honest that something isn’t holding the way you’ve been treating it.
Meet Betsy Pake
I spent years in the exact spin my clients describe to me now — weighing pros and cons, waiting for something to get better, quietly wondering if I was wasting my life. I lived through the bravery of leaving, the hope of trying again, and eventually the clarity to know that chapter was over.
That’s not a story about marriage. It’s a story about finally looking straight at the thing you’ve built your life around, instead of managing your way past it forever.
I’m Betsy Pake; coach, speaker, and writer with over 12 years helping women stop spinning and start moving. As a certified master coach, I use trauma-informed, neuroscience-based tools to help women get honest about what’s actually true in their marriages, relationships, and the lives they’ve quietly outgrown. I created the Navigate Method to be the process I wish I’d had — a way to trust yourself again and know the truth, whatever it turns out to be. I host the weekly podcast The Art of Living Big and wrote Start Small, Live Big.
I never tell women what to do. I help them get clear enough to trust their own answer.
What You'll Experience
Four days built around one throughline: seeing what's actually true and turning it into something you can act on.
Daily Sessions
Morning and evening sessions each day, led by Betsy
Guided Breathwork
An hour of guided breathwork to move what the day brings up
Space to Reflect
Space to journal, sit with what surfaces, and let it land
Shared Meals
Shared Meals — Meals with a small group of women doing the same work — no performing required
Real Rest
Time to actually rest. This isn't a retreat that runs you into the ground to prove a point
What You Will Walk Away With
- An honest name for the thing you’ve been building your life around
- Clarity on whose rules you’ve actually been living by
- What you want, past the polite answer
- A real first step you can act on the day you land
- Proof you can look straight at your life and not fall apart
- A small group of women who watched you tell the truth, and told theirs too
You didn’t come here to blow anything up. You came here to find out what you’d build if the plans were finally in your own hands.
Itinerary
DAY 1
| Morning | What You've Already Built An honest look at the life you're living right now. No fixing yet. Just an accurate account of where you actually stand. |
| Night | The Thing You Think You Can't Change The one you've built everything else around. We name it. Out loud. |
DAY 2
| Morning | Whose Rules Are You Following The expectations you took on so young you never thought to question them — and where they're still quietly running the show. |
| Night | Breathwork An hour to move what the day brought up. Nothing to say here. Just space to process in the body what the morning surfaced in the mind. |
DAY 3
| Morning | Past the Polite Answer What you actually want, underneath the version you've been trained to give. |
| Night | Make It Real Turning it into something you could start on the second you get home. |
Your Venue Destination
Zel Punta Cana, Dominican Republic
Set right on Bávaro Beach in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic, Zel is a Meliá property built in partnership with Rafa Nadal — Mediterranean-inspired, beachfront, and all-inclusive, so nothing about your stay requires a decision.
- All-inclusive suites steps from the sand
- Beachfront pools, spa, and quiet corners for solitude
- Space for both connection and time alone
- Everything handled, so your only job here is the work
Somewhere you can finally stop saying “fine” and find out what’s actually true.
Retreat Inclusions & Booking Details
Pricing includes all-inclusive accommodations at Zel Punta Cana, all workshop sessions, breathwork, and meals for the three-day retreat. A non-refundable deposit of $750 holds your spot, with the balance due 30 Days before the retreat. Flights and travel to Punta Cana are not included.
The first ten people to sign up will receive:
$400 off – use code VIP
VIP swag bag
Private 30-minute complimentary prep call with Betsy
- Single Occupancy Pricing VIP
-
$
3,449$ 3,049--
with code VIP -
- All Workshops with Betsy
- All Accommodations + Meals
- Non-alcoholic Drinks
- Sound Healing and Yoga Sessions
- Double Occupancy Pricing VIP
-
$
2,849$ 2,449--
with code VIP -
- All Workshops with Betsy
- All Accommodations + Meals
- Non-alcoholic Drinks
- Sound Healing and Yoga Sessions