HSP Retreat: Finding Joy After Trauma | Eliza’s Story

Moving Through Fear, Awakening Inner Peace

What You Will Discover in This Story:

• Confronting Fear: Learn how a highly sensitive woman pushed past terror, doubt, and the fear of losing control in front of strangers.
• Welcoming Physical Pain: Discover how her analytical mind resisted turning off until spontaneous laughter took over.
• Awakening to Lasting Ecstasy: See how an aching sense of emptiness transformed into light, sustaining a wave of joy that lasted for decades.

Editor’s Note

The Courage to Leap: Eliza’s Path to Wholeness

I arrived at Benita’s HSP Breathwork Retreat filled with trepidation. Nervousness, worry, and hope swirled through me as I anticipated what was to come. “This will be profound,” Benita told me. “It will be life-changing.”

I kept telling myself, “No matter what, this will be an adventure. No matter what, I will be OK.” Yet, underneath, I was terrified. I was terrified of actually facing the pain I’d been living with for so long. I was afraid of looking deeply at myself and opening up in front of strangers. I was afraid of relinquishing control.

Because I had been living in a cloud of generalized anxiety for such a long time,
it made perfect sense that I would feel fear about confronting fear.

When Benita first described the breathwork process, it sounded outlandish to me. Did I really want to subject myself to this? Would I succeed? When I decided to attend the retreat, I made a conscious choice to trust Benita’s leadership. Again and again, I had to recommit to that trust—both in her and in the process. I did my best to quiet all the doubts and simply follow her instructions.

The Breathwork Process: The Journey Begins

The music saturated the room like a symphony concert hall. I lay cocooned with my eye mask on, breathing into my depths. My belly expanded, and air flowed down toward my pelvis. At times I felt like a woman in labor, pushing my pelvis into the floor. The music swirled around me—sometimes lovely and soothing, sometimes energetic and activating.

I knew my mind was supposed to relax and eventually dissolve into a state of consciousness where I could process and heal old wounds. Would I ever get there? Would I ever reach the spiritual enlightenment that was also possible? At first, I didn’t see how either could happen.

Doubt filled my mind for what seemed like an eternity. My inner voice was certain: “This won’t work. You will fail at breathing.”

Suddenly, those negative thoughts seemed ludicrous. To fail at breathing? It was hysterical! I felt giant waves of laughter rising up within me. They rippled along my abdominal wall and into my chest. Waves and shudders rolled through my abdomen.

Breaking the Ice:
Moving From Laughter to Deep Healing

Then came the pain. The laughter vanished.

My chest filled with memories of a past time when I’d felt completely frozen. Pain tore through my middle and directly into my chest—a black, ripping pain, layered and interlaced with years of heartache. Memory and the present moment merged. It was sharp, stabbing, and overwhelming.

Yet, somewhere behind the agony, I felt a spark of excitement and happiness. It was working! I was experiencing the promised, life-changing phenomenon. I had not failed at breathing!

As the pain subsided, a curious feeling washed over me: I didn’t want it to go. It felt as though I wasn’t done with it yet, and it wasn’t done with me. Years of darkness can’t dissipate in one single threshold experience, can they?

A few more black waves rolled in, and then a quiet calm washed over me.

The Awakening: Filling the Emptiness with Light

Symbolizing awakening: Lake Chatuge and the Blue Ridge Mountains in Young Harris, GA—the beautiful venue for our HSP Retreats.

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I focused on my breathing. Deep in, deep out. Then, movement again.

My right arm wanted to slide across the floor, to stretch and reach out far above my head, hand open, palm up, beseeching. Instead of ice this time, my chest filled with yearning, opening into a huge, empty cavity of longing. Then my left arm moved, my left hand stretching, fingers splayed, asking, seeking.

“Fill me. Fill me.” I was a voice begging, “Fill me.” My straining chest, my reaching arms, my spreading fingers all cried, “Fill me!”

Suddenly, I saw a sharp yellow and blue, dazzling light flooding my palms. My body soaked in a little more light every time I repeated the words, “Fill me.” I reached and reached, pulling toward the light, pleading.

And then, it was over. My arms relaxed. My chest deflated. I was restored back to my normal body, arms resting on my breathing belly, my mind in a state of pure wonder, wanting more. Amazed and deeply relaxed, I lay on the floor for a very long time, completely motionless.

The Lasting Impact: Days and Decades Later

One Week After the Retreat

Eliza wrote to Benita: “I continue to ride the waves of ecstasy. I’ve never experienced anything like what happened to me during that breathwork session. I am feeling lighter and freer than ever before. The fear that used to be my daily visitor has vanished, and I feel solid in myself… like I’ve finally come home to my Self. I can’t thank you enough.”

Twelve years after the Retreat

“The breathwork took me through a portal into another way of knowing, a brand new way of being. Subsequently, I have been able to more easily flow out of the mundane and into that sacred space of connectedness. I am retired now and living a quiet life. Thank you for the beauty, expansiveness and depth you bring to so many.”

From Frozen Fear to Radiant Resilience

Eliza arrived paralyzed by a lifelong cloud of fear, yet she left riding a wave of pure ecstasy. She chose to trust Benita, and she stayed present through both the icy pain and the unexpected laughter. Through that surrender, she experienced the gift of ecstasy in her body, something she never knew was possible.

This same transformation is possible for you. Many others have experienced something similar in HSP Breathwork Retreats.

A Note for HSP Men

Eliza’s journey adeptly illustrates how trusting your body’s movements can dissolve fear and open the floodgates to genuine inner peace and joy. The struggle for control impacts highly sensitive men, too. They often feel immense cultural pressure to stay tightly buttoned up, manage anxiety intellectually, and avoid showing vulnerability in front of others. Although my in-person HSP Retreats are only open to women, I am dedicated to helping highly sensitive men find the courage to jump into their own healing waters. Through private online sessions, I provide a confidential space to lay down the exhausting need to control everything. I also host Virtual Resilience Intensives where HSP men gather together to create a cohesive team so they feel safe to explore the deep dark water. If you are ready to move past an aching sense of emptiness and expand into your Radiant Authentic Self, I invite you to contact me to explore private sessions and virtual gatherings.

👉🏼 I invite you to connect with me to begin your transformation and experience the power of HSP Breathwork Retreats. Come find the safety to dissolve old protective coping strategies, claim your true identity, and freely express your Radiant Authentic Self, just as God created you to be. Download your application here, and I’ll contact you within 24 hours after I receive it Monday-Thursday.

About Benita A. Esposito

Healing, Growth & Mastery

“Chief Trail Guide” for Highly Sensitive Introverts
on the Hero’s Journey to the Authentic Self.

Benita A. Esposito is a breathwork practitioner, ordained spiritual counselor, and life coach who has spent over four decades helping highly sensitive individuals evolve into their Authentic Self. Operating globally through her online practice, she specializes in guiding clients into the somatic and deep spiritual healing territories that logic alone cannot reach. While she also maintains a licensed clinical psychotherapy practice restricted strictly to residents of Georgia and North Carolina, her global ministry focuses entirely on non-clinical spiritual counseling and transformative life coaching.

As the author of the Amazon bestseller, The Gifted Highly Sensitive Introvert: Wisdom for Emotional Healing and Expressing Your Radiant Authentic Self, Benita designs emotionally nurturing environments where HSPs can safely unpack deeply stored emotional blocks.

As a grace-filled Christian, her work is guided by the Holy Trinity and firmly grounded in her extensive background in body-mind psychology. By surrounding each deep healing session in prayer and invoking the unconditional love and healing of God, she acts as a compassionate, grounded facilitator—helping participants melt away self-defeating survival patterns to express their Radiant Authentic Self.

When she isn’t conducting virtual sessions or hosting intimate, life-changing retreats at her home overlooking Lake Chatuge and the Blue Ridge Mountains, Benita recharges her own nervous system in the natural world. You can find her tending to her flower garden, capturing the beauty of nature through her camera lens, or rowing across the peaceful lake near her home.

Watch my book video.

👉 Ready for your breakthrough? Schedule a Discovery Call to see if our upcoming HSP Retreats are the right fit for your journey.

Disclaimer

Benita A. Esposito, M.A., is a Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC) in Georgia, a Licensed Clinical Mental Health Counselor (LCMHC) in North Carolina, and an ordained minister and spiritual counselor through the Association for the Integration of the Whole Person (AIWP). While retreat participants enter into a formal client relationship for life coaching and spiritual counseling, the workshops, virtual intensives, and retreats offered through this website are strictly educational, coaching, and spiritual in nature. These services do not constitute psychological diagnosis, clinical treatment, or traditional psychotherapy, and do not establish a psychotherapeutic therapist-client relationship. If you are experiencing a mental health crisis or require clinical mental health treatment, please consult a licensed professional in your local area.

Photo credits:

• Lake Chatuge landscape: Benita A. Esposito
• Ocean, Panama City Beach, FL: Benita A. Esposito
• Benita Esposito’s photo: Larry Webb

“Your Authentic Life. Anything Else is a Compromise.”

Life Coaching and Spiritual Counseling for Sensitive Introverts
on the Hero’s Journey to the Authentic Self