Recovery & reclamation for women in midlife
A five-day retreat for women navigating menopause, recovery, and the question of who they're becoming next, held between forest and sea on Gabriola Island, BC.
Midlife arrives with more questions than answers. Sleep changes. Mood changes. Cravings, anxiety, and old coping patterns resurface, and most women are handed nothing but the expectation to push through.
We co-founded The Inside Work because we kept seeing the same story: women blamed for their biology, or pathologized for their pain, but rarely offered both truths at once. What's happening in your body matters. So does the story you've been carrying. Healing asks us to hold both.
The Inside Work is our answer, a place where women can explore their lives with curiosity, self-compassion, and courage.
What It Is
A five-day, clinically led, recovery retreat for women in peri- to post-menopause.
Hosted at The Healing Institute at Taylor Bay on Gabriola Island, The Inside Work brings together three dimensions of healing that are too often treated in isolation:
The Biology of Midlife
Understanding how hormonal transition shapes sleep, mood, stress tolerance, cravings, and emotional capacity - because when women understand what's happening in their bodies, shame begins to loosen its grip.
Integrated Medical & Clinical Care
Evidence-based, trauma-responsive psychotherapy and person-centred counselling adapted to the realities of midlife, led by an Obstetrician-Gynaecologist and clinicians with more than four decades of combined experience in women's health.
Identity & Shame Resilience
Exploring the stories, beliefs, and expectations that shape how women see themselves, grounded in Dr. Brené Brown's research and The Daring Way™ methodology.
Each day weaves together facilitated group sessions, clinical education, somatic and embodiment practices, guided reflection, creative expression, time in nature, and restorative experiences, including infrared sauna and cold plunge, all paced for rest and integration, not overwhelm.
Who It's For
You don't need a diagnosis. You need a map- and company for the road.
The Inside Work is for women who are questioning whether what they're experiencing is "normal." Women are drinking more than they'd like, struggling with food, body shame, burnout, anxiety, or perfectionism. Women coping through work, achievement, caretaking, or constant busyness. Women navigating relapse or recovery. Women who feel like strangers in their own bodies.
Recovery here is understood broadly, from substances, yes, but also from self-abandonment, people-pleasing, and the quiet erosion of a life spent meeting everyone's needs but your own.
Each cohort is intentionally small, a maximum of 15 women, because healing happens in community, and being witnessed is its own kind of medicine.
Details
Where: The Healing Institute at Taylor Bay, Gabriola Island, BC
Length: Five days (Sunday arrival, Saturday departure)
Cohort: Maximum 15 women
Investment: $8,500 CAD, all-inclusive
Includes: Accommodation, nourishing meals, all programming, infrared sauna, and cold plunge access
You've spent years being disciplined, productive, resilient, and in control. The Inside Work is an invitation to set that story down- and listen instead to what your body has been trying to tell you.You deserve to reclaim the parts of you that have been waiting to be called back home.
Register your interest at The Healing Institute
Meet the Team
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Bryn Meadows
Bryn Meadows is a Counsellor, with over twenty five years of experience walking alongside people through the messy, meaningful, and magical parts of being human.
Bryn created the Menopolooza movement because she believes menopause is not the end, it's a rite of passage. A wild, weird, and holy season where women get to reclaim themselves, rewrite the script. Her work is trauma-informed, body-celebrating, and deeply rooted in compassion, with a healthy dose of humour. With a Master's degree in Healthcare Leadership and 25 years in the mental health field, Bryn brings clinical expertise and compassion to her work. She is a Registered Master Practitioner in Clinical Counselling (MPCC) and a Certified Daring Way™ Facilitator–Clinician (CDWF), trained in the transformational methodology based on Dr. Brené Brown's research on vulnerability, shame, and courage.
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Dr. Tracy Rodgers
Dr. Tracy is an Obstetrician-Gynaecologist, surgeon, and educator with over twenty five years of clinical experience in women's health across the lifespan. Her approach to care is integrative and multi-tiered- addressing hormones, nutrition, lifestyle, and emotional wellness to meet each woman where she is. Known for translating complex medical science into clear, accessible language without losing warmth or clinical rigour, Dr. Tracy brings both precision and deep compassion to her work with women navigating perimenopause, menopause, and midlife transition. She is the co-founder of Menopolooza, a movement dedicated to transforming the conversation around midlife and women's health, and a sought-after speaker on hormonal health, surgical care, and the systemic gaps that leave women underserved. Dr. Tracy is committed to a future where midlife women don't just survive- they thrive, with clarity, dignity, and joy.
“You must take personal responsibility. You cannot change the circumstances, the seasons, or the wind, but you can change yourself. That is something you have charge of.”