An Intimate, Intentional Cohort

• 8 IFS- and medicine-informed practitioners like you committed to expanding their capacities for showing up in their lives with more Self-energy

• All participants will be carefully screened to ensure readiness and create a cohesive, supportive practice community

Guided by Expert Facilitators

• The retreat will be led by Justin Wilford, PhD, and Robyn Merchant, LPC, both experienced mental health practitioners specializing in immersive experience preparation, facilitation, and integration.

• Justin Wilford, PhD, is a Level 2 IFS practitioner with a PhD in Public Health. He applies his academic expertise in mental health program design to create transformative interventions that bridge evidence-based practices with experiential, heart-centered emotional healing. His innovative group-based programs emerge from his academic research combined with extensive collaboration with mental health practitioners, allowing him to develop uniquely effective frameworks for deep psychological healing and growth that have impacted thousands through his work with the Yes Collective and MaxLove Project.

• Audra DiPadova, MA, FMHC, brings more than a decade of experience holding space for people in the hardest moments of their lives. After earning a graduate degree in philosophy and education from Columbia University and working in leadership training in higher education, her path changed course when her son Max was diagnosed with brain cancer. In the middle of his treatment, she founded MaxLove Project, a nonprofit serving families facing childhood cancer and pediatric rare disease. Over the past twelve years she has designed and facilitated integrative wellness retreats for parents living under sustained crisis — work that asks for the capacity to stay steady while other people fall apart, and to make a room feel safe enough that they can.

  That capacity is what she brings to the Heart Space retreat. Audra has practiced Internal Family Systems for years alongside her husband, Justin Wilford, PhD, an IFS Level 2 practitioner, and while her training is experiential rather than formal, her fluency in the model is lived and deep. She is also a certified functional medicine health coach, a L'Oréal Paris Women of Worth honoree, and a founder of several successful start-ups. In retreat, she is the one who tends the container — attentive to what each person needs, unhurried, and unafraid of whatever arrives.

Pre- and Post-Retreat Connection

• Two 2-hour group Zoom sessions: one the week before our gathering to establish connection, discuss intentions, and prepare our internal systems; the second in the week after to share, reflect, and explore further opportunities for development.

• Opportunity to address questions, concerns, and begin accessing the Self-energy necessary for effective facilitation

Immersive Learning Structure

• Two immersive sessions allow each participant to experience a fuller arc of intention, witnessing, and integration

• Daily integration circles create a collective field of understanding as we witness transformation through the IFS lens

• Somatic practices and breathwork foster embodied knowing that helps integrate intellectual understanding

Personal Development

• Emphasis on practical experiential applications for implementing IFS-informed immersive experiences

• Development of nuanced skills for maintaining Self-energy presence while supporting others in our lives

• Collaborative wisdom gathering to help us engage in the best practices emerging at the intersection of IFS and immersive journeys