Testimonials for Private Retreats

For Group retreat testimonials please click here.

Zuzia Blach - UK (Private Retreat participant)

This was the last resort for me so I came with an open mind. It went beyond all my expectations. I have found out more about myself in 6 day here than after 2 years of therapy. I recommend the Yossum private retreat to anyone who is in search of something more from life or simply wants to learn to 'be'.

Beverley Scott – UK ( Private Retreat participant)

Kali, your work is amazing! You have helped me see clearly and I definitely feel I now have the tools to find out who I am and to start being it. It is a turning point in my life, a point of understanding I have been searching for, not only practically but spiritually too. Thank you. Love,

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Leonie Cornelius- UK (Private Retreat participant)

Dearest Kali,

Rarely in life do so many people have the good fortune, or maybe allow themselves the good fortune, to encounter the experience that both you and I have given myself this week.

Your warmth and encouragement have given me so much support and although I know not to expect vast and sudden shifts to happen overnight, I feel as if I now have an understanding of where the starting point is to move forwards from.

I am certain that your guidance and friendship will play a very important role in my life for sometime to come and I look forward to every future encounter we will have, either by telephone, in person or in my mind.

Thank you so very much for sharing your knowledge with not only me but also everyone that chooses this path. Take good care of yourself. Love always.

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Laura Lakanen - Canada (Private Retreat participant)

Obviously before I’d ever searched on the internet for help dealing with anxiety and depression I’d heard, seen, and read about how yoga and meditation were helpful for relaxation, letting go of stress, and improving health.  I’d seen the posters in my doctor’s office advertising prescriptions for healthy living as caring for your body, mind, and spirit.  I’d been informed that balance equals wellness.  Or maybe it was that wellness equals balance.  I don’t remember.  The important thing is that I had a bit of an idea of what to expect when it came to Yoga, Meditation, and Silence (which turns out to be exactly that).  Self Understanding, on the other hand, I recognized as a broad term for a large topic.  I was looking for any self understanding I could gain.  This was, after all, the reason that I was by myself in a condo in Spain and not at the disco of a beach resort in the Caribbean, but I admit that it was also the part of the whole YOSSUM experience that I was the most nervous of.  It was, however, the part that I was most interested in.  I’d read on the website that I would have private self understanding sessions with my teacher, Kali.  I also read about something called the Enneagram System that appeared to be a personality test.  I decided that if I was going to go, I was going to go with an open mind and give myself over to the experience.  I didn’t read any further.  I just went.

What the Self Understanding sessions turned out to be, were a step-by-step, guided decoding of a map.  The map was incredibly important because it was the map of my own mind.  What this means is that questions I’ve had, feelings I’ve known, experiences I’ve identified, and even the tiny, little, wiggling thoughts that were so uncomfortable, so scary, and so ugly that even a brooder like me shoved them immediately out of mind were right there, clearly drawn out on paper; drawn, it seemed, directly out of me.  In the space of days I traveled internationally by myself without being stranded in the wrong country, barred from the airport, accosted by strangers, or robbed.  I discovered a love for yoga without feeling the pressure of “getting fit and looking good” and despite a long period of self-induced, reveled-in inactivity.  I understood, appreciated, and practiced meditation without the desire to wear love beads and John Lennon glasses, there were no crystal balls present, I was not brainwashed, and I did not change addresses to move to Tibet and float above mountains.  This, I could handle.  It was, even, expected.  In fact, it was almost guaranteed, if you could believe everything a website says.  Turns out, in this case, you could.  I was happy, to say the least.  I was overcome, to say the most.

What I found in Spain of most importance, was not a love for yoga, a haven in meditation, or time away “from it all” – although for those things, I now carry within me a deep respect – it was the answers to everything that I wanted to know but didn’t even realize that I needed to ask. 

Somewhere along the way, I lost the message that I am ok.  All of this time, I was looking for someone not only to say it, but to make me believe it too.  And even though I know that this sounds like jargon and it is incredibly simplistic; I learned that I was the only person who is capable of doing that for me.  Despite the fact that the words used to describe this realization are both over used and exploited, I mean them with all of my heart now and I felt it then; as absolute and comforting truth. 

The Enneagram System, like all other man made theories, is not a magical answer to all of life’s problems, but it did impart me with an understanding of self that I actually understood.  I did not merely identify with characteristics and behaviors associated to my type or reflect upon occasions that could be interpreted as supporting the description; I saw that I was being given information that could really affect the way that I had been feeling and perceiving my world, reacting to it, and subsisting within it.  Instead of an onslaught of hype, slang, trend, rhetoric, or promise, I had tools to work with.  I saw where I had been coming from, recognized where I was, and believed in the future I could obtain.  I felt a sense of being, purpose, and direction. 

It was what I had hoped against hope for.

Vittorio Stingo - Italy (Private Retreat participant)

I could never imagine that someday, only a week-time, would have been capable to show me the path to follow to make my future better.
I could never imagine that in Me there were already all the elements to make myself feel better.

Yossum private retreat, through Kali, and all the wonderful people that I have met, made me understand – in such a spiritual way – that my world is still to be discovered, and my life has just started.

Chad Robison - USA (Private Retreat participant)

I went into your private retreat wondering about why I’m here on earth and what’s my purpose. Your brilliant words of clarity and guidance are motivating seeds of wisdom. I feel excited and rejuvenated leaving  your retreat knowing that I have a solid foundation to work from with the Yossum concept.

I am determined and have made the intention of commitment to know the essence of my being. Working with you, Kali, and your team has given me courage.
Thank you.

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Manu - Belgium (Private Retreat participant)

When I decided to come here I was going through another one of my life crisis. I had visited the website a dozen times and told myself I had to at least try this approach. After years of therapy and introspective work on myself I felt I was time to try something different. I came here with a lot of curiosity and an open mind. I had never done any meditation before, didn’t know anything about the Enneagram and had not much experience with hatha yoga. I cam here with my usual questions and my baggage of suffering and confusion and for the first time I found some answers.

The yoga classes were great and there was enough variation and challenge to satisfy my need for daily physical activity and my curiosity towards this discipline. But what really did it for me was the combination of the self-understanding sessions and meditation. After years and years of trying to understand why I had an eating disorder and battling with it desperately I was amazed to have my personality and my life’s problems explained to me so simply.

The Enneagram and Kali’s sessions allowed me to go to the core of my personality issues and to really make me understand myself so much more clearly. To see that how I am is not all my fault is the first step towards self-acceptance and it is a great and liberating feeling. Having this concept explained, proved and repeated to me and having time and space for myself to think over it really made me realize how caught up in my personality I had become and now I have started seeing things with a very different perspective.
Thank you so much. I look forward to continue the sessions with you Kali.

For group retreats testimonials please click here.