Reconnect, Rewire, and Remember Who You Are
Next Retreat: 2026 dates TBC
Early Bird: From $1350 USD
Regular: From $1700 USD
What is
The Simple Retreat?
Curated and hosted by Mary Bugg, this retreat is a 5-day immersion into nature, stillness and your own nervous system. Through daily neuroscience-informed practices, mindful rituals, guided rest, movement and connection, you’ll gently shed what’s not needed — and come home to yourself.
No fixing. No pressure. Just space.
What's Included:
-
5 days/4 nights’ boutique accommodation surrounded by nature
-
3 nourishing meals, teas & treats each day
-
Optional daily yoga + meditation & breathwork in our exclusive bamboo shala
-
Traditional Balinese purification ceremony
-
Mary's gentle, expert guidance and grounded neuroscience support
-
Real and sustainable strategies for a complete central nervous system reset
-
Certified CPD with a global accreditation board
-
Follow up support & integration
A typical day in the life of The Simple Retreat...
-
Early Optional quiet yoga & meditation or simply coffee and birdsong
-
9:30 - Slow breakfast together
-
10:00 -‘Neuroscience lab’ (posture, breath, intention in action) or cultural outing
-
13:00 - Lunch
-
After lunch….Space — read, nap, swim, journal, massage, wander
-
17:00 - Slow sunset movement / breath practice
-
18:15 - Dinner & light conversation prompts
-
19:30 - Wind down. Time together to check in.
Options to add, massage, private time with a balinese healer,
Nothing is compulsory. You choose what you feel you need.
Each day is set up not to keep you busy, but to give you room to actually feel what’s going on. There’s a feeling of being in nature helps your system settle: slow, quiet mornings, focused sessions that don’t overload you, and enough space in between to breathe.
You’ll notice things start to feel different in small, surprising ways. A sentence that suddenly makes sense. A moment of stillness that feels comfortable instead of strained. A conversation that is natural and not forced. It’s not dramatic, but it’s real. This retreat isn’t just about what you do, it’s about how you feel as you do it.
Location
Shanti Boutique Retreat sits quietly in a lush pocket of Tabanan, where rice fields ripple in the breeze and the sky feels just a little wider. The moment you arrive, something in you exhales. It’s not showy or curated—it’s thoughtful, natural, and deeply calming.
Mornings begin with warm light and the sound of birds in the trees, fresh coffee in hand as the day unfolds gently. There’s space to wander barefoot, journal under a tree, or sit quietly without interruption. The staff greet you by name, always present but never intrusive—like they know what you need before you do.
We have the whole facility to ourselves, just us to enjoy, relax and connect. The open-air shala holds both stillness and movement with ease, and meals are shared in a space that feels more like a family kitchen than a retreat centre.
Everything here has been considered—but nothing is forced. Shanti feels like somewhere you’ve always known, even if it’s your first time. It holds you while you rest, reset, and reconnect—with yourself, and with what matters.
Accomodation
We can pair guests if you choose to travel solo.
Come with a friend to deepen your relationship and share the experience. Sharing spaces allows you to deepen connection and community (companionship you didn’t know you needed); offer nervous-system co‑regulation — we settle faster in safe company; and keep costs sensible so investment sits in the experience, not a marble bathtub
Prefer your own space?
We get it—some people unwind best with extra quiet, or need time alone to process what’s shifting. A limited number of single supplements are available for exactly that reason. Just let us know what supports you best.
Food
Home-made, fresh, and organic where possible—each meal is prepared with care and served with a sense of family. The kitchen caters to all dietary needs without fuss, and there’s a quiet generosity in how it’s all presented: colourful plates, proper coffee, herbal teas, snacks always nearby, and breakfast waffles that have quietly become legendary.
But the real magic happens around the table.
We sit together—not because we have to, but because we want to. In sharing food, the group begins to soften. Stories come out over shared condiments. We notice what’s on each other’s plates, pass things around, and let go of the idea that we have to perform wellness or get it “right.” No one counts anything here. No one skips dessert. We nourish in every sense.
In that simple act—eating side by side—we become something like family. The intimacy lands quickly, and conversations open up that would normally take weeks to reach. Laughter happens. Silence feels safe. And the fear of being judged or misunderstood quietly dissolves.
Food, in this space, becomes more than nutrition. It becomes connection, safety, and shared ease.
Our Method
Breath
Breath is one of the simplest tools we have and one of the most powerful. How you breathe sends constant updates to your brain about what’s going on: Are you safe, stressed, rushed, relaxed. And the best part? You can change the message in real time.
We’ll show you how small shifts in pace and placement—like lengthening your exhale or breathing low and slow into the belly—can calm your chemistry fast. These changes affect blood gases, heart rate variability, and how easily you can access the part of your brain responsible for focus, language, and decision-making (your prefrontal cortex).
In The Simple Method, breath becomes a kind of shortcut. You’ll learn how to use it to come back to yourself in the middle of the day, between back-to-back meetings, or even in the car. No breath-holding marathons, no complicated techniques—just science-backed breath tools you’ll actually use.
Move
How you hold yourself isn’t just about looking put together—it’s one of the fastest ways to talk to your brain. When the body shifts out of tension and into support, your nervous system gets the message: you’re safe. It’s subtle but powerful.
In this retreat, we explore how small adjustments can shift your entire internal state. We use movement not as a workout, but as a way to send calm signals up through the fascia, muscles, and into the vagus nerve. That’s where the real reset begins.
This part of The Simple Method is about learning how to move for clarity, not performance. Gentle, intentional, repeatable. Movement that feels good and does good.
Reflect
Your brain is constantly scanning, filtering, reacting. Without direction, it defaults to old patterns and mental noise. But when you give it a clear signal such as a simple intention it knows where to go.
This is where the reflect part of The Simple Method comes in. It’s not about big revelations or deep analysis. It’s about a tiny pause that helps you reset focus and reconnect to what matters.
It might look like making a list, setting a simple intention before your day starts, writing down one thing you’re grateful for, or getting something out of your head and onto paper. These small, deliberate acts help lighten cognitive load, clear emotional clutter, and create space for new responses—especially in moments where you’d usually go on autopilot.
It’s not a performance. It’s a pattern interrupt. One that shifts how you meet the next moment.
About Mary
Long story short: I spent 25 years in the British film industry, where “take a pill and push on” passed for wellness. Four a.m. call times, 16‑hour days, two kids and a husband in aviation, I ran on adrenaline and logistics until my body called time.
Retraining as a neuromuscular therapist and yoga educator gave me the anatomy and neuroscience I’d been missing. These days I’m a nervous-system nerd—but a practical one. If a tool can’t fit between emails or on a school run, I won’t teach it. No gurus, no glitter—just what works.
This is my second career, which means I get it—I really do. I’ve walked in a lot of shoes. That life experience isn’t something I separate from my work; it’s what makes the tools I share feel human, not clinical. I believe education matters, but lived experience helps us apply it. Mine’s been quite a journey—and I use the gratitude it’s given me to fuel my love for helping others make meaningful change.
I’ve taught hundreds of clients and students, led retreats, facilitated workshops, and supported women through everything from corporate burnout to real-life reinventions. I’ve worked in boardrooms, community centres, and beach shalas—and I’ve seen what can happen when people feel truly supported.
A big part of how I work has been shaped by my inner circle of women in Spain. We’ve laughed, cried, raised children, and held each other through everything. That group showed me—deeply—what it feels like to be understood without explanation. That feeling of safety, friendship, and strength is what I bring to every space I hold.
I live in Doha, spend part of the year in Bali, and sneak away to my home in Spain whenever I can for long swims and slow mornings. I love proper tea, a shared meal, a bit of reality TV, and that quiet moment when someone realises their shoulders just dropped an inch. I still get busy‑brain and tight jaws—I just know what to do with them now.
If we work together, expect straight talk, plenty of curiosity, and zero intimidation. It’s a conversation, not an audition.
