Root & Rise
Breathwork & Psychology Retreat
17-21 June in Alentejo, Portugal
Join us today & get your 100€ early bird discount.
LIMITED places
You’re invited into an authentic human journey that transforms you here, and stays with you long after you return home.
Your breath is a powerful channel to your nervous system, one you can consciously regulate. You can’t control how your heart beats or how your digestion works, but you can guide your breath. And when you do, your body softens, your mind clears, and you feel balanced and anchored. That’s why, at the Root & Rise wellbeing retreat in Portugal, your breath is at the heart of everything you experience.
Here, you will (re)connect, rest, reflect, evolve, and genuinely enjoy your days. You’ll receive the transformative power of 1:1 psychology guidance, combined with the healing energy of breathwork, somatic practices, journaling, delicious food, nature, and meaningful community. All held in the golden Costa Vicentina, only 1h20 from Lisbon.
What makes this retreat special is how it brings together Eastern and Western tools in a truly holistic way, supporting your nervous system, emotional resilience, and deeper mind–body connection. Whether you’re here to pause, to shift what no longer feels aligned, or to explore a new way of living, this retreat is for you.
Come tired, unclear, or overwhelmed. Or come ready for slow, peaceful days in beautiful Portugal. You’ll leave feeling clear, supported, alive, and reconnected to yourself.
Don't miss it. This retreat is always fully booked.
17-21 June 2026
Monte das Casolas, Alentejo, Portugal -
only 1h20min from Lisbon
Scroll down for pricing & room options

Reviews
The transformation you’ll feel, and keep
Experience precious days that you’ll love & remember forever.
Deepen your connection to your body, mind, breath, and emotional landscape.
Feel more present, calm, energized & ignite your spiritual element.
Learn to use your breath to regulate your nervous system.
Take home simple, powerful tools to shift how you show up in your everyday life.
Be held in precious group where you feel safe
Guided by Experienced Facilitators
Everyone loved Root & Rise, so we brought it back. This collaboration is special to us and designed to support you deeply. Leonor and Inês have been working together for years. Leonor holds the mental and emotional process, while Inês guides the body through breathwork and somatics. Guests often share how safe they feel with this combination, knowing they are supported on both the mind and body level throughout the journey, allowing them to fully let go, heal and receive.
Leonor Pinheiro
Psychology Wellbeing Guide
Leonor is the founder of myalfazema and a facilitator devoted to inner work, emotional awareness, and grounded transformation. She holds a degree in Psychology from the University of Amsterdam, specialising in Social Psychology, with studies in emotion, motivation, and behaviour change. She continues to explore how we create meaning in our lives, and how through that process, we come home to ourselves and contribute to society. Clients describe Leonor’s sessions as deeply supportive and attuned, leaving with greater clarity and confidence, having released emotional blocks, feeling calmer, and reconnected with themselves in a meaningful way.
Over the years, her path has taken her through more than 50 countries and six universities, learning from diverse cultures, spiritual traditions, and teachers. Her work weaves together science and spirituality, structure and intuition.
Before creating myalfazema, Leonor also studied Economics & Communications and worked in corporate environments, an experience that gave her a deep understanding of high-pressure, fast-paced professional life, along with a grounded structure she continues to value in her work today.
Leonor does not believe in quick fixes or shortcuts to happiness, but in honest reflection, consistency, inner strength, and lasting, embodied change.
During the retreat, Leonor curates the overall flow of the experience and facilitates a dedicated session blending psychological insight, spiritual practice, and the philosophy of Wabi-Sabi. The retreat also includes two 1on1 wellbeing sessions with Leonor, one before and one after the retreat.
Above all, this is a shared journey. Leonor creates spaces where people feel safe to slow down, soften, and reconnect with what truly matters. And each person brings something unique to the space, so together we co-create a transformative retreat experience.
Ines Aguiar
Breathwork & Somatics Teacher
Inês has been a breathwork and somatic practitioner for many years. She has studied and deepened her holistic practice around the world, working in the field of trauma and embodiment, especially in Koh Phangan, Thailand. This year, she is bringing her work to myalfazema retreats Portugal once again. Her holistic approach supports nervous system regulation, emotional expression, and embodied integration through the breath, helping people not only have a powerful retreat experience but also carry the tools home with confidence.
Guests always love her sessions and the way she makes breathwork and somatic practices feel accessible, grounded, and easy to bring back into daily life, which is why we’ve invited her to return.With a deep commitment to presence and safety, she creates spaces where people can meet themselves with honesty and care, unraveling old patterns, reconnecting to aliveness, and restoring trust in the body.
During the retreat, Inês will guide breathwork, Somatic Practice, intuitive journaling, mindfulness practices, and teach foundational tools for regulating the nervous system, offering an embodied path toward inner clarity, emotional release, and a deeper sense of connection with oneself.
Your Wellbeing Retreat Journey, Step by Step
Our intention is to guide you to use your breath as a tool to regulate your nervous system, explore the depths of your being, reconnect with your core, and unlock the power within. Here, you’ll rest, turn inward, receive individual sessions, embrace spiritual practices, and reconnect with your heart. Because last year’s edition was so loved and deeply transformative, we felt called to bring it back so you can experience its magic as well.
- A simple questionnaire will be sent to get to know you better and understand any important health details.
- An online 1:1 intro session with Leonor (psychology-led guidance) to share what’s unfolding in your life, what you’re carrying, and what you’re seeking.
- The retreat schedule will be shared. We do keep things punctual and we love structure, as it brings freedom and peace, but we also keep it flexible and adapt to the weather, the universe, and the energy of the group.
- Everything is optional: your retreat, your flow.
You’ll wake up in the beautiful Portuguese countryside, take your time, and meet us at the shala for a morning movement practice. Each day is a bit different, and the rhythm unfolds into peace, openness, fun, and expansion — a journey back to yourself that empowers you from within.
Throughout the 5 days, you will:
- Experience and learn breathwork, somatic, and movement practices.
- Some of the methods we may explore include: coherent breathing, 4-7-8 breathing, Nadi Shodhana, Kapalabhati, box breathing, somatic anchoring, somatic shaking, EFT tapping, mindful walking, heart-opening, and intuitive or reflective journaling.
- Join workshops, talks, and sharing circles to explore psychology, breathwork and the nervous system, embodiment, transformation, and Q&A in community.
- Explore our signature myGuidebook, with prompts and practices from psychology, breathwork, and journaling to enhance your human experience on Earth.
- Optional time with Leonor to deepen your personal psychology process.
- Enjoy plenty of free time and integration, whether walking in nature, reading by one of the pools, driving to the beach, journaling under a tree, or resting in silence. Integration happens not only in sessions but also in the stillness between them.
- End each day with sunset, a nourishing dinner, and candlelit night reflections.
Your experience does not end here. What you discover on retreat is meant to come with you. The tools and practices you explore are simple, sustainable, and designed to support you long after you leave, shaping how you move through your days, your relationships, and your life.
- A few weeks later: a 1:1 integration session with Leonor to reflect, anchor insights, and create a clear path forward.
- The signature myGuidebook includes a variety of breathwork practices along with psychological guidance and exercises, helping you continue your inner work at home and fly solo.
- Questions or support are welcome anytime — you are now part of the myalfazema community.
Please note that this retreat is not a substitute for medical or psychological advice, evaluation, or treatment. Each participant is responsible for ensuring that they are fit and adequately prepared to participate in the retreat.
Savour a delicious plant-based gastronomic experience
Chef Sophie
In our kitchen, everything begins with a deep respect for nature. We follow the seasons, cook with simplicity, and believe that food should nourish more than the body. It should also care for the planet and support the people and land around us.
We choose vegetarian cooking because it invites creativity. There is endless inspiration in flavor, texture, and color when you work closely with plants.
We try to waste nothing. Every ingredient is used with care and intention. Many things are made from scratch. Jams, bread, granola, slow-cooked beans - all prepared slowly and with love, right in our kitchen.
We avoid processed foods and focus on ingredients that are whole, seasonal, and local. Our fruits and vegetables are grown nearby and soon will come from our own garden. They are served in season, always in rhythm with nature.
You won’t find refined sugar or industrial oils in our kitchen. We sweeten gently, using honey, maple, rice or date syrup, and fruit purées - always in small amounts. For cooking, we rely almost entirely on extra virgin olive oil. Now and then we use coconut oil too.
We also return to older ways of preparing food. We ferment, we pickle, we make our own kefir. These foods support gut health and bring something alive to every plate.
We season with fresh herbs and spices. We pay attention to flavor. And we love to bring in color, because nature gives us so much of it. A vibrant plate is a celebration of life, nourishing and inspiring at the same time.
Even what we don’t use is cared for. All our food scraps are composted and returned to the soil, closing the loop and giving back to the earth that gives us so much.
What we serve is honest, unhurried, and deeply connected to the land. A joyful expression of what’s real, seasonal, and made with love.

Enjoy your days in a peaceful paradise immersed in silent nature

Monte das Casolas, Grandola, Portugal
We visited many venues before finding the one that felt just right for Root & Rise. We chose this place for its peaceful setting in Alentejo, just over an hour from Lisbon and driving distance to some ofPortugal’s most beautiful beaches. Praia da Galé is my personal favorite.Monte das Casolas is more than a venue, it’s a peaceful sanctuary where you can reconnect with nature, slow down, and live with more purpose. The perfect spot for Root & Rise.
At Monte das Casolas, we believe in living with harmony and balance, caring for your well-being, staying curious, and opening up to new passions, while returning to simple ways of living, staying close to nature, and honoring traditions in farming, food, and craft that have been passed down through generations.
Sustainability is part of everyday life here. We reduce waste, reuse what we can, and grow organic food right on the land. We also create probiotic and other natural products that support a healthier way of living.
Root & Rise is about coming back to yourself. Feeling grounded in the here and now, and from there, stepping into something new with clarity and strength. This is the place for that. A space where you can feel inspired and in tune with what really matters to you. That feeling doesn’t just come from the retreat itself. It’s part of the land, the people, and the rhythm of life here. That’s why this place felt like the right home for Root & Rise.
Our retreaters wanted to come for something different,
that is why Root & Rise was born. This is the 2nd edition.
Root & Rise Retreat is the natural evolution of myalfazema, created in response to guests’ wish to return and explore deeper practices. It’s shaped by five years of experience, hundreds of participants, and everything we’ve learned throughout this journey.
Everything that’s included:
- 4 nights, all-inclusive, at Monte das Casolas
- 3 daily plant-based meals by Chef Sophie
- 1:1 psychology wellbeing sessions with Leonor
- Breathwork Sessions
- Somatic Practice Sessions
- Journaling Sessions
- Intuitive Movement Sessions
- Talk: Regulating the Nervous System
- myGuidebook: includes the Root & Rise journey, journaling prompts, and includes both the practical and theoretical sides of breathwork and psychology – so you can keep the journey unfolding, and feel supported even when you’re back home.
- Yoga props (mats, bolsters, blocks, blankets)
- 20€ donation from your registration fee to a wellbeing
- And everything else that will flow into this experience…!
Your investment goes beyond joining the retreat
Curated with love, this retreat is an investment that goes beyond just joining. It's an investment in your health, happiness, and future.
You can book directly with us via bank transfer (just reach out using the form below)
or use online payment by clicking the button.
Shared Room
Perfect if you’re coming solo and open to sharing with 1-2 people in a large room with its own bathroom.
920€ 820€
PER PERSON
Private Group Room - bring someone with you
Ideal if you’re coming with your partner, friend, or family member and want to share a private room with your own bathroom - double or single beds.
890€ 790€
PER PERSON
Private Individual Room
Perfect if you want full privacy, your own space, and a private bathroom to rest and recharge.
1290€ 1190€
PER PERSON
I will come back for more!
I highly recommend making the choice and signing up.
We are made of small points that touch each other and give us a loving structure. In this cocoon where we lived for five days, perhaps we felt that these points expand and touch so many others — returning us to another place within ourselves.
Our structure enriches, the brightness appears, and perhaps illuminates some shadows — opening paths. And a soft, playful breeze whispers in our ear...
I love you.
I would recommend this retreat for anyone willing to reconnect with themselves gently.
A magical place, where I had the chance to meet fantastic people from all around the world. We shared relaxation, compassion, peace, and emotions in the most natural and authentic way.
Leonor and Filippa were just great at creating this atmosphere ♥️☀️
The retreat offered a wonderful program with yoga, other activities, and also enough time for yourself — allowing you to gain insights, new energy, and fresh perspectives, and to get closer to your true self.
It was incredible to share this with so many lively people!
Also, the fresh plant-based food was something to look forward to — and to remember.
The only thing is... I wish it wasn’t over yet!
Looking for a place to rest, reconnect and grow?
This is it!
Simply provide your details below to get more info, secure your spot, or get a gift voucher. Leo will guide you every step of the way.
Please check if you got a confirmation email that your message was sent. If not, please contact us directly at leonor@myalfazema.com.
Looking forward to talking to you!
A retreat is not, and will never be, a magic potion for happiness.
Yet this experience can be the beginning of something deeper - a meaningful step toward a more peaceful, grounded life.
FAQs
Please let us know if you do not find what you are looking for.
Our team is here to help you.
Payment plan:
- Your spot will be confirmed after payment of a 200€ deposit
- The remaining amount is to be settled until one month after the deposit has been paid
- We can adjust the payment plan according to your needs. If needed, we can divide the payment into 3 or more installments. Please contact us so we can discuss your options
Don’t let anything stand in the way of your dream retreat in Portugal.
Getting to Monte das Casolas is easy!
By Bus: From Lisbon, take a 1-hour bus to Grândola. From there, it’s just a 15-minute Uber or taxi ride to the retreat center.
By Uber (or car share): You can take an Uber directly from Lisbon to Monte das Casolas. It’s very convenient, and if you’re arriving around the same time as other retreaters, you can share the ride! We’ll create a WhatsApp group beforehand so you can coordinate.
By Car: Driving yourself? No problem — we have private parking available.
28 October: Room Check-in from 3.30pm. The retreat is set to begin at 5.30 pm.
1 November: The retreat wraps up by 12 leaving you with a heart full of memories and a soul ready to flourish.
No worries! We’ll be sending out a questionnaire to learn more about you so that we can provide you with alternatives. Amabile is highly skilled.
However, if you have any major or life-threatening allergies, please let us know before signing up so we can confirm that we can accommodate them.
The retreat schedule will be shared. We do keep things punctual and we love structure, as it brings freedom and peace, but we also keep it flexible and adapt to the weather, the universe, and the energy of the group.
Everything is optional: your retreat, your flow.
It is your responsibility to organize suitable travel and health insurance. myalfazema will not hold liable if your failure to arrange suitable insurance coverage leaves you exposed, medically, financially, or otherwise. myalfazema and its partners are not liable for any injuries, damages, or losses incurred by participants before, during or after the retreat.
Please check our T&C to know all the details about the cancellation policy. By enrolling in a myalfazema retreat, you are automatically agreeing to the terms and conditions.
https://myalfazema.com/terms/
The first thing to do is to secure your spot in this epic retreat before it's all booked up. Don't miss out like many guests who no longer could secure a spot in our last retreat! Once you've secured your spot, go ahead and book your flight or other transportation. Let's embark on this journey together 🙂
The Heart of Root & Rise
Root & Rise is not a sprint toward transformation. It is a step-by-step wellbeing journey, an invitation to turn inward to meet both light and shadow. This breathwork retreat in Portugal is about returning to yourself by rooting first. Like the trees in autumn, we begin by letting go. We release stress and what no longer serves, making space to rest, recharge, and remember who we are beneath the noise.
Rooting means honoring where you come from, accepting what is, and embracing the present moment. It is coming home to the Earth beneath your feet, to the rhythm of your breath, grounded in your body and the wisdom of your inner world. And from that grounded place, we rise - by remembering that energy and expansion do not come from force but from flow, by softening and being authentic, by allowing healing and clarity to move freely.
Rising is about stepping into life with presence, balance, and inner power. Simplifying. Aligning. It is about reconnecting with your intuition, your creativity, and your truth. It is about allowing those parts of you to take up space within your existence, leaving burnout behind and stepping into a more energized way of being.
Autumn teaches us that growth and letting go are inseparable. So to Root & Rise in autumn means to be in tune with the cycles of nature. To own your presence within it. It is the inner spark glowing brighter as the days grow shorter, a reminder that even in transition, healing and renewal are possible.
And while this is a deep and transformative experience, it is also one of joy. We will laugh. We will share stories. Life is not meant to be taken too seriously, right? Let’s enjoy the ride, fully human, fully alive, fully in balance.
