LoveBack™ A Strategic Emotional Intelligence & Leadership Development Retreat
Leadership asks a lot of us. We are expected to hold complexity, navigate conflict, make difficult decisions, care for others, manage teams, build trust and keep moving — often while carrying our own histories, pressures and pain. LoveBack is a retreat for leaders, professionals and changemakers who are ready to further develop the emotional intelligence and relational skills to lead differently. This is professional development, but it is not business as usual. Grounded in trauma-responsive practice, emotional intelligence, relational leadership and the wisdom of lived experience, LoveBack creates space to explore how what we carry shapes how we lead, communicate, respond to conflict, set boundaries and show up in our relationships. Together, we will explore: • emotional regulation and the nervous system• self-awareness and the patterns that shape our leadership• boundaries, communication and relational repair• navigating conflict without losing ourselves• the impact of trauma and systemic pressures on how we lead• accountability, authenticity and trust• sustainable leadership and the practice of receiving care• how to bring these skills back into our workplaces, families and communities You will leave with more than insight. You will leave with practical tools, strategies and practices you can use in the way you lead, work and relate to others. And you will have had something leaders rarely get the opportunity to stop, step away from the demands of your life and be held in community while you do your own work. LoveBack is for people who are already doing the work of growth and self-awareness — and are ready to go deeper. Because how we lead is shaped by how we relate to ourselves. And when we change that relationship, everything around us can change too. Space is limited. Who This Event is For This retreat is for those of us trying to balance professional responsibility with personal development — who don’t experience those two things as separate, because they never have been. Our intersectionality includes healing, trauma, pain, and leadership, all at once. We are grappling with institutional racism and the systems built to exclude us, while also carrying what was handed down to us — intergenerational trauma that lives in our bodies long before we have language for it. We are navigating systemic oppression in the wider world, and then walking into our workplaces and communities to face lateral violence there too — the ways harm moves sideways, between the very people who should be holding each other up. Many of us are leaders. We hold positions of influence, we mentor others, we are the ones people come to when things fall apart — and we rarely get a space built for our own repair. This retreat is as much about leadership and professional development as it is about personal healing, because the two are not separate. We cannot sustainably lead, mentor, or hold space for others from a place of unexamined pain. The clarity, boundaries, and self-regulation we build here are the same capacities that shape how we lead when we go home. This is for self-healers — people already doing the work of self-awareness and growth, ready to go deeper in community rather than alone. It is not therapy, and you don’t need to have “figured it all out” to belong here. You need only be ready. Your Co-Facilitators Myrna McCallum Myrna McCallum is a Métis and Cree trauma educator, lawyer, speaker, and the creator of LoveBack™, a methodology originally developed for and with Indigenous communities, rooted in the belief that love is not soft: it is the most radical act of resistance available to us. Myrna has spent her career working at the intersection of trauma, justice, and centering humanity, and she brings her lived experience, her stories, and her love to every space she holds. Natalie Y. Gutiérrez, LMFT Natalie Y. Gutiérrez is a Puerto Rican trauma therapist, ancestral healer, Certified Internal Family Systems Therapist, international keynote speaker, and the author of The Pain We Carry: Healing from Complex PTSD for People of Color and its companion workbook. With 17 years of specialization in complex trauma — including racial, multigenerational, and ancestral trauma — Natalie’s decolonial healing work is rooted in liberation and dedicated to people of the global majority. Her work has been featured in the Washington Post, the LA Times, NPR, and PopSugar, among others. About This Retreat Grounded in Myrna McCallum’s LoveBack™ methodology and Natalie Y. Gutiérrez’s landmark work on complex trauma and ancestral healing, this retreat brings together two frameworks built specifically for and with communities of colour — and the team holding this space reflects that same intentionality. Every participant will receive a copy of The Pain We Carry Workbook, the companion guide to her book The Pain We Carry: Healing from Complex PTSD for People of Color. This workbook is a guide to healing racial trauma, reclaiming ancestral wisdom, and igniting liberation. You will work through it together, in community, over the four days. Over four days, participants will: Engage in guided group work and facilitated dialogue rooted in relational practice and collective care Explore how the pain we carry shows up in our bodies, our relationships, our caregiving, and our leadership Identify patterns and begin practising tools for self-regulation, reflection, and relational repair Be reminded that joy, rest, and celebration are forms of ancestral resistance Rest. Integrate. Be witnessed — and witness others. This work doesn’t stay in the room. What we build here — the capacity to regulate, to set boundaries, to lead from groundedness instead of survival — comes home with us. Into how we manage teams. Into how we show up in rooms where we’re the only one who looks like us. Into how we mentor the next generation of leaders in our communities, so they inherit less of what we’re working to release. This retreat centres revolutionary love, truth, authenticity, accountability, and liberation. It is for those who are ready to begin — or deepen — the work of healing themselves and gathering the tools, skills, and strategies to help others
An Invitation: A Creative Retreat for Women, Caye Caulker, Belize (Aug 24–28)
I’ve spent years looking for something like this — an Indigenous-led creative retreat where women could get away, write, create, and finally finish the project they keep putting off. I couldn’t find it. So I’m building it. You know how it goes. There’s always something — the kids need you, work won’t let go, the dog needs a walk, or the couch just wins. And the thing you actually want to create keeps getting pushed to “someday.” This is an invitation to stop pushing it off. What this is:A small, intentional gathering of 5-8 women coming together to write, create, and finish something that matters to them — in community, with structure, and with real accountability. This is a co-created space: group work, solo creative time, and a container held with care. This retreat lives under The Healing Imperative, my new initiative dedicated to fostering healing through creative expression and relationship-building. It grows out of years of work as a trauma-informed facilitator and lawyer, holding space for people to process, connect, and create. When:August 24–28, 2026 Where:Caye Caulker, Belize — a small, car-free island in the Caribbean, known for its slow pace and easy rhythm. I’ll be staying on the island for the duration, and I’ll share accommodation suggestions nearby so our group can stay close together while keeping our own private spaces. Investment:This is a pay-what-you-can retreat. I want this to be accessible, not exclusive — your presence and commitment matter more than what you’re able to contribute. You’ll be responsible for your own flights, accommodation, and meals; beyond that, you choose what feels right to offer for the facilitation and container. If this calls to you:Email me at info@myrnamccallum.co and let me know you’re interested. I’ll send you the full program details and accommodation suggestions so you can start planning. Tell me what you’re working on. Tell me if this is the thing you’ve been putting off. I’d love to hold this space with you. Warmly,Myrna McCallummyrnamccallum.co
