Welcome to
The Garden of Ease

I now live along the northern edge of an Azorean island in the midst of the mighty Atlantic. Change and contrast are the rule here. Cows graze peacefully amidst a pastoral landscape, while all around us the Living Earth’s energy pulses.

Far beneath us, three great tectonic plates — the North American, Eurasian, and African — meet and create intense geological forces. Old structures fracture. Magma rises through the fissures, forging new rock on the ocean floor. Up above, we enjoy days of idyllic calm, knowing that soon enough we will be invigorated by a thrashing storm, and possibly even a rumbling of the earth beneath our feet.

A powerful elemental energy rises inside me as I flow with life here. I feel vibrantly alive, consciously delighting in my moments, because I know everything is changing.

My basalt stone house is surrounded by a wild and whimsical garden. When I first saw it, the land was so overgrown I couldn’t even walk or see through it. But it called to me anyway; I had to have it.

There was a time when I would have battled to impose my idea of perfection here. I would have worried to the point of overwhelm about what wasn’t tidy or conventionally beautiful. But I’ve learned some things, and that’s just not me anymore.

Now, I allow myself to be delighted by whatever Nature delivers in each new season, without judgment. I observe where my favorite things like to grow, and I gently help them. My greatest contribution lies in removing some of what is in the way — I weed, I prune a bit — and then I rest while the buds bloom, the bees and butterflies flit, and the fruit forms.

My garden is in a constant state of becoming. I accept that it will always be perfectly imperfect, and that it will never be done.

I call it the Garden of Ease.

Deep within each of us lies another kind of garden. This is the secret garden of the mind. Here, thoughts grow and perceptions change, whether we want them to or not. Whether we tend to them or not.

The greatest accomplishment of my life has been learning to tend the garden of my mind. To weed out the noise. To hold serenity instead of stress. To choose allowing rather than annoyance. To do less and achieve more of what matters most.

The greatest gift of my life has been the opportunity to help others to do the same.

A garden does not become beautiful because it is controlled into perfection. It flourishes through attention, nourishment, patience, pruning, rest, and trust in the intelligence of life.

And so do we.

This is the Way of Ease.

Paradoxically, cultivating ease requires much less energy than remaining caught in our mental noise and habits of trying to control life. The energy we reclaim becomes available for everything that makes life worth living.

Many of us are so accustomed to the constant activity of our minds that we hardly notice how much of our energy it consumes. We rehearse conversations, second-guess decisions, anticipate problems, and feel responsible for people and circumstances far beyond our control. Learning to quiet this mental noise is liberating. We become less reactive and more emotionally resilient. Everything becomes easier.

We also waste enormous energy resisting life as it unfolds — wishing things were different, hating what has already happened, and struggling to control what we cannot. As we release this resistance, we discover the freedom to meet life as it is and respond with wisdom, creativity, and ease.

But this is only the beginning.

As our attention is freed from unnecessary mental activity and futile resistance, we become more available to life itself. We notice beauty that previously escaped us. We become more curious, creative, spontaneous, and open to possibility. We can love more freely, act more purposefully, and find delight in moments that once passed unnoticed.

This is what I want to share through the Garden of Ease.

A Transformational Retreat
in the
Garden of Ease

You may intellectually understand many of the ideas I teach and still find yourself returning to the same old thoughts, tensions, and reactions. You’re not alone. These are sticky habits that formed over a lifetime.

While a few hour-long coaching conversations can help, there is something wonderfully powerful about stepping completely outside of ordinary circumstances — away from the responsibilities, expectations, energies, and routines that reinforce familiar patterns — to fully explore and embody new energies and ways of being.

I’m delighted to invite you to join me for a private five-day, four-night
coaching and healing immersion at my island home.

Created for one guest (or two people who are pursuing a complementary growth path), each retreat is guided by what is present in your life now as you reach for more of what you wish to create in your future.

This is not a crowded group retreat or a tightly packed program. There is no rigid schedule through which you must hurry, and no single version of transformation you are expected to achieve.

We will follow a thoughtful structure, but also leave room for life to participate. Plans may change to follow a sudden insight, respond to the weather, explore a newly emerging desire, or make space for an emotion that is asking to be felt and understood.

Rather than reacting to an annoyance or change with frustration, you will practice meeting what arises and releasing any old habits of resistance. This flexibility is one of the essential capacities and gifts of Ease.

Throughout our time together, you will have opportunities to experience what it feels like to live with less internal struggle — to make choices without endless second-guessing, to meet uncertainty without immediately imagining the worst, to care about others without carrying responsibility for their happiness, and to rest without feeling that you should be doing something else.

As these habits loosen their grip, we will explore what becomes possible with the attention and energy they once consumed. What makes you feel alive? What wants to be expressed through you? What might you create, experience, or contribute if you were no longer so occupied with managing the minutiae of life?

We will strive for much more than a temporary feeling of relaxation. My intention is that you return home with a clearer understanding of your own inner garden — what has been growing, what no longer belongs, what needs your care, what is ready to flower — and the key tools you need to lovingly tend it.

This retreat is an invitation to step out of the noise long enough to hear yourself again. To experience Ease not as an escape from your life, but as a new way of inhabiting it.

Your Home During the Retreat

You will stay in The Nest, my lovingly restored stone house by the sea. You will have the home and garden to yourself in between our meals and activities. This gives you something rare: privacy, beauty, raw nature, and as much uninterrupted time and space as you need to listen to what is happening within you. You will have complete freedom to rest, write, wander, sleep, sit quietly, sing, dance—anything that allows what you are discovering to emerge and settle more deeply.

I will stay a few steps away in Periwinkle Cottage, close enough for your retreat to feel warmly hosted and personally held, while also protecting the solitude and integration time that are an essential part of the experience.

Rather than rigidly scheduled coaching and learning sessions, we will remain flexible. Some of your most important discoveries may occur over a shared meal, during a walk by the sea, while sitting together in the garden, or when a well-met challenge throws open a door to new possibilities.

Nature Joins the Conversation

Nature is all around us here, offering lessons and examples of her own.

You will be surrounded by the physical Garden of Ease—a living and continually evolving co-creation filled with flowers, fruits, trees, ferns, medicinal weeds, and abundant untamed corners still finding their form.

Beyond the garden, the island offers dramatic cedar forests, sweeping high pastures, volcanic landscapes, flowers in every season, bucolic farm animals, ever-changing skies, and the vast presence of the Atlantic.

You will find that the Living Earth’s energy you absorb here travels well. Once you feel it, you can’t unfeel it. It will always be waiting to recharge you at the bottom of your next breath.

Here’s what’s included:

  • 5-day/4-night stay at my home in the Azores

  • A private entrance to your garden-level bed and bath plus full use of the house

  • Simple, nourishing meals to suit your preferences

  • Confidential coaching and wisdom-sharing conversations

  • Self-healing instruction and practice

  • Transformative nature walks, forest bathing, and island explorations

  • Guided meditations that tap your creative superpower of imagination

  • Exploration of a deeper spiritual connection

  • A pre-retreat consultation to create a powerful personal intention

  • A follow-up coaching session to integrate learnings after your return home

  • Airport transfers and transportation during the retreat 

Optional treatments with a variety of excellent healing professionals on the island can be arranged separately.

Retreat fee for one person: 3,200 USD / 2,800 Euros* (for two people, add 50%)

* I want this experience to also be available to people who are ready to take full advantage, but who may not have the budget to match. If you feel drawn to come, let’s have an honest conversation about how we can make it possible. I offer a sliding scale. There are many ways to exchange value. :)

Please note:

For now, I am extending this invitation only to people who have been in my orbit for years. You know me. You know my work. Some of you have witnessed my whole journey. I would be delighted to share this deeply personal experience with you. You may also refer any like-minded people you believe would benefit.

I am also passionate about working with younger people (under 40) who will pass the lessons on to the next generation. I am absolutely certain that the world would be a better place if the principles I study and share were taught at home and in school. If you know of good candidates, please encourage them to reach out.

If something in these pages speaks to a longing within you, I invite you to get in touch. We can explore together whether the Garden of Ease is the right experience for you.

Send me a note at Sharon@masteryandme.com to start the conversation.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is this experience right for me?

Over the years, many of the people who have sought my help have been intelligent, capable, and outwardly successful, yet privately exhausted by their own minds.

They may struggle with catastrophizing, people-pleasing, compulsive problem-solving, analysis paralysis, difficulty resting, or the persistent feeling that they are responsible for everything.

You don’t need to be in crisis to benefit from this experience. You may simply sense that there is a richer, freer, more joyful way of living than the one you’ve become accustomed to.

What informs your approach?

Everything! From getting lost in the woods to finding myself in a sunrise. From learning about the second law of thermodynamics in engineering school, to the book I am reading now on how the gnostic principle of sacred masculine and sacred feminine energies can add grace to modern lives.

I am certified as a Life Coach, Addiction Recovery Coach, HeartMath Coach, Reiki Master/Teacher, Enneagram Teacher, and Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Teacher.

I draw from ancient spiritual wisdom traditions and from universal principles such as the Law of Attraction and the Hermetic Principles. I am also fascinated by developments in quantum physics and the questions they raise about the nature of reality.

I will share the practices, nutrients, and self-care rhythms that help me create greater peace, vitality, and inner steadiness in my own life.

But more importantly, I will show you how to discover the path and practices that work best for you, so that you can continue cultivating ease independently as your life unfolds.

Do you ever offer group retreats?

For now, I am drawn to create deeply personal one-on-one experiences as an antidote to an accelerating, increasingly divided, technology-flooded world. Rather than focusing on connections with others, this experience will employ breath, silence, and nature as tools for connecting to a higher wisdom within. This connection is the source of our true human power and unique to each individual.

The group sessions I imagine holding will be comprised of past clients and retreat guests who are enjoying lives of balance and ease. When we come together, we will celebrate our success and then shine our light outward to help the world.

If you would like me to facilitate a particular group in a location of your choosing, we can discuss it.

Are you flexible on the duration of the retreat?

The suggested five days and four nights offer three full days to settle into the rhythms of life here, with the first and last days partly devoted to travel and transition. This provides ample opportunity for us to discover and respond to what you need and want as you create a life of greater impact and ease. You will benefit from some time to integrate what you have learned before taking on more.

If you are passing through the Azores and would like to spend a few hours or a day together, I’d be happy to talk about that. 

If something in these pages speaks to a longing within you, I invite you to get in touch. We can explore together whether the Garden of Ease is right for you.

In any case, here is a link for you to see some photos of my new home. 💜

https://share.icloud.com/photos/0afU8qzv_YOQ1bn_k0jviK3Kg

Enjoy!