An executive retreat may not be top of mind for the average CEO, but there is a number that should give every high-performing leader pause: 82%.

That is the share of executives and employees currently at risk of burnout, according to a 2024 Global Talent Trends report, conducted by Mercer, involving 12,000 participants conducted by Mercer. If you’re in the C-suite, the data is stark—over 53% of leaders report chronic burnout symptoms, according to Microsoft’s Work Trend research. Burnout makes executives 63% more likely to take a sick day, and 13% less confident in your own performance. Your well-being and quality of life—as well as the clarity your organization depends on—quietly erodes as burnout goes unaddressed.

Perhaps you already know this, and you feel it.

You’re not looking for a massage. You’re looking for nervous system relief, genuine mental clarity, and real distance from the demands that seem to follow you everywhere you go. The question isn’t whether you need a retreat. It’s whether you can find one that actually delivers.

A Different Kind of Executive Retreat

The O’Waken Oasis at The Oasis Spiritual Spa and Executive Retreat in Corrales, New Mexico offers something most high-end wellness resorts cannot: genuine solitude, total privacy, unhurried personal care, and access to a caliber of holistic healing that is exceptionally rare, all within a single gated estate bordering the Rio Grande Bosque.

This is not a branded resort experience with group programming and shared spaces. It is a private, 1,350-square-foot luxury suite—rated 5.0 on Airbnb, named a Guest Favorite, and ranked in the top 10% of homes on the platform—on a park-like property that sits at the end of a cul-de-sac in one of Corrales’s finest neighborhoods. The property is gated. Your parking is private. A large buffer room separates your suite from the main house, and you have your own private entrance.

You can arrive and not speak to a single person. Or host Kristy can cook for you, care for you, and support you. An experienced healer, host, and Airbnb Superhost with five years of five-star hosting, Kristy’s warmth and responsiveness consistently makes guests’ stays extraordinary.

The Space

The O’Waken Oasis Suite is a world unto itself—extravagantly appointed, sensory and soulful, with enough room to breathe and enough comfort to fully release.

Inside, you’ll find:

• A 9-foot by 5-foot cinematic projection screen for the evenings you need to stop thinking entirely
• A cozy fireplace for the evenings you want to feel something quieter
• A queen-size four-post Indian bed and a full-size four-post Chinese bed—sumptuous, storied, genuinely restorative
• A massage chair, a pool table, and a disco ball—because joy is part of recovery too
• A fully equipped kitchenette with a full-size refrigerator, dishwasher, and washer/dryer
• A dedicated home office workspace—for the days you need to stay connected 
• A modern bathroom with plush, oversized towels
• Outdoor dining for six and indoor dining for four, plus two barstools
• Sofa seating for eight

Steps from the front door, the Rio Grande Bosque trail invites you into one of the rarest ecological environments in the American Southwest. Morning meditations, long walks, or simply sitting with the cottonwoods and the river allow your nervous system to remember what ease feels like.

The Healing Is Available When You’re Ready for It

What distinguishes The Oasis from any other luxury accommodation is what lives alongside it.

Kristy, your host and the founder of Corrales Grief Spa, brings over thirty years of holistic healing experience to her work. When you’re ready, she offers access to a range of transformative modalities that are rarely available outside of specialized clinical settings.

The Reflections Room: a modern reimagining of the ancient psychomanteum, built on a practice Kristy developed under the direct mentorship of Dr. Raymond Moody, the pioneering near-death researcher who brought this healing space into contemporary use. It offers a quality of stillness and inner reflection that productivity apps, typical vacations, and conventional therapy cannot typically reach.

Ericksonian Clinical Hypnotherapy, guided visual imagery, Shamanic Angelic Reiki with Color Infusion and Sound, the MARI Card Test, expressive art, yoga nidra, breathwork, sage support—each one works at the level where executive exhaustion actually lives: in the nervous system, the body, the unconscious patterns that no amount of strategic thinking can resolve.

You came here to rest. You can leave transformed.

Corrales, New Mexico: The Setting Itself Is Therapy

The village of Corrales sits at the south end of a stretch of the Rio Grande Bosque that has drawn people seeking beauty, quiet, and renewal for generations. It is approximately 2.5 miles from the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta Park, minutes from shops, restaurants, breweries, and wineries, and a world away from the demands of everyday life.

The most effective burnout recovery retreats combine nature immersion, distance from daily stress, and structured wellness programming as a single unified environment. The Oasis delivers exactly this, without the jet lag of an international trip or the group-retreat dynamics that can become another obligation to manage.

Who This Is For

The O’Waken Oasis is for the founder who hasn’t had a week to themselves in three years, the CEO whose body is sending signals their calendar has no room for, and the executive who has been the one holding everything and needs, finally, to be held for a while.

It is also for anyone standing at a threshold, whether a major decision, life transition, or season of change—who needs space to think, feel, and find their way back to themselves.

The suite accommodates up to two guests and holds a perfect 5.0 rating across all guest categories on Airbnb.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the O’Waken Oasis?

The O’Waken Oasis is a 1,350-square-foot luxury private suite on a gated estate at The Oasis Spiritual Spa and Executive Retreat in Corrales, New Mexico. It is rated 5.0 on Airbnb, holds Guest Favorite status, and is ranked in the top 10% of homes on the platform. It offers complete privacy and total self-sufficiency, or access to the care and healing offerings of host Kristy—depending entirely on what you need.

Is this only for people dealing with grief?

No. While Corrales Grief Spa is built around grief support and healing, The Oasis welcomes anyone seeking rest, renewal, privacy, or a meaningful retreat, including executives recovering from burnout, founders at a crossroads, and anyone in a season of transition who needs time and space to reorient.

Can I access healing modalities during my stay?

Yes. Kristy offers a full range of holistic healing services to guests who wish to incorporate them into their stay, including Ericksonian hypnotherapy, Shamanic Angelic Reiki, guided visual imagery, the MARI Card Test, the Reflections Room, yoga nidra, breathwork, expressive art, and sage support. These are entirely optional. Your stay can be as solitary or as supported as you wish.

Can Kristy cook for me during my stay?

Yes. Kristy is available to prepare meals for guests who would like to be fully cared for during their time at The Oasis. This can be arranged as part of your stay.

Where is The Oasis located?

The Oasis Spiritual Spa and Executive Retreat is located in the village of Corrales, New Mexico, directly north of Albuquerque along the Rio Grande. It is approximately 2.5 miles from the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta Park and easily accessible from Albuquerque, Rio Rancho, and the surrounding metro area.

How do I book?

The O’Waken Oasis can be booked directly through Airbnb. For extended stays, custom retreat packages, or questions about incorporating healing services into your visit, reach out to Kristy directly.

Book the O’Waken Oasis on Airbnb → airbnb.com/rooms/53111979
Corrales, NM  |  corralesgriefspa.com  | (505) 991-9129 info@corralesgriefspa.com

Come land. Come breathe. Come home. 🌿

There is a kind of grief that doesn’t begin with you.

Ancestral trauma arrives before you have words to name it—perhaps a tenderness around particular subjects, a tightness in the body when certain dynamics arise, or a pattern of responding to the world that feels inherited rather than chosen. You may have spent years trying to understand it, wondering why the ordinary losses of life seem to land with extra weight.

Science increasingly confirms what many people have sensed intuitively, and spiritual traditions have described for thousands of years: trauma does not always begin and end with the person who experienced it.

What Are Generational and Ancestral Trauma?

The research distinguishes between two related phenomena. Intergenerational trauma refers to trauma-related effects observed in the children of exposed parents—those who grew up in direct relationship with someone carrying unresolved trauma. 

Transgenerational trauma describes effects that appear in later generations for descendants who had no direct exposure to the original event, transmitted through mechanisms that researchers are still working to fully understand.

A 2026 review published in Frontiers in Psychiatry synthesized studies from 1990 to 2025 and identified consistent epigenetic (relating to changes in gene expression caused by experience or environment rather than alterations to the genetic code itself) patterns across trauma contexts. Most commonly, these involve pathways related to stress-response regulation, immune-inflammatory signaling, and neurodevelopment. In plain terms: the way the body responds to threat, regulates emotion, and processes stress can be shaped by what a parent or grandparent experienced, not through storytelling, but through biology.

A 2025 study published in Scientific Reports examining third-generation Holocaust survivors found measurable DNA methylation differences in genes regulating the HPA axis, the body’s central stress response system, compared to controls. Descendants of Holocaust survivors showed a pattern of methylation changes in genes that regulate stress response, suggesting a lasting biological imprint across three generations.

This is not fringe science. A 2024 paper in Scholarly Review Journal examining the neuroscience of epigenetics and generational trauma documented DNA methylation changes that manifest in people living with PTSD, with measurable effects on their children. 

What this means, in a practical sense, is significant: anxiety that has no obvious source, grief that seems disproportionate to its trigger, and relational patterns that repeat without explanation may not be character flaws or personal failures. They may be the body carrying something older than your own story.

The Particular Weight of Family of Origin Loss

Generational trauma doesn’t always arrive through catastrophic historical events. Sometimes it comes through the quieter, cumulative experiences of a family system: emotional unavailability that passed from grandparent to parent to child, chronic stress that was never processed and therefore never ended, losses that were never named and therefore never grieved.

A 2025 systematic review in the journal Death Studies synthesized research on the lived experience of intergenerational trauma across 22 studies, finding that recognition of the parent-child relationship as a key transmission mechanism led researchers to recommend interventions that focus on caregivers and on establishing open familial communication patterns. The review also emphasized the importance of prompt and adequate responsiveness to events bearing intergenerational impact.

Put simply: the way grief moves through families depends enormously on whether it is spoken or silenced, witnessed or hidden. When loss meets avoidance, and the family rule is to move on, not discuss it, and stay strong, the grief doesn’t disappear. It changes form, becoming anxiety, emotional disconnection, or an unnamed heaviness that each generation inherits.

This is the loss that is often the hardest to name. There may be no single death to point to, and no clear event to grieve. Instead, there is the slow recognition that something was missing in the environment you grew up in—presence, safety, attunement, warmth—and that the absence of those things has shaped you in ways you are still discovering.

Why Presence Matters More Than Process

The research on what actually helps with grief, including the inherited, ancestral, and hard-to-name varieties, is notably consistent on one point: the single most important factor in healing is not the specific modality or technique. It is the quality of human presence available to the person who is grieving.

A systematic review examining peer support services for bereaved survivors analyzed 32 qualifying studies and found the evidence strongly favorable: across the majority of those studies, people who received peer support experienced meaningful reductions in grief symptoms alongside gains in wellbeing and personal growth. Notably, the benefits were not one-directional: those who provided peer support also reported growing through the experience. Their growth included a deepened capacity for meaning-making.

A separate systematic review focusing on bereavement following advanced illness found that the qualitative evidence pointed consistently toward three kinds of change: people described working through the grief itself, developing a renewed sense of agency about their own lives, and feeling more meaningfully connected to others. Across the studies, the combination of peer presence with space for reflection and emotional expression emerged as particularly significant—not either element alone, but the two together.

This points to something practitioners have known for a long time: healing from grief, and particularly from grief that has gone unnamed or unwitnessed across generations, does not primarily happen in isolation. It happens in relationship. It takes place when someone with the capacity to be fully present—not to fix or advise, but to witness and offer companionship to the person who is grieving.

This is precisely the orientation Kristy brings to her work at Corrales Grief Spa. She describes her role not as a clinician who diagnoses and prescribes, but as a companion who accompanies—someone who knows how to sit in the difficult, unnamed places with another person without rushing toward resolution. For grief that has been carried for generations without a witness, this kind of skilled, steady human presence can be the beginning of something  new.

Beginning to Name What Was Never Named

There is something significant about being the generation that decides to look.

If you have found yourself drawn to this kind of inquiry, and you sense that some of what you carry is older than your own story, that instinct may be worth following. Generational and ancestral grief responds to the same things all grief responds to: being seen, being named, being held in the presence of someone who understands what you’re working with.

At Corrales Grief Spa, Kristy offers individual sessions, extended retreat experiences, and a range of modalities specifically suited to the deeper, harder-to-reach terrain of inherited and unnamed loss—including supported stays in luxury retreat lodgings, Ericksonian hypnotherapy, guided visual imagery, expressive art, and the Reflections Room. For those navigating generational trauma, these body-based, non-verbal approaches often reach places that talking alone does not.

You don’t need to have a name for what you’re carrying to begin. 

Frequently Asked Questions

Is ancestral trauma scientifically real?

Yes. The scientific field of epigenetics has produced a substantial and growing body of peer-reviewed research demonstrating that trauma can alter gene expression in ways that affect offspring. Studies examining Holocaust survivors, Indigenous populations, war refugees, and others have found measurable biological differences in stress-response systems across generations. The mechanisms are still being studied, but the phenomenon itself is well-documented.

How do I know if what I’m experiencing is generational trauma versus my own grief?

The honest answer is that it’s often both, and the distinction matters less than the recognition. If you notice patterns in your emotional life that feel disproportionate to their triggers, relationship dynamics that repeat without clear origin, or a grief that seems to predate your own experience, these are worth exploring with a skilled practitioner. You don’t need a diagnosis to begin the work.

My family doesn’t talk about the past. Can I still work on this?

Absolutely. Much of the most effective work on generational trauma happens through the body and through non-verbal approaches, precisely because the verbal record is often incomplete or unavailable. Practices like Ericksonian hypnotherapy, guided imagery, and expressive art are especially well-suited to material that was never spoken aloud.

What does healing from generational trauma really look like?

It rarely looks like a single breakthrough. More often it looks like gradual loosening. Patterns that once felt compulsive becoming visible and therefore negotiable, a greater capacity for rest and connection, a sense of being more fully present in your own life. The research consistently points to grief resolution, increased personal growth, and improved capacity for social connection as key outcomes of supported grief work.

Is this kind of work available virtually at Corrales Grief Spa?

Yes. Kristy offers virtual sessions for those who are not able to travel to Corrales, NM. Reach out directly to discuss what would serve you best.

How do I begin?

The first step is a conversation. Reach out to Kristy to talk through what you’re experiencing and what kind of support might serve you best, whether that’s an individual session, an extended stay at The Oasis, or a virtual series.

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Many psychological tools ask you to talk and think analytically about yourself. The MARI Card Test at Corrales Grief Spa takes a different approach: it asks your unconscious to show up and speak for itself.

That distinction matters more than it might seem, especially when you’re navigating loss, transition, or uncertainty about who you are on the other side of something that changed you.

What is the MARI card test?

The Mandala Assessment Research Instrument, MARI, is a nonverbal psychological assessment developed by art therapist Joan Kellogg beginning in the 1970s at the University of Maryland, where she worked alongside some of the most significant figures in transpersonal psychology research, including Dr. Stanislav Grof. Kellogg refined the instrument over decades and formally established it as the MARI Card Test in 1984, with the final revision completed in 1993.

The assessment includes 39 symbol cards and 45 color cards. The symbol cards are displayed first in random order, and the person is asked to choose six symbol cards they are most attracted to, one they are least attracted to. They are then asked to choose colors that correspond to the symbols they selected.

What makes this remarkable is what happens with that information. When displayed on the developmental template of the Great Round, which is Kellogg’s framework of 13 archetypal stages of psychological development, the symbols and colors chosen intuitively reveal a visual picture of one’s psyche. The choices aren’t random. Symbols predate culture, language, and even the concept of time. They are so much a part of us that we respond to them intuitively and often on an other-than-conscious level.

The MARI Assessment and the Drawn Mandala are innovative, creative, and expressive tools that provide diagnostic information and can also be used to reinforce and track client progress. These tools have been used by mental health practitioners, personal and business coaches, art therapists, and music therapists for over 30 years.

A peer-reviewed study published in the journal Arts in Psychotherapy compared MARI Card Test results across cardiac and cancer inpatient populations, demonstrating its utility as a clinical instrument across a range of health and emotional conditions. Kellogg’s foundational 1977 paper in the American Journal of Art Therapy, co-authored with Mac Rae, Bonny, and DiLeo, laid the research groundwork that practitioners have built on ever since.

The assessment is not therapy in the traditional sense. It is a process using both left and right brain thinking, with the client as the guide in leading the discovery. It accesses what talk therapy often cannot—the information that lies beneath verbal processing, in image and symbol and the gut-level pull of a card you couldn’t explain but couldn’t put down.

Why It’s Especially Powerful During Times of Loss and Transition

Grief and transition share a common quality that makes them both fascinating and exhausting: they strip away the stories we’ve told about ourselves and leave us standing in territory we don’t have a map for yet.

Words can feel inadequate during those moments, not because we lack intelligence or self-awareness, but because what’s happening in us is genuinely pre-verbal. The loss of a spouse, the end of a marriage, a diagnosis, a death, a shifting identity—these experiences register in the body and psyche at a level that conversation alone rarely reaches.

This is precisely where the MARI Card Test earns its place. The MARI is an excellent therapeutic tool that maps the present state of the psyche and gives the subject a direction that will lead to movement, evolution, integration, illumination, and transformation—a true alchemy of the soul. During periods of transition, that kind of mapping can be a compass.

The assessment doesn’t tell you what to do. It reflects back what your own unconscious is already working with, including the themes that arise, the challenges you’re processing, and the opportunities that form beneath the surface of conscious awareness. For someone in the middle of figuring out what comes next, this kind of unfiltered reflection can be quietly staggering.

What Clients at Corrales Grief Spa Have Experienced

Clients who have worked with the MARI Card Test during sessions at Corrales Grief Spa have reported experiences that go beyond what they anticipated from a card-based assessment.

One client notes an increase in lucid dreaming following their sessions—a phenomenon that aligns with what practitioners have long observed: when unconscious material is brought into conscious awareness through symbol work, the psyche often becomes more active and communicative through the dream state. The dialogue, once opened, doesn’t close when you leave the room.

Others have described a clarity around the patterns and themes arising in their lives—challenges that had felt confusing or overwhelming became identifiable, even nameable, through the images they were drawn to. That naming alone can shift your understanding. When you can see the shape of what you’re carrying, you begin to know where to put it down.

Perhaps most consistently, clients describe a deepened trust in their own intuitive knowing. The MARI Card Test doesn’t reward the thinking mind; it rewards the part of you that already knows. Clients who feel cut off from that intuitive knowledge by grief, shock, or the sheer cognitive load of navigating loss often find it through symbol work in ways that talking simply doesn’t reach.

Coming to It in the Right Moment

The MARI Card Test is available as part of Kristy’s practice at Corrales Grief Spa at The Oasis, offered during individual sessions or as part of a broader retreat experience. It is particularly well-suited to moments of transition: following a loss, at the close of a relationship, when standing at a professional or personal crossroads, or simply when something has shifted and you’re not yet sure what it’s pointing toward.

The assessment is non-invasive, requires no prior knowledge or artistic ability, and takes approximately an hour to complete. The interpretation that follows is where the real conversation begins.

Frequently Asked Questions About the MARI Card Test

What is the MARI Card Test?

The MARI Card Test — formally the Mandala Assessment Research Instrument — is a nonverbal psychological assessment developed by art therapist Joan Kellogg in the 1970s. It uses 39 symbol cards and 45 color cards, chosen intuitively, to create a visual map of a person’s current psychological state, developmental stage, and areas of conscious and unconscious focus.

Do I need any artistic ability or psychological background to benefit from it?

None at all. The assessment is entirely intuitive. Simply choose what you’re drawn to, not what you think is correct. There are no right or wrong answers, and no prior knowledge of psychology or art is required. The process is genuinely accessible and often described as surprisingly natural.

Is the MARI Card Test evidence-based?

It is grounded in decades of clinical research and Jungian psychological theory. Joan Kellogg’s foundational research was published in peer-reviewed journals including the American Journal of Art Therapy, and subsequent studies have examined its applications across clinical populations. It has been used by mental health practitioners, art therapists, music therapists, and coaches for over thirty years.

How does it differ from other assessments like tarot or personality tests?

The MARI Card Test is a psychological instrument rooted in transpersonal and Jungian theory, not divination. It differs from personality assessments like Myers-Briggs in that it accesses nonverbal, unconscious material through image and symbol rather than asking you to self-report through language. It is more accurately understood as a form of non-verbal psychological mapping than either a personality test or a spiritual reading, though its depth often feels like both.

Can it be done virtually?

Yes. Kristy offers the MARI Card Test both in person at Corrales Grief Spa near Albuquerque, NM, and virtually, making it accessible regardless of location.

How do I book a session?

Reach out to Kristy directly to discuss whether the MARI Card Test is the right tool for where you are right now. She’ll talk you through the process and help you determine the best context — standalone session, extended retreat, or as part of an ongoing series — for your specific situation.

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A cultural shift is happening around how we mark the biggest moments of our lives, and it has very little to do with guest counts or seating charts. Across weddings, divorces, and the loss of a loved one, people are choosing the same thing: intimacy over spectacle, meaning over tradition, and a setting that feels authentic to them.

At Corrales Grief Spa at The Oasis, nestled along the Rio Grande Bosque in Corrales, New Mexico, this shift goes deeper than a trend. It’s the same understanding that has shaped Kristy’s work and mission: that life’s biggest transitions deserve presence, ritual, and a beautiful setting. Whether you’re saying “I do” in the presence of twenty people who matter most, marking the end of a marriage with dignity instead of silence, or gathering to celebrate a life filled with love, Kristy is an experienced officiant and host ready to hold that moment with you.

The Rise of the Micro Wedding

Wedding culture has changed dramatically in just a few years. Micro weddings, typically defined as celebrations with fewer than fifty guests, have grown 23% year-over-year, and Pinterest’s 2026 wedding data shows “micro wedding” searches up 33% compared to the year before. Couples are prioritizing intimacy over spectacle.

Couples are choosing intimacy not out of necessity, but because it gives them something a 150-person reception never could: real connection, real presence, and the freedom to spend on what actually matters rather than logistics. Industry coverage of the trend has been direct about why it’s sticking—couples crave connection that lingers long after the celebration ends, not excess for its own sake.

This is where setting matters. A micro wedding works best if the space itself can hold the weight of the day. The Oasis offers exactly that: the cottonwoods of the Bosque, the open New Mexico sky, water nearby, and a setting that feels sacred without requiring a single decoration to make it so. For couples drawn to elopement-style intimacy, but who still want the structure and meaning of a true ceremony, a micro wedding here means a small group of your closest people, a setting that does half the work for you, and an officiant experienced in helping people mark life’s thresholds with care.

As both host and officiant, Kristy helps couples build something personal: vows that actually sound true to you, and ritual that reflects your story.

Divorce Ceremonies: A Ritual Whose Time Has Come

Divorce has historically happened without ritual. A wedding gets a ceremony, witnesses, vows, and a community gathered to mark the beginning. A divorce, for most people, gets paperwork and silence. Increasingly, people are recognizing how strange that asymmetry actually is.

Researchers studying this shift have noted a genuine cultural transition: divorce is increasingly being treated as a rite of passage in its own right, following the same three phases—separation, transition, and reincorporation—that define other major life transitions. A divorce ritual can do two things at once: it can foster closure and healing by honoring what the relationship was, and it can mark a new beginning by sharing that change openly with the people who matter, rather than carrying it alone.

There’s been a cultural shift around this: divorce parties and divorce ceremonies have moved from private gatherings to something openly celebrated and increasingly mainstream. Surveys on the subject note that women marking the end of a difficult chapter disproportionately embrace the practice, often choosing to celebrate their autonomy and identity rather than simply mourning a loss.

But a ceremony for moving forward after divorce doesn’t have to be a party. For many people, what’s needed is something quieter and more sacred: a structured ritual that allows for grief and release in the same breath. This is precisely the kind of ceremony Kristy is equipped to facilitate, and one that honors what was real and good in the relationship, makes space for the loss that comes with its ending, and consciously marks the beginning of what comes next. Some choose to do this alone with Kristy as witness and guide. Others invite a small circle of supportive friends and family to stand with them as they step into this new chapter.

Whatever the previous chapter held, including the grief of high-conflict relationships or the loss of an imagined future, or the slow process of becoming whole again, a divorce ceremony offers something concrete: permission to mark the transition as real, witnessed, and complete.

Life Celebrations: Honoring a Life, Not Just Mourning a Death

The third thread here is perhaps the most radical: a complete reimagining of what it means to say goodbye. Families increasingly want a service that reflects who their loved one actually was, not a standardized format that could belong to anyone.

Surrounded by the Bosque, life celebrations at the Oasis are enriched by natural beauty that doesn’t need staging to feel meaningful, and family and friends can gather to do more than mourn. They can tell stories, share music, sit in the Reflections Room, walk the grounds, and meaningfully celebrate a life that mattered. For families who want a memorial that feels personal rather than procedural, Kristy’s experience holding space for grief means she isn’t simply running an event. She is helping a family find the right way to say goodbye.

One Property, Three Thresholds, One Steady Guide

What ties a micro wedding, a divorce ceremony, and a life celebration together isn’t sadness, or even necessarily joy. It’s crossing a threshold. Each one marks the end of something and the beginning of something else, and each one deserves to be witnessed with intention rather than rushed past.

This is what Kristy has built at Corrales Grief Spa at The Oasis: a property where the Rio Grande Bosque, the open sky, and holistic and spiritual practice come together to support you—whatever threshold you’re standing on. As an experienced host and officiant, she brings not just logistical understanding, but the deep emotional fluency of someone who has spent her career helping people move through life’s hardest and most meaningful transitions.

If you’re planning an intimate wedding, looking for a way to mark the end of a marriage with dignity, or honoring the life of someone who mattered, the conversation starts the same way: reach out to Kristy directly to talk through what you’re envisioning and what kind of ceremony would serve you best.

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Divorce support is grief support, too. Sometimes grief means the life you had planned, and the relationship you’ve lost.

When people think of grief support, they often picture loss in its most recognizable form: a death, a funeral, a period of mourning. They rarely picture sitting in a lawyer’s office, opening a social media memory that shows a vacation with someone who is no longer in their life, or explaining to their children, for the first time, that life is going to look different now.

Divorce carries grief that society rarely names as such, and that absence of naming makes it harder to heal.

At Corrales Grief Spa in Corrales, New Mexico, Kristy has worked with many guests navigating the end of a marriage. Over more than thirty years of practice, she has seen the weight that divorce carries—not only emotionally, but physically, relationally, and spiritually. The divorce support she offers draws on the same full range of healing modalities she brings to every form of loss, because at their core, the mechanisms of grief are the same regardless of their cause.

Divorce Is Grief, and Research Confirms It

Psychologist and family therapist Pauline Boss introduced the concept of ambiguous loss in the 1970s to describe a form of grief that lacks the social recognition and ritual of death-related bereavement. Divorce is one of the most common causes of ambiguous loss. The person who experienced it may grieve the relationship, the shared experiences of being married, and connections that existed through that marriage, a former mother-in-law, a shared community, a version of daily life that is simply gone.

When ambiguous loss isn’t recognized and supported, grief gets stuck. The effects can include depression, anxiety, hopelessness, a confused sense of identity, ambivalence, and lost trust in the world as a fair and rational place. Grief gets stuck in part because there are no cultural rituals for supporting someone experiencing an ambiguous loss. When there is no burial or mourning process to bring others together, grief from an ambiguous loss can feel profoundly isolating.

Research on relationship dissolution shows that 60 to 70 percent of divorced individuals experience clinical symptoms of grief. These symptoms may include intrusive thoughts about the former spouse, difficulty sleeping, and idealization of past moments of connection. Loss of a spouse often includes loss of routines, physical intimacy, shared dreams, and your identity as a married person.

Research on identity and loss has found that the grief process in divorce closely mirrors the grief process following death and job loss: all three produce significant post-loss identity disruption. The loss of a marriage is, among other things, the loss of who you were within it.

Divorce Grief: The Felt Experience 

Kristy describes it in the language of her clients: the loss of a family unit, the loss of a marriage, the loss of the planned and imagined future. Memories surface constantly through social media, showing the past in a way that feels unavoidable.

“We try to help people stay in the moment, stay present, stay empowered while they’re caring for a tender broken heart,” she says. “I like to say to people that while you’re a broken love dove, you are also a phoenix rising at the same time.”

This dual awareness—of the wound and of the emergence—is at the heart of the divorce support Kristy offers. It holds them while they move through it at their own pace, with skilled support, in an environment designed for exactly that.

Why Skilled Support Matters

The isolation of divorce grief is well-documented and clinically significant. Research on divorced and separated individuals has highlighted an intense decrease in social support and a sense of failure and shame associated with marital breakdown, contributing to elevated rates of depression and other mental health challenges in the first years post-divorce.

Peer support and skilled companionship in mental health recovery promote healing through the modeling of coping strategies and by providing hope and an example of recovery to those navigating mental health difficulties. What Kristy offers goes a step further, drawing on three decades of clinical training, spiritual practice, and a genuinely holistic approach to regulation and restoration.

In this regard, her role is perhaps closest to that of a grief coach and guide: someone who helps clients stay grounded in the present, regulate their nervous systems, and access their own resilience during one of the most destabilizing transitions a person can experience.

Healing the Whole Person Through Divorce Support

All of the modalities at Corrales Grief Spa are, in Kristy’s words, “very nurturing to someone going through a divorce.” Each one addresses a different layer of what divorce grief actually touches.

Shamanic Angelic Reiki with Color Infusion and Sound speaks directly to the nervous system, quieting the chronic activation from upheaval and uncertainty, and invites the body toward ease that it may not have felt in months.

Ericksonian Clinical Hypnotherapy works with the unconscious to address the thought patterns, emotional loops, and identity disruptions that divorce often triggers.

Guided Visual Imagery and Yoga Nidra offer the nervous system a guided path toward rest and safety, particularly valuable when anxiety and sleeplessness have become chronic.

Expressive Art and Mandalas provide a non-verbal language for the grief that words cannot always hold—the complexity, contradiction, and simultaneous sadness and relief that divorce so often carries.

O’Waken Yoga, Meditation, and Breathwork restore a sense of physical agency and presence that loss can erode, bringing the person back into their body and into the moment.

Sage Support and the Reflections Room offer companionship and contemplative space for the deeper spiritual and existential questions that divorce raises: Who am I now? What does my life mean without this relationship? What am I becoming?

Care for the Caregiver is specifically available for those who have been supporting others through the divorce, including children and family members, while neglecting their own processing.

An Extended Stay for a Season of Change

For those who need more than a session or two, Corrales Grief Spa offers something rare: the opportunity for an extended stay in the beautifully appointed lodgings at the Oasis, nestled along the Rio Grande Bosque in Corrales.

More than a conventional retreat, this is an immersive experience in a nurturing environment, surrounded by nature, beauty, and intentional care, designed to give the body and mind the sustained space they need to genuinely begin to restore. Stays range from a few days to months, or longer.

For someone navigating the disorientation of divorce, stepping into a space that is peaceful, beautiful, and entirely focused on their wellbeing can be profoundly reorienting. The Bosque is right outside the door. The healing is right inside.

Frequently Asked Questions: Divorce Support Near Albuquerque

Is divorce grief real, or am I overreacting?

Divorce grief is real, documented, and clinically significant. Research consistently shows that the majority of people going through divorce experience symptoms of grief comparable to bereavement. Intrusive thoughts, sleep disruption, loss of identity, and emotional upheaval are not overreactions.

What makes the divorce support at Corrales Grief Spa different from therapy?

Kristy brings over thirty years of training and practice in Ericksonian Hypnotherapy, Reiki, yoga, and spirituality to her work. The holistic divorce support she offers addresses the body, the nervous system, the emotions, and the spirit. Many people find it works powerfully alongside existing therapeutic support. Kristy will always be honest about what she can and cannot offer.

I’m not sure I’m “grieving.” I just feel stuck and overwhelmed. Is this still for me?

Yes. Stuck and overwhelmed are two of grief’s most common presentations, particularly in ambiguous loss like divorce. You do not need to identify as grieving, or have a clear sense of what you need, to reach out. Kristy will help you find where you are and what would serve you best.

Can Corrales Grief Spa help with high-conflict divorce or recovery from difficult relationships?

Yes. Kristy regularly works with people recovering from high-conflict situations, difficult relationships, and experiences of mistreatment and abuse. The modalities she offers, particularly nervous system regulation through Reiki, breathwork, and hypnotherapy, are specifically supportive for people whose bodies and emotional systems have been under prolonged stress.

What is the extended stay option?

Guests can stay in the beautifully appointed lodgings at the Oasis on the Corrales Grief Spa estate for anywhere from a few nights to an extended period. Surrounded by beauty along the Rio Grande Bosque, guests enjoy full access to all of Kristy’s healing offerings. For someone in the middle of a major life transition, this kind of immersive, nurturing environment can be deeply restorative.

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At Corrales Grief Spa, a wellness retreat just outside Albuquerque, New Mexico, Kristy offers a healing practice where the science of the nervous system and the ancient wisdom of the healing arts meet. Each modality she offers is comforting and physiologically informed—a direct response to what grief does inside the body. More than a feeling or thought, grief is an event that happens to your entire body, and your nervous system is at the center of it.

You know the feeling. You wake at 3 a.m. with your heart racing. You sit through a meeting without tracking a single word. Exhausted beyond what a single night’s sleep repairs, you brace for something difficult to name, carrying a physical weight that no one else seems to see.

Far from weakness or “being in your head,” this is your nervous system doing exactly what it was designed to do, and getting stuck there.

Understanding what grief does to the nervous system changes how we approach healing.

Grief Activates the Threat Response

The autonomic nervous system governs the body’s involuntary functions, such as heart rate, breathing, digestion, hormonal regulation, and its responses to perceived threat. When the body encounters grief, it activates the same threat response it uses in the face of physical danger.

The amygdala, which is the brain’s alarm system, transmits distress signals to the hypothalamus, which activates the autonomic nervous system. The sympathetic nervous system takes over, releasing adrenaline and cortisol. The body prepares to fight, flee, or freeze. As the heart rate rises, muscles tense, digestion slows, and breathing becomes more shallow. 

The problem is that grief does not resolve the way a physical threat does. A predator either catches you or it doesn’t. Grief remains. The threat response sometimes activates, and stays activated, for months or years.

The nervous system is doing exactly what it was designed to do. But understanding this mechanism is the first step toward helping it find its way back.

Three Nervous System States, and Where Grief Puts You

Polyvagal Theory, developed by Dr. Stephen Porges, offers a neurobiological framework that has become central to understanding trauma and grief. According to this model, the autonomic nervous system operates through three primary states, each associated with a distinct set of physiological and psychological experiences.

The ventral vagal state is associated with safety, social engagement, and connection. In this state, the body feels at ease. People can think clearly, connect with others, and experience genuine rest. This is the state in which healing is possible.

The sympathetic state is associated with fight or flight. The body is mobilized, vigilant, and on high alert. For many grieving people, this shows up as anxiety, racing thoughts, irritability, trouble settling, and the sleeplessness that becomes its own particular torment.

The dorsal vagal state is associated with shutdown and freeze, which is the body’s response to overwhelming or inescapable threat. This is the grief that looks like numbness, collapse, disconnection, or an inability to feel anything at all.

Many grieving people find themselves moving between the sympathetic and dorsal vagal states. The path toward healing runs through the ventral vagal state, toward feeling safety, ease, and connection. The nervous system does not return to that state through willpower or cognitive effort alone, but through the body.

The HPA Axis and the Cortisol Flood

The hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis, or the HPA axis, is the body’s central stress regulation system. In grief, it activates and often stays activated.

Cortisol, the body’s primary stress hormone, serves important protective functions in the short term. When chronically elevated, it becomes destructive. Research has consistently documented the downstream effects: dysregulated cortisol patterns, immune suppression, cardiovascular stress, disrupted sleep, and cognitive difficulties.

The Freeze Response and the Grieving Body

Frequently misunderstood, the freeze response in the context of grief deserves attention. When the nervous system encounters a threat that feels inescapable, and grief is precisely that, it may shift into freeze. As the body becomes still and energy collapses inward, emotions tend to become muted or inaccessible. The person may appear fine from the outside while experiencing a profound disconnection on the inside.

This is not depression, though it can look like it, nor is it denial. It is the nervous system deploying one of its most sophisticated protective strategies—a pause button, held down indefinitely because the threat goes unresolved.

The freeze response involves being constantly on guard, watchful, and alert at a subconscious level, even when the surface appears calm. The body remains in a kind of suspended animation, waiting for a signal that it is safe to return. That signal comes through experience, through skillfully and gently guiding the body toward safety.

Why the Nervous System Cannot Think Its Way Out

The nervous system does not respond primarily to cognitive interventions. Vagal safety often involves more than talking or thinking yourself through it.
The nervous system communicates through sensation, breath, movement, sound, touch, and feeling safe in relationship with others. Effective healing addresses the nervous system in its own language—the body’s language, not the mind’s.

A 2025 paper published in Healthcare explored body-based interventions that cultivate interoceptive awareness, or the capacity to notice sensations that arise from the body. The World Health Organization has called for innovative strategies that extend beyond traditional cognitive approaches, and biologically based methods are gaining recognition for their significant role in regulating emotions and promoting wellness. 

What Body-Based Healing Does

Kristy has built her healing practice at Corrales Grief Spa on this understanding. Every modality she offers works with the nervous system directly as she invites it toward regulation and creates the conditions in which genuine healing becomes possible.

Shamanic Angelic Reiki with Color Infusion and Sound works at the level of the nervous system and the energy body. The combination of hands-on energy work, breath visualization, and sound bath immersion activates the parasympathetic nervous system and helps quiet the chronic sympathetic activation that grief sustains.

Sound Healing works through vibrational frequencies that the nervous system registers directly, producing measurable reductions in cortisol and heart rate. O’Waken Yoga and Breathwork engage the body through movement and breath, two of the most direct pathways to nervous system regulation, activating the vagus nerve and shifting the body toward parasympathetic dominance.

Guided Visual Imagery and Yoga Nidra guide the nervous system through carefully constructed landscapes of safety and rest. Ericksonian Clinical Hypnotherapy reaches into the unconscious to address the deeper patterns keeping the nervous system locked in grief’s stress response. Expressive Art and Mandalas give the nervous system a way to externalize what it holds while moving energy through pathways that language cannot always reach.

None of these is a shortcut through grief. They are invitations, to the nervous system, to the body, and to the whole person, to remember that safety is still possible. That is where healing begins.

Frequently Asked Questions: The Nervous System, Grief, and Healing Near Albuquerque

Why does grief feel so physical and not just emotional?

Because grief activates the body’s full threat response. The amygdala registers loss as danger, triggering the sympathetic nervous system and flooding the body with cortisol and adrenaline. The result is a cascade of physical symptoms, including a tight chest, sleep disruption, digestive changes, immune suppression, and fatigue, that are genuine physiological responses.

What is the autonomic nervous system, and why does it matter for grief?

The autonomic nervous system manages the body’s involuntary functions and its responses to threat. In grief, it often becomes stuck in sympathetic activation (hypervigilance, anxiety, and sleeplessness) or dorsal vagal shutdown (numbness, collapse, and disconnection). Both states suppress healing. Body-based healing modalities work to bring the nervous system back toward the ventral vagal state—toward safety, ease, and connection—which is where genuine recovery begins.

What is the freeze response in grief?

The freeze response is one of the nervous system’s protective strategies when a threat feels inescapable. In grief, it can show up as numbness, emotional flatness, disconnection, or an inability to feel. It is not depression, though it resembles it. It is the nervous system holding its breath, waiting for a signal that it is safe to return. That signal comes through body-based experience, not through thinking.

Why doesn’t talking about grief always feel like enough?

Because grief is held in the body’s nervous system, not only in cognitive memory. The nervous system does not respond primarily to verbal or cognitive interventions. It responds to sensation, breath, movement, sound, and the felt experience of safety — all of which body-based healing modalities address directly.

What is Reiki Albuquerque — and how does it support nervous system healing?

Reiki is a hands-on energy healing practice that works directly with the nervous system to promote deep relaxation and restore energetic balance. At Corrales Grief Spa, just outside Albuquerque in Corrales, New Mexico, Kristy offers Shamanic Angelic Reiki with Color Infusion and Sound — an immersive, multisensory approach that layers energy work, breath visualization, angelic attunement, shamanic practice, and sound bath immersion into a single session.

What is a wellness retreat, and how does it support nervous system regulation?

A wellness retreat that specifically addresses the nervous system — through body-based modalities, skilled presence, and an environment designed for safety and calm — offers the nervous system an extended period in which regulation becomes possible. Corrales Grief Spa is a wellness retreat near Albuquerque built around exactly this understanding. Guests can stay for a single session or for an extended period, giving the nervous system the time it needs.

How do I begin?

Simply share a little information about yourself, and we will reach out to create customized support. We’re ready when you are.
Your nervous system has been doing its best with what it was given. It deserves care that meets it where it is.

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At Corrales Grief Spa, a wellness retreat in Corrales, New Mexico, Kristy has built an entire practice around the understanding that the body grieves on its own terms—and deserves healing on those terms, too.

When someone tells you grief lives in the body, they are not speaking metaphorically.

The tightness in the chest that arrives without warning—and the exhaustion you can’t seem to shake. The ache that moves through the joints. The sleep that will not come, or that arrives in fragments and leaves you feeling depleted.

None of this is imaginary. None of it is “just stress.” These are documented, measurable physiological changes, and research is increasingly clear that healing grief requires addressing the body as directly as it addresses the mind.

Every healing modality at Corrales Grief Spa speaks to the body as well as the spirit, because in Kristy’s three decades of experience, she has learned what the research now confirms: grief lives in the body, and healing has to go there too.

Grief Is a Full-Body Stress Event

The reason grief affects the body so profoundly is rooted in co-regulation. We co-regulate with our loved ones. Our nervous systems attune to theirs, our physiological rhythms synchronize with theirs over time. When that person is gone, the body experiences a kind of disruption at the cellular level. The nervous system searches for a signal that is no longer there.

Research from the University of Arizona and other institutions has confirmed that inflammation increases following the death of a loved one. A study published in Psychoneuroendocrinology found that people experiencing intense grief showed significantly higher levels of inflammation compared to those with less severe grief.

This systemic inflammation can affect the immune system and manifests differently depending on a person’s existing health conditions, such as worsening joint pain in someone with arthritis, increasing breathing difficulties in someone with asthma, or raising cardiovascular risk across the board.

A 2025 systematic review published in PMC found reliable scientific evidence that prolonged grief is associated with poorer physical health and a higher risk of somatization (the expression of psychological distress through physical symptoms).

What Grief Does to the Immune System

The immune system takes a blow during bereavement. While experiencing prolonged stress, the body releases excessive amounts of cortisol, which suppresses immune function by reducing the production of lymphocytes, the white blood cells that fight infection.

Grief, in the most literal biological sense, can make you sick. Understanding this changes the way we think about grief support. Addressing only the emotional experience of loss is not sufficient. The body needs care, too.

The Heart Under Grief

The cardiovascular system responds to grief with measurable physiological changes that go well beyond the metaphorical broken heart.

Blood pressure rises during waves of grief. Bereavement research has consistently documented increases in catecholamines, including epinephrine and norepinephrine, which elevate heart rate and increase blood clotting risk.

Takotsubo cardiomyopathy, often called “broken heart syndrome,”  is a condition caused by acute emotional stress that can be triggered by the death of a loved one. Its symptoms closely mimic those of a heart attack: chest pain, shortness of breath, and electrocardiographic changes. The coronary arteries remain clear, but the heart muscle itself is temporarily weakened. Most people recover, but the condition illustrates with clinical precision just how directly emotional loss registers as physical crisis.

Sleep, Appetite, and the Body’s Basic Functions

Grief disrupts the body’s most fundamental regulatory functions, sleep and appetite, and the disruption compounds over time.

Sleep problems are among the most common physical effects of grief. Grief’s activation of the sympathetic nervous system keeps the body in a state of hypervigilance. Racing thoughts, fragmented sleep, and early morning waking can result. Insomnia prevents the body from experiencing the restorative functions of sleep, including cellular repair, immune reconstitution, and emotional processing that happens during REM cycles.

Appetite changes are equally common and equally physiological. Cortisol and other stress hormones directly affect the hormones that regulate hunger. Some people cannot eat. Others eat without appetite or recognition of satiety. Digestive problems, headaches, physical tension, chronic pain, and a general heaviness throughout the body are all documented physical manifestations of grief.

Why Talk Alone Is Not Enough

None of the physical effects of grief respond primarily to verbal processing.

Modern somatic research has established clearly that trauma and grief are held in the body’s nervous system rather than solely in cognitive memory. The World Health Organization has increasingly emphasized the importance of integrated, body-based approaches to mental health and wellness, recognizing that cognitive interventions alone do not address the full spectrum of human experience.

How Corrales Grief Spa Meets the Body in Grief

Every offering at Corrales Grief Spa addresses the body as a primary site of healing, not an afterthought.

Shamanic Angelic Reiki with Color Infusion and Sound works at the level of the energy body and the nervous system simultaneously. The hands-on work, combined with color visualization, breath, and sound bath immersion, invites the nervous system toward deep relaxation and ease.

Sound Healing uses vibrational frequencies that the body registers directly, reducing cortisol, lowering heart rate, and inviting the nervous system toward ease. O’Waken Yoga, Meditation, and Breathwork address the body through movement and breath—two of the most direct pathways to nervous system regulation.

Guided Visual Imagery and Yoga Nidra guide the body through deep states of rest. Aroma Touch uses therapeutic-grade DoTerra essential oils combined with intentional touch, engaging the limbic system to support emotional release and nervous system regulation. Ericksonian Clinical Hypnotherapy reaches into the unconscious to address the patterns that keep the body locked in grief’s stress response.

Expressive Art and Mandalas give the body a way to externalize what it holds. Plant Based Nutrition nourishes the physical body directly, supporting the immune system, the gut microbiome, and the hormonal environment that grief so disrupts. 

Frequently Asked Questions: Grief, the Body, and Physical Healing Near Albuquerque

Why does grief cause physical symptoms?

Grief activates the body’s full stress response, flooding it with cortisol and adrenaline, suppressing the immune system, elevating cardiovascular risk, and disrupting sleep and appetite regulation. These are documented physiological changes, not psychological ones, and they require physical care alongside emotional support.

Can grief actually make you sick?

Yes. Research has shown that grieving people have suppressed immune function, lower natural killer cell activity, higher inflammatory markers, and reduced antibody response to vaccines. The body under grief is genuinely more vulnerable to illness and infection.

Why isn’t talk therapy always enough for grief?

Because grief is held in the body’s nervous system, not only in cognitive memory. The immune system, the cardiovascular system, and the nervous system do not only regulate through verbal processing. They respond to sensation, breath, movement, sound, touch, and feeling safe, all of which body-based healing addresses directly.

What is Reiki, and how does it help the grieving body?

Reiki is a hands-on energy healing practice that works with the nervous system and the energy body to promote deep relaxation and restore balance. At Corrales Grief Spa, near Albuquerque, New Mexico, Kristy offers Shamanic Angelic Reiki with Color Infusion and Sound—a uniquely immersive, multisensory experience designed to address the body’s grief response on multiple levels.

What does a wellness retreat offer that an individual therapy session doesn’t?

A wellness retreat offers time, immersion, and a holistic environment designed to support the body’s healing. At Corrales Grief Spa, a wellness retreat near Albuquerque, guests have access to the full range of Kristy’s healing modalities, beautifully appointed lodgings, and the restorative environment of the Rio Grande Bosque. Stays range from a single session to up to a year, allowing the body the time it actually needs to heal.

How do I know which modalities are right for my body?

You don’t need to know. Kristy will listen to where you are physically, emotionally, and energetically, and help you find the right footing. Tell her what your body has been carrying, and she will help you decide what to offer it.

How do I get in touch?

Reach out in whatever way feels most comfortable:

• Fill out a welcome form to connect with Kristy
• Call or text at (505) 991-9129

At Corrales Grief Spa, the body is not an afterthought. It is where we begin.

Corrales, NM  |  corralesgriefspa.com  | (505) 991-9129  |  ✉️ info@corralesgriefspa.com

At Corrales Grief Spa near Albuquerque, New Mexico, Reiki is a living, layered ceremony of energy, color, sound, and spirit.

When most people think of Reiki, they picture a quiet room and gentle hands. What Kristy offers at Corrales Grief Spa, near Albuquerque, goes far deeper than that. She creates a multisensory healing journey woven from decades of study, an open heart, and a sincere belief in the body’s capacity to find its way back to balance.

Kristy has been practicing Reiki since the early 1990s, tracing her lineage through both Shamanic and Angelic traditions. Over time, her sessions have evolved into something she calls Shamanic Angelic Reiki with Color Infusion and Sound, a distinctive, immersive approach that is difficult to find anywhere else in the Albuquerque area.

Here is what that actually looks and feels like.

She begins with the foundational practice of hands-on energy work, using the ancient art of directing universal life energy through the hands to areas of the body that feel out of balance or in need of attention. Each session weaves in practices drawn from a lifetime of study.

Kristy brings the healing language of color from her background in Art Psychotherapy. She may invite you to imagine your breath as a specific color that feels instinctively healing to you in this moment, and to guide that breath consciously into the parts of your body in need of care. This technique tends to anchor people in their own bodies in a way that words alone rarely can.

She also works with the angelic realm, calling in what she describes as angelic forces, guides of compassion and light, that she believes move through the healing space alongside her. And from her years of studying with shamans in New York and New Mexico, she draws on the medicine of the animal kingdom and the elements. These are active, intentional parts of the session.

Finally, Kristy often includes a sound bath of immersive vibrational tones that move through the room and through the body, completing the full, immersive healing experience.

Whether you are navigating grief, sitting with the weight of a life transition, or simply feeling depleted and disconnected from yourself, this kind of session offers the chance to feel held.

What Is Reiki — and Where Did It Come From?

Reiki as practiced in the United States today traces back to the teachings of Mikao Usui in Japan in the early 1920s. Usui was a lifelong spiritual seeker whose intense practice culminated in a profound revelation on Mount Kurama, a sacred mountain near Kyoto, where he is said to have fasted and meditated for 21 days.

One of his master students, Chujiro Hayashi, worked with Usui to develop and disseminate the healing practices more widely, opening a Reiki clinic in Tokyo. From there, a Japanese-American woman named Hawayo Takata brought Reiki to Hawaii in 1937 and eventually to the US mainland, where it has continued to grow.

The word Reiki itself combines two Japanese characters: rei, meaning universal, and ki, meaning life energy — the same vital force known as chi or prana in other traditions. It is administered through laying on of hands and is based on the idea that an unseen life force energy flows through us and is what causes us to be alive.

Today, Reiki has moved well beyond the realm of alternative wellness. Major institutions including the Mayo Clinic and UCLA now incorporate Reiki, and researchers at Harvard and Yale have begun creating studies to further understand what makes it work.

What Does the Research Say?

As of 2024, there are more than 110 Reiki research papers published in peer-reviewed scientific journals. Stronger studies point to Reiki’s effectiveness in reducing anxiety, pain, and fatigue, and in supporting emotional wellbeing and recovery from burnout.

A 2025 meta-analysis published in BMC Palliative Care analyzed data from 661 participants aged 14 and older, finding that Reiki therapy had a significant positive effect on quality of life. 

A separate study published in 2025 offered Reiki to 91 outpatients at a community behavioral health clinic, many of whom were living with major depressive disorder, PTSD, or generalized anxiety disorder. Participants reported their ratings of pain, anxiety, fatigue, and emotional state before and after sessions. The results showed meaningful improvements across all measures.

Reiki is a complementary therapy that does not diagnose conditions or replace medical care.

Reiki and Grief: A Natural Partnership

Grief and Reiki have an intuitive kinship. Both ask us to slow down and feel rather than think our way through. And both recognize that healing is not linear.

Reiki’s calming influence on the nervous system supports emotional processing. Many clients describe a lightening of emotional heaviness, greater acceptance, and a profound sense of peace during transitions like divorce, loss, and grief.

At Corrales Grief Spa, Kristy offers Reiki sessions within a sanctuary that understands grief as a whole-body, whole-soul experience that holds space for every dimension of it.

Frequently Asked Questions About Reiki Near Albuquerque

What does Albuquerque Reiki feel like?

The most common experience is an almost immediate release of stress and a feeling of deep relaxation. Reiki is cumulative, and even people who don’t notice much the first time usually have progressively deeper experiences if they continue. Common sensations include warmth or tingling where the practitioner places her hands, a floating or dreamlike quality, and occasionally an emotional release such as tears or a deep sigh. Some people simply fall asleep, and that is perfectly fine.

Do I have to believe in Reiki for it to work?

What is needed is a willingness to experience the practice. Many people come to a Reiki session simply to explore how it feels, without expectations. Understanding and belief often develop after personal experience rather than before.

What should I wear or bring?

Kristy recommends loose, comfortable clothing. Arrive with an open mind and, if it helps, an intention for what you are hoping to release or receive.

How is Kristy’s approach different from standard Reiki?

Kristy’s sessions integrate hands-on energy work with color healing drawn from her Art Psychotherapy training, breath-based visualization, Shamanic practices including animal medicine and elemental awareness, Angelic attunement, and live sound bath immersion. It is a full-spectrum experience, and one she has built slowly, over thirty years of devoted practice.

Is Reiki safe if I am also in therapy or receiving medical treatment?

Yes. Reiki is designed to work alongside other forms of care, not in place of them. Reiki is officially recognized as a complementary therapy. If you are working with a therapist or physician, you are welcome to share that with Kristy, and she will honor whatever care team surrounds you.

How many sessions will I need?

There is no single answer. Some guests come for a single session as an act of self-care. Others choose to return weekly or monthly as part of an ongoing healing practice. Kristy will help you find the rhythm that serves you best.

Can Reiki help with grief specifically?

Grief tends to live in the body, and Reiki works at precisely that level. Studies consistently show its effectiveness in supporting anxiety, depression, and the emotional exhaustion that often accompanies loss. At Corrales Grief Spa, Reiki is one thread in a larger tapestry of grief support, and it is woven with intention.

Nestled along the Rio Grande in Corrales, New Mexico, Corrales Grief Spa is a short drive from Albuquerque and a world away from the noise.

If you are ready to land, to breathe, and to begin again, Kristy is here.

Book Now

Some places let you visit. This one lets you stay. Most wellness retreats hand you a schedule and a checkout time. The Oasis in Corrales, New Mexico does something almost unheard of in the world of healing travel: it lets you stay as long as you need.

Situated within a large, gated estate in one of the most beautiful neighborhoods in Corrales, the Oasis is just steps from the Rio Grande Bosque, a lush cottonwood forest that runs along the river’s edge. This one-of-a-kind property is home to Corrales Grief Spa and two extraordinary lodging options that, together, offer true sanctuary, on your own timeline.

Whether you are arriving for a weekend of restoration, an extended healing stay, or something in between, the Oasis gives you a place to land that is unlike anything else in the Albuquerque area.

The O’Waken Oasis

The Lodgings

The O’Waken Oasis—1,350 Square Feet of Cinematic Luxury

Rated 5.0 on Airbnb | Guest Favorite | Top 10% of Homes

The larger of the two accommodations, this oversized suite spans 1,350 square feet and delivers extravagant decor designed to delight the senses and relax the soul.

What awaits you inside:

• A 9-foot by 5-foot cinematic projection screen for a true movie theater experience
• A cozy fireplace for evenings that deserve to slow down
• A queen-size four-post Indian bed and a full-size four-post Chinese bed
• Sofa seating for eight
• A full kitchenette with dishwasher, full-size refrigerator, and washer/dryer
• A dedicated home office workspace
• A pool table and a massage chair
• A disco ball—because healing includes joy
• A modern bathroom with plush, oversized towels
• Outdoor dining for six and indoor dining for four, plus two barstools
• A 108-inch TV
• Private, gated parking with a gate clicker provided
• Private entry, with a large buffer room separating your space from the main house

Guests wake up to southwestern sunshine and may walk directly to the Rio Grande for morning meditations. This suite accommodates up to three guests and holds a perfect 5.0 rating across all categories.

Book the O’Waken Oasis on airbnb

The Bosque Oasis—600 Square Feet of Warm, Private Refuge

The Bosque Oasis

Rated 5.0 on Airbnb across all categories

The Bosque Oasis is a lavish 600-square-foot guest suite that looks directly out onto the Rio Grande Bosque. Warm decor and carefully chosen furnishings invite guests to get cozy, deeply relax, and restore body, mind, and soul.

What awaits you inside:

• A sumptuously appointed king-size bed
• A kitchenette with 2-burner hot plate, combination microwave/air fryer/convection oven, and a full-size refrigerator and freezer
• Dedicated workspace for remote work
• WiFi and TV
• Private, fully gated parking
• Direct views of the Rio Grande Bosque

The Bosque Oasis accommodates up to two guests and holds a perfect 5.0 rating across every category.

Book the Bosque Oasis on airbnb

What Makes the Oasis Truly Unique

Beautiful accommodations exist throughout New Mexico. What separates the Oasis from every other option in the region is their unique blend of welcoming comfort and luxuriously distinctive decor, their proximity to the Rio Grande, and the opportunities for healing and wellness care that come with them.

Guests staying at the Oasis have access to the full range of healing services offered through Corrales Grief Spa, led by Kristy—a five-year Airbnb Superhost with a 100% response rate, and a healer with more than thirty years of training in the healing arts.

Those offerings include:

• Shamanic Angelic Reiki with Color Infusion and Sound—an immersive, multisensory energy healing experience
• Expressive Art and Mandalas—intuitive creative work drawn from Kristy’s Art Psychotherapy training
• Guided Visual Imagery and Yoga Nidra—healing journeys through guided story and stillness
• O’Waken Yoga, Meditation, and O’Yama Breathing—restorative movement and mind-body practices
• Ericksonian Clinical Hypnotherapy—working with the unconscious to shift patterns of grief, anxiety, and sleeplessness
• Sound Healing—blissfully immersive vibrational tones for deep relaxation
• Aroma Touch—therapeutic touch with DoTerra essential oils
• Care for the Caregiver—specialized support for those who have given themselves to caring for others
• The Reflections Room—a contemplative space inspired by the work of Dr. Raymond Moody, the pioneer of near-death studies
• Nourishing, Restorative Meals—plant-based nutrition and custom options, including eggs, cheese, fish, poultry, and meat
• Tea and Tarot, Mandalas and Margaritas—because healing and delight belong together

Far from the common model of a hotel with a spa attached, this is a healing sanctuary where the lodgings and the healing work are inseparable parts of the same experience.

Who Stays at The Oasis

The Oasis welcomes guests navigating grief, burnout, life transitions, and the particular exhaustion of caring for everyone but themselves. It also welcomes anyone who recognizes joy and beauty as part of healing—and who wants a stay that goes well beyond the ordinary into an immersive experience of sensory delight.

Guests come for a night, a week, a month, or longer. The estate sits at the end of a cul-de-sac in a high-end Corrales neighborhood, along the peaceful bosque, far from the noise of the city while remaining minutes from everything Albuquerque and the surrounding area has to offer.

Frequently Asked Questions About Staying at the Oasis Wellness Retreat

What are the two lodging options at the O’Waken Oasis?

The Oasis offers two distinct accommodations: the O’Waken Oasis, a 1,350-square-foot luxury space with two beds, a fireplace, a cinematic projection screen, a pool table, and private entry; and the Bosque Oasis, a 600-square-foot guest suite with a king bed and direct views of the Rio Grande Bosque. Both hold a perfect 5.0 rating on Airbnb.

Do lodging guests have access to Corrales Grief Spa’s healing modalities?

Yes. Guests staying at the Oasis can access the full range of modalities offered through Corrales Grief Spa, including Reiki, Clinical Hypnotherapy, Expressive Art, Sound Healing, Yoga, Meditation, Guided Visual Imagery, Aroma Touch, Plant Based Nutrition, and more. Everything can be customized for individuals, couples, or small groups.

How long can guests stay?

Stays range from a single night to a full year. Contact Kristy directly to discuss options for extended visits.

Is the property private and secure?

Yes. Both accommodations sit within a fully gated estate. The Oasis has a private entry with a large buffer room separating it from the main house. The Bosque Oasis is completely private and fully gated. Both include private, gated parking.

Where is the Oasis located?

The Oasis sits at the end of a cul-de-sac in a high-end neighborhood in Corrales, New Mexico, directly on the Rio Grande Bosque and approximately 2.5 miles from Balloon Fiesta Park. It is minutes from shops, galleries, restaurants, breweries, and wineries, and a short drive from Albuquerque and Rio Rancho.

Who is the host?

Kristy is a five-year Airbnb Superhost with a 100% response rate and a 5.0 overall rating. She is also the founder of Corrales Grief Spa and a healer with over thirty years of experience—a Reiki Master, certified Ericksonian Clinical Hypnotherapist, yoga and meditation teacher, and ordained interfaith minister and spiritual guide who conducts weddings and memorial services.

How do I book a stay or inquire about healing services?

Both properties can be booked directly through Airbnb. To inquire about healing modalities, customized retreat packages, or extended stay options, contact Kristy at Corrales Grief Spa:

• Email: info@corralesgriefspa.com
• Call or text: (505) 991-9129

The riverbank is just outside the door. The healing is just inside. All that’s left is to arrive.

Book your stay and begin. 🌿