Pause with a Purpose Retreat
Pause with a Purpose Retreat
You Have Been Everything to Everyone.
Now It's Your Turn.
3 Nights. 4 Days. Byron Bay RETREAT
Led by a GP and a Clinical Psychologist who have lived it too.
A retreat for women in perimenopause & menopause
21 – 24 August · Villa Riad, Byron Bay · 18 Women Only
The Calling
There is a particular kind of exhaustion that comes from trying to hold everything together while your body, your hormones, and your emotions feel like they belong to someone else entirely.
You're not lazy. You're not weak. You're not losing your mind.
You are changing and almost nobody around you is telling you the truth about what that means, what's actually happening, or how to move through it with grace, knowledge, and your sense of self intact.
Dr Maria-Elena
"This is not a time of endings.
This is where you finally get to step into your power."
Pause with a Purpose is a 3-night luxury immersive retreat designed exclusively for women in perimenopause and menopause. It was created by two women who are both doctors and who have been exactly where you are in the consulting room seeing it every day, and in their own bodies living it.
This is not wellness tourism. This is the retreat that actually changes things.
Deposit $500
Today
Lanzarato-Canary Islands
May 9 - 11, 2025
The Calling
There is a particular kind of exhaustion that comes from trying to hold everything together while your body, your hormones, and your emotions feel like they belong to someone else entirely.
You're not lazy. You're not weak. You're not losing your mind.
You are changing and almost nobody around you is telling you the truth about what that means, what's actually happening, or how to move through it with grace, knowledge, and your sense of self intact.
Dr Maria-Elena
"This is not a time of endings. This is where you finally get to step into your power."
Pause with a Purpose is a 3-night luxury immersive retreat designed exclusively for women in perimenopause and menopause. It was created by two women who are both doctors and who have been exactly where you are in the consulting room seeing it every day, and in their own bodies living it.
This is not wellness tourism. This is the retreat that actually changes things.
The Venue
5 Luxury Suites · 3 Intimate Garden Villas · 2 Acres of Private Resort · Ewingsdale, NSW
Villa Riad, Byron Bay
Pulling off the road and arriving at Villa Riad, tucked into Ewingsdale just 10 minutes from the heart of Byron Bay, the effect is immediate calm.
Inspired by a traditional Moroccan riad, the property is enclosed and lush, subtropical gardens, trickling water features, and a series of suites within the main Gallery House alongside three larger private garden villas, all arranged around a fountain, fed magnesium mineral pool with a traditional hot rock sauna.
The aesthetic is white and natural timber alongside moody black and charcoal, Morocco by way of Bali and India. Everywhere you turn is a new discovery: outdoor stone baths beneath the open sky, hammocks in the gardens, sunloungers by the pool, bespoke furnishings that make every corner feel deeply considered.
Each villa and suite is a haven of understated luxury, creating harmony between indoor and outdoor living with curated interiors that celebrate texture, light, and the natural beauty of Byron Bay. Calming aromatics drift through every corner. Every room has its own private outdoor space.
For women who have spent years putting everyone else's comfort before their own, stepping through Villa Riad's distinctive oversized front door and being received by a space this beautiful is not a luxury add-on. It is the beginning of the healing.
From the restorative waters of the magnesium pool to the soothing heat of the hot rock sauna, to evenings in an outdoor stone bath beneath the Byron Bay sky, every moment here calls you to slow down, restore, and reconnect with yourself.
This is not a conference centre dressed up with a gong. This is one of the most coveted private resort properties in Australia, held exclusively for 18 women, for four days, for you.
Pulling off the road and arriving at Villa Riad, tucked into Ewingsdale just 10 minutes from the heart of Byron Bay, the effect is immediate calm.
Inspired by a traditional Moroccan riad, the property is enclosed and lush, subtropical gardens, trickling water features, and a series of suites within the main Gallery House alongside three larger private garden villas, all arranged around a fountain, fed magnesium mineral pool with a traditional hot rock sauna.
The aesthetic is white and natural timber alongside moody black and charcoal, Morocco by way of Bali and India. Everywhere you turn is a new discovery: outdoor stone baths beneath the open sky, hammocks in the gardens, sunloungers by the pool, bespoke furnishings that make every corner feel deeply considered.
Each villa and suite is a haven of understated luxury, creating harmony between indoor and outdoor living with curated interiors that celebrate texture, light, and the natural beauty of Byron Bay. Calming aromatics drift through every corner. Every room has its own private outdoor space.
For women who have spent years putting everyone else's comfort before their own, stepping through Villa Riad's distinctive oversized front door and being received by a space this beautiful is not a luxury add-on. It is the beginning of the healing.
From the restorative waters of the magnesium pool to the soothing heat of the hot rock sauna, to evenings in an outdoor stone bath beneath the Byron Bay sky, every moment here calls you to slow down, restore, and reconnect with yourself.
This is not a conference centre dressed up with a gong. This is one of the most coveted private resort properties in Australia, held exclusively for 18 women, for four days, for you.
Is This for You?
You are the woman who has done everything right.
You've researched. You've optimised your sleep routine, tried the supplements, Googled the symptoms at 2am, and pushed through the brain fog to show up for everyone who needed you. You are informed, capable, and quietly running on empty.
You are giving 200% to everyone else's 60 and blaming yourself when it still isn't enough.
The truth is: the right tools applied to the wrong targets will never work, no matter how hard you try. You don't need to do more. You need the right information, in the right space, with the right people beside you.
This retreat is for women aged 35–65 who are:
Navigating the symptoms of perimenopause or menopause, the exhaustion, the mood shifts, the weight changes, the hormonal confusion
Craving real, clinical answers from practitioners who understand women's health at a deep level, not influencer advice, not generic wellness content
Ready to finally prioritise themselves without guilt, and be held in a space of both luxury and genuine transformation
Ready to let go of the fears and insecurities that have quietly been running the show, the worry about what everyone else thinks, wants, or needs and finally turn that attention inward
Seeking stress tools that don't just patch things up in the moment, but actually target the root cause, so that calm, clarity and resilience become a way of life, not just a weekend feeling
Longing for a community of women who truly understand what this season of life feels like
If that is you — you are exactly who we created this retreat for.
The Itinerary
Four days. Four themes. One complete arc of transformation.
Every detail is thoughtfully curated so you can arrive, exhale, and experience true healing and renewal
- 4:00pm
~ Arrive
~ settle into your room, explore the Villa Riad estate - 4:15pm
~ Afternoon Tea - 4:30pm
~ Welcome & Opening Ceremony
~ facilities tour and housekeeping - 5:00pm
~ Yin Yoga & Sound Bath - 6:30pm
~ Dinner - 7:30pm
~ Fire Ceremony
~ From Resistance to Reverence
Available throughout your free time each day, fully self-directed:
Magnesium mineral pool · Hot rock sauna · Cold plunge · Guided & creative journalling · Forest bathing · 1:1 time with Dr Feingold and Dr Lukeides
What's Included
Everything You Need. Nothing You Don't.
3 nights luxury accommodation at Villa Riad, Byron Bay
All meals — breakfast, lunch and dinner, fully catered
Morning and afternoon tea daily · Tea and coffee throughout
Opening ceremony, fire ceremony and closing ceremony
Yin yoga and sound bath sessions
Pilates / Barre fusion movement classes
Transformational breathwork and energy healing
Meditation and guided insight practices
Six clinical workshops:
Understanding Hormones — Dr Natasha Feingold
Nutrition During Peri/menopause — Dr Natasha Feingold
Hormones & Your Brain — Dr Maria-Elena Lukeides
Let’s Talk About Sex, Baby: a medical perspective — Dr Natasha Feingold
How Exercise Needs to Change in Peri/menopause — Dr Maria-Elena Lukeides
Becoming the Goddess — closing integration, Dr Maria-Elena Lukeides
Breathwork techniques for hot flushes & nervous system regulation
1:1 time with the doctors during daily integration periods
Cacao ceremony and burning ritual
Sacred dance closing celebration
Take-home clinical resources
All exercise equipment and yoga mats provided
Access to magnesium pool, hot rock sauna and cold plunge throughout
WhatsApp group for pre-retreat connection and travel coordination
A note on our food: Every meal has been crafted to be high protein, microbiome-supportive and nervous system-calming — because during perimenopause and menopause, what you eat is not a lifestyle choice, it is medicine. You will leave not just nourished, but genuinely understanding how to feed yourself in this season of life. That knowledge comes home with you.
What's Not Included
Flights or travel to Villa Riad
Alcohol (we kindly ask that no alcohol be consumed during the retreat)
Personal spending money
Optional extras — massage or additional treatments which will be available to you
Meet Your Hosts
We Are Doctors. Not Influencers.
Dr Natasha Feingold — Women’s Health GP
Dr Natasha Feingold’s path into medicine began not in a lecture theatre, but in loss. When her mother died from ovarian cancer during Natasha’s teenage years, it left a profound absence — one that quietly shaped her life’s work. From that grief grew a deep, unwavering commitment: to care for women with both clinical excellence and genuine compassion.
Over years in practice, Natasha has walked alongside hundreds of women through the often confusing and confronting transitions of perimenopause and menopause. This is not only her professional world, but her personal one too — having experienced surgical menopause in her 30s, she understands these changes from the inside out. She brings together the precision of evidence-based medicine with the kind of warmth that allows even the most difficult conversations to feel safe, human, and held.
And when she tells a woman, “you are not broken,” it is not just reassurance — it is truth, backed by knowledge, experience, and a deep belief in the body’s capacity to adapt, heal, and be understood.
Dr Maria-Elena Lukeides — Clinical Psychologist · Breathwork Practitioner
Maria-Elena came to healing through her own experience of chaos, anxiety and hopelessness.
She knows what it feels like to walk on eggshells, to feel unsafe in your own life, to search desperately for solid ground. She found it through mindfulness and meditation — and that discovery shaped everything that followed.
She works at the intersection of neuroscience, compassion-focused therapy, breathwork, and spiritual wisdom, and has spent her career helping women find the quiet eye in the storm — that deep, steady place within themselves that no external circumstance can reach.
Dr Natasha Feingold — Women’s Health GP
Dr Natasha Feingold’s path into medicine began not in a lecture theatre, but in loss. When her mother died from ovarian cancer during Natasha’s teenage years, it left a profound absence — one that quietly shaped her life’s work. From that grief grew a deep, unwavering commitment: to care for women with both clinical excellence and genuine compassion.
Over years in practice, Natasha has walked alongside hundreds of women through the often confusing and confronting transitions of perimenopause and menopause. This is not only her professional world, but her personal one too — having experienced surgical menopause in her 30s, she understands these changes from the inside out. She brings together the precision of evidence-based medicine with the kind of warmth that allows even the most difficult conversations to feel safe, human, and held.
And when she tells a woman, “you are not broken,” it is not just reassurance — it is truth, backed by knowledge, experience, and a deep belief in the body’s capacity to adapt, heal, and be understood.
Dr Maria-Elena Lukeides — Clinical Psychologist · Breathwork Practitioner
Maria-Elena came to healing through her own experience of chaos, anxiety and hopelessness.
She knows what it feels like to walk on eggshells, to feel unsafe in your own life, to search desperately for solid ground. She found it through mindfulness and meditation — and that discovery shaped everything that followed.
She works at the intersection of neuroscience, compassion-focused therapy, breathwork, and spiritual wisdom, and has spent her career helping women find the quiet eye in the storm — that deep, steady place within themselves that no external circumstance can reach.
Together, Natasha and Maria-Elena offer something the wellness industry simply cannot replicate: clinical credibility, lived experience, and a profound commitment to your transformation.
What Women Are Saying
Margot
“I arrived completely stressed and exhausted from work and life. Within hours I felt myself relaxing into this magical space. The food was to die for, the pace felt soothing yet productive, and I gained real clarity about my future. Months later I’m still using the insights I wrote down. This retreat genuinely changed how I show up for myself.”
Natalie
“This retreat was a complete reset for my body, mind, and soul. The biggest shift was realising how many of us share the same fears and struggles — I no longer felt alone. I came away with real tools, deeper self-belief, and the knowledge that I’m far more resilient than I thought. If you need to invest in yourself, this is it.”
Julia
“The retreat gave me permission to be kinder to myself. I became so aware of how harshly I speak to myself, and I finally had the space and tools to pause that cycle. It was magical — beautiful surroundings, nourishing food, and the perfect mix of workshops and rest. I left feeling more patient with myself and genuinely refreshed.”
Ang
“Eleven out of ten. I finally gave myself the gift of real time and space. I left a lot of self-judgment behind and brought home compassion and patience for myself. The food was incredible, the pace was exactly what I needed each day, and being surrounded by like-minded women felt so safe and connecting. I would do this retreat every year if I could.”
Naya
“The retreat felt like a deep exhale. For the first time, someone explained my hormone fluctuations and symptoms in a way that finally made sense — it was both intuitive and practical. I realised how disconnected I’d become from my own body. The space, the nourishing food, and the honest conversations with other women left me feeling grounded, empowered, and reconnected with myself. This is for any woman ready to stop holding it all and start listening to herself again.”
Kim
“I arrived a little apprehensive, but from the moment Natasha welcomed me I felt completely at home. The knowledge I gained about menopause — safe treatment options, supplements, strength training, and what my body actually needs — was invaluable. The breathwork was transformational; I left feeling light, free from stress, and like my cup was full again. This retreat was educational, nurturing, relaxing and deeply healing. I would recommend it in a heartbeat.”
Your Investment
Choose Your Experience
Make it a girls weekend
Why not bring two of your friends!
$2,300
per person
Twin Shared Room
Twin singles shared
$2,997
per person
Twin Shared Room
Twin singles shared
$2,997
per person
Private room
For Personal Comfort
$3,800
per person
What to Bring
Journal and writing materials
Walking shoes and/or waterproof shoes
Comfortable exercise clothing
Warm layers and swimming costume
Raincoat, small torch, sunscreen, insect repellant
All exercise equipment and yoga mats are provided. We invite you to use technology minimally during your stay.
Getting Here
Villa Riad is located in Ewingsdale, just 10 minutes drive from central Byron Bay.
Ballina Byron Gateway Airport — approximately 30 minutes
Gold Coast Airport — approximately 45 minutes
We will set up a WhatsApp group prior to the retreat so you can coordinate arrival times and connect with fellow guests before you even arrive.
18 Women. Four Days. Everything Changes.
There are women who will read this page and think: yes, this is for me and then close the tab and go back to putting everyone else first.
We understand. We have been that woman.
But here is what we know after decades of clinical practice and our own personal journeys through this transition: the cost of not investing in yourself is higher than any investment you will make in this retreat.
You will not always feel this depleted. But you will need support, information, and community to move through this well. And the women in that room with you, 18 of you, held in one of Byron Bay's most extraordinary private estates, will be some of the most important people you ever meet.
Photo Gallery - Prior Retreats
Your Investment
Choose Your Experience
Deposit secures your place. Payment plans available — just ask us during your discovery call.
"This is not a time of endings.
This is where you finally get to step into your power."
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PAUSE WITH A PURPOSE
by Dr Natasha & Dr Maria-Elena
