UPDATE 2021: Our pilot retreat last year was life changing, and so we have added three additional trips this year.
Do you feel alive? Do you feel excited for the day, passionately pursuing your goals? Do you feel connected to yourself, others and the world around you?
If you’re anything like the rest of us, life is often just the opposite. Ongoing stress, obligation and multi-tasking stretch the days and weeks into a sort of blank autopilot mode. Before you know it, you’re not even experiencing life — you’re just crawling through it.
As men in particular, we are taught from an early age to devalue experience, instead pursuing action, success and status. By nature, these come with stress, striving and over-thinking (components of the ancient fight or flight system). As neuroscience tells us, you cannot be both in a state of fight or flight and vitality and presence at the same time. Yet from an early age we are taught to prize the former, even at the cost of our own health. In a state of chronic stress, we can no longer answer the question, “Who am I and what do I live for?”
Fortunately, the remedy is as ancient as existence itself. It is reconnection with the natural elements and sincere human connection. Time outdoors while working alongside others drastically reduces the stress hormone cortisol, helping you to remember that feeling you had as a child.
We invite you to a Men’s Journey (open to any individual that identifies as male) in which you will retreat and recover from the demands of life. With our team you will traverse beautiful Desolation Sound under the care of expert guides. While the journey alone will provide relief to your soul, I have designed a self development curriculum that will help you take stock of your values as a man and as a human being.
Why have you lived your life as you have up until now? Do the values that served you yesterday still make sense now? Are there parts of yourself you’ve forgotten that you want back? Are there dreams that have been forgotten in the overwhelm of daily life?
Your True Values and Purpose
There is a type of healing that men may do best in the company of other men. To slough off unquestioned values of society and its pop-cultural insecurities. In cultivating a mind without fear, you may discover a self so confident in its essence that posturing and status become tools no longer needed. In reconnecting with the creative nature of the forest, the ocean and the stars, you may learn to listen to the subtle signals of your body that tell you who you are and what you want from life. You may drop the mask and become the self that was.
Two upcoming 5-day trips in the Desolation Sound:
June 24-28 & July 15-19, 2021
Equipment and food provided so your focus can remain where it belongs
For more information, or the join the journey click here.
Carson Kivari, Director of Thrive

Carson Kivari is the Founder and Clinic Director of Thrive Downtown, with years of experience helping individuals and couples overcome anxiety, depression, and burnout. He guides clients on a journey of self-exploration and trauma release to find purpose, connection, and safety. Take the first step towards healing and contact Carson today to schedule a session.