At Corrales Grief Spa at The Oasis in Corrales, New Mexico, Kristy offers transition companion support as part of her practice, accompanying individuals and families through the end-of-life process with the same holistic presence, spiritual grounding, and years of experience she brings to every threshold she crosses.

Death has always had its witnesses.

Before hospitals, before hospices, before the medicalization of dying moved the end of life out of homes and into institutions, the moment of death was a communal event and an attended ritual. Someone was always present, not necessarily to perform a procedure or manage a symptom, but simply to accompany, witness, and ensure that no one crossed that final threshold alone.

That ancient, universal, and profound practice is having a renaissance. And the research is beginning to catch up to what those who have done this work have always known.

A Practice Nearly As Old As Dying Itself

Across cultures and throughout recorded history, people understood the care of the dying as sacred communal work. In Indigenous and ancestral traditions throughout the world, community members attended the dying process, bringing rituals, song, storytelling, and prayer to the bedside. 

In medieval Europe, the ars moriendi, or the art of dying well, was a recognized tradition, with texts circulating as early as the fifteenth century to guide both the dying and those who accompanied them. In Buddhist traditions, conscious dying and the presence of a skilled spiritual companion at the moment of death has been understood for millennia as one of the most significant forms of care one human being can offer another.

The modern transition companion movement traces its formal origins to the early 1990s, when palliative care physician Dr. Ira Byock began writing about the profound gaps in end-of-life care within the clinical system—gaps that excellent medicine was not designed to fill. From the home birth movement came people’s growing desire for non-medical support, which fueled the birth doula movement and set the framework for people to understand the concept of end-of-life support. By 1998, the first formal connections were being drawn between birth support and dying support, and a profession began to take shape.

The National End-of-Life Doula Alliance’s membership in the United States grew from 260 in 2019 to 1,545 by January 2024, reflecting a cultural moment of reckoning with how we die and who we allow to accompany us.

What Is a Transition Companion? 

A transition companion is not a medical professional. They do not diagnose, prescribe, or perform clinical procedures. Instead, they offer something the clinical system rarely has the capacity to provide at scale: sustained, unhurried, non-medical presence.

In practice, this encompasses a wide and deeply personal range of activities: facilitating conversations about end-of-life wishes before they become urgent, helping individuals clarify and document their values and legacy, sitting vigil during the final hours or days of life, supporting families in the immediate aftermath of a death, and offering the quality of human presence that transforms what might otherwise be a clinical event into something more closely resembling what most people, when asked, say they want: a meaningful, witnessed, peaceful death.

A 2025 review published in Palliative Medicine examining the transition companion role across multiple studies found that bereaved family members reported feeling heard, empowered, involved, and less anxious following end-of-life doula support. Families also described greater confidence in supporting decision-making when assisted by a transition companion who could help navigate complex healthcare systems with knowledge and care.

A 2024 paper published in Palliative Care and Social Practice, reporting on a commissioned end-of-life doula pilot program within the UK’s National Health Service, identified key outcome measures including support with advance care planning, reducing unwanted hospital admissions in the last weeks of life, and enabling family and carers to feel supported and less anxious about the death, including when the dying person was supported to die at home.

The Gap That Medicine Cannot Close

What researchers have consistently found is that families who experience meaningful presence, conversation, and ritual during a loved one’s dying process grieve differently afterward. The quality of the death shapes the quality of the bereavement: survivors who witness a good death tend to process loss more adaptively, experience less complicated grief, and remember the dying period as meaningful rather than traumatic. Clinical systems can deliver excellent pain management; they cannot deliver meaningful conversations, legacy work, ritual, and presence at scale.

This is the gap that transition companions exist to fill. Not in opposition to the clinical system, transition companions work alongside hospice, palliative care, and medical teams, but in the spaces between clinical interventions, where what is needed is not expertise but accompaniment.

Research on the field has shown an annual growth rate of 9.47% in peer-reviewed publications on this topic, reflecting the growing recognition, within both academic and clinical communities, that transition companion work is not supplementary to good end-of-life care. For many people, it is what makes good end-of-life care possible.

The Spiritual Dimension

For those with a spiritual orientation, the presence of a transition companion carries additional meaning. Many traditions hold that the moment of death is among the most spiritually significant of a human life—a passage that deserves as much intentional care as any other major transition.

Kristy’s work as a transition companion is informed by this understanding. Her thirty years of experience are the foundation from which she holds the particular quality of presence this work requires.

She is not there to fix, to advise, or to manage. She is there to accompany, bear witness, and ensure that the threshold is crossed with as much intention, beauty, and care as the individual and family desire.

Transition Companion Support at Corrales Grief Spa

Transition companion support at The Oasis is tailored to each individual and family. It may begin weeks or months before death, with conversations about wishes, values, legacy, and meaning. It may involve a single vigil session, or an ongoing series of visits as a person moves through the final stages of life. It is available for the dying individual, for family members who are accompanying someone they love, and for those who are in the early stages of grief following a death.

The specific offerings Kristy may draw on include guided visual imagery, expressive art, Shamanic Angelic Reiki, sound healing, the Reflections Room, breathwork, and simple, sustained human presence—the oldest and most essential of all the healing arts.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a transition companion?

A transition companion is a trained, non-medical practitioner who offers holistic presence, emotional and spiritual support, and practical guidance to individuals who are dying and to the families accompanying them. The role is ancient in origin and is experiencing significant formal recognition in the contemporary healthcare landscape. At Corrales Grief Spa, transition companion support is offered by Kristy, a holistic grief practitioner with over thirty years of experience.

How does a transition companion differ from a hospice worker or palliative care nurse?

Hospice workers and palliative care nurses are trained clinical professionals whose role centers on medical symptom management and clinical care. A transition companion offers non-medical support, including presence, conversation, legacy work, ritual, and accompaniment. The two roles are complementary rather than competing, and transition companions often work alongside hospice and palliative care teams.

When should someone consider engaging a transition companion?

There is no single right time. Some people engage a transition companion months in advance of an anticipated death, to help clarify wishes and prepare both practically and spiritually. Others come in the final weeks or days. Transition companion support is also available in the aftermath of a death, for family members who need held support as they grieve. Kristy will speak honestly about where in this process her support would be most useful.

Is transition companion support only for the person who is dying?

No. Much of the most meaningful work a transition companion does is with families, helping loved ones know how to be present, how to navigate their own fear and grief, and how to create the conditions for a death that feels meaningful rather than traumatic.

How do I begin a conversation about this?

Reach out to Kristy directly. She will listen, speak honestly about what she offers, and help you find the right support for where you and your family are.

Please enable JavaScript in your browser to complete this form.

Name *

First

Last

Number Name Message

Email *

Phone Number *

I would like more information on:

• Stay - Lodging and Accommodations
• Grow - Custom Retreats & Workshops
• Heal - Healing Sessions & Spiritual Services
• Link - Virtual Grief Support & Wellness Workshops

Comment or Message

Connect With Us

For women, gathering with friends is essential to managing stress. Corrales Grief Spa, at The Oasis in New Mexico, offers personalized wellness retreats designed to help friends reconnect.

In 2000, psychologist Shelley E. Taylor and her team at UCLA published a landmark paper in Psychological Review that fundamentally challenged fifty years of stress research. Her work proposed that the dominant model of stress response—fight-or-flight—described male behavior under stress far more accurately than female behavior. Women, they found, responded to stress through a distinctly different pattern: tend-and-befriend.

Taylor’s team described two interlocking responses. The first involves protective, nurturing behavior directed toward the self and others when facing a threat. The second involves actively seeking out and strengthening social bonds—the drive to gather and be near others. The research found that oxytocin mediates both responses.

The result is a stress response that, in women, is biologically oriented toward connection. When stress rises, the female body defaults to the urge to reach toward other women.

Taylor’s 2006 follow-up paper in Current Directions in Psychological Science elaborated on the mechanism: positive connection under stress causes oxytocin to attenuate the body’s stress responses, dampening sympathetic nervous system activation and calming the HPA axis, the same system implicated in chronic stress and its downstream effects on the immune system, digestion, and sleep. In plain terms: being with women you trust, particularly when you are under stress, physically calms the body at a biological level.

The Longevity Research

The research on female friendship and health outcomes doesn’t stop at stress regulation. It extends to some of the most significant health outcomes researchers study.

A meta-analysis published in PLOS Medicine by Julianne Holt-Lunstad and colleagues at Brigham Young University found that individuals with adequate social relationships had a 50% greater likelihood of survival compared to those with poor or insufficient social relationships. The researchers noted that this effect was comparable in magnitude to well-established mortality risk factors, including smoking.

A separate longitudinal study examining social integration and longevity in women found that the depth and breadth of meaningful social connection was associated with significantly better long-term health outcomes.

This is not about having a lot of acquaintances, but about the particular, irreplaceable quality of being genuinely known by other women.

Why Life Pulls Women Apart

If the research is this clear, and the need is this biological, why do so many women find themselves, at a certain point in life, isolated from the friendships that once felt central to who they were?

The answer is not a mystery—careers accelerate, children arrive, and relationships shift. Grief takes up residence. Women who reach their forties, fifties, and sixties often describe a particular kind of grief around friendship—not the loss of a specific person, but the gradual erosion of the closeness they once had with women who still exist in the world, who still matter, but who have drifted to the edge of a life too full to hold them close.

This too is a form of loss worth naming, tending, and, when possible, reversing.

Group Retreats at Corrales Grief Spa

A group retreat at The Oasis is built around the same understanding that shapes everything Kristy does: that healing happens in relationships, that the nervous system softens in the presence of safe others, and that some things simply cannot be done alone.

Retreats can be tailored for small groups, offered as day retreats, overnight experiences, or multi-day stays. They are appropriate for friend groups seeking to reconnect, for groups of women navigating a shared loss or transition, or for women who simply know they need each other and are ready to make space for that.

What the group brings and what they need shape each retreat. Kristy offers her presence, her thirty years of experience, and access to the full range of healing modalities at The Oasis, including Reiki, sound healing, guided visual imagery, expressive art, the Reflections Room, breathwork, yoga nidra, and the Bosque itself. There will be food, thoughtfully prepared, and space for silence and space for laughter.

The Friends Who Need Each Other

If you are reading this and feeling the pull of the woman you once talked to every week, the friend you keep meaning to call, or the group that hasn’t gathered in longer than any of you care to admit, that pull is worth following.

The research is clear. The body knows it. The only question is whether you’ll make room.

Reach out to Kristy to begin a conversation about what a group retreat at The Oasis might look like for you and the women who matter.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a group retreat at Corrales Grief Spa?

A group retreat is a tailored healing experience for small groups of women, held at The Oasis at Corrales Grief Spa in Corrales, New Mexico. Retreats are available as half-day, full-day, overnight, or multi-day experiences, and are shaped around what the group needs. They can be focused on reconnection, shared grief or loss, life transition, or simply the restoration of friendships that deserve more time and space.

Do we need to be grieving to attend a group retreat?

No. Group retreats are for any gathering of women who want to come together with intention—whether that’s to reconnect, mark a life transition together, support a member of the group through a loss, or simply rest and restore in each other’s company. Kristy will work with your group to design an experience that fits where you are.

What modalities are available during a group retreat?

Kristy offers access to the full range of healing offerings at The Oasis, including Shamanic Angelic Reiki, guided visual imagery, expressive art, sound healing, breathwork, yoga nidra, the Reflections Room, and the MARI Card Test.

Can our group stay overnight at The Oasis?

Yes. The Oasis offers two beautifully appointed private suites—the O’Waken Oasis (1,350 square feet) and the Bosque Oasis (600 square feet, with direct Rio Grande Bosque views)—both available for extended stays. For groups who want an immersive multi-day experience, overnight accommodation is available.

How do we begin planning a group retreat?

Reach out to Kristy directly to start the conversation. She will talk through your group’s situation, size, and needs, and work with you to design an experience that feels right.

Please enable JavaScript in your browser to complete this form.

Name *

First

Last

Email *

Phone Number *

I would like more information on:

• Stay - Lodging and Accommodations
• Grow - Custom Retreats & Workshops
• Heal - Healing Sessions & Spiritual Services
• Link - Virtual Grief Support & Wellness Workshops

Name more Phone

Comment or Message

Connect With Us

Divorce doesn’t have to be a battle.
That may sound obvious, and yet the dominant cultural script for ending a marriage calls to mind attorneys, courtrooms, adversarial negotiation, and years of financial and emotional depletion. Divorce is often seen as a fight to be won or a process to survive.
There is a growing movement pushing back against this, and the research behind it is compelling. More importantly, there is a quieter, more human option that most couples never know exists, and it doesn’t require a courtroom, a mediator, or a legal team to access.

At Corrales Grief Spa at The Oasis in Corrales, New Mexico, Kristy offers a rare alternative: a warm, private, and supported space where couples navigating the end of a marriage can come together, with a charcuterie board, a soothing drink, and a skilled, neutral presence—to begin the work of separating with intention rather than injury.

The evidence on this is now clear and consistent. A 2024 longitudinal study published in the Journal of Marriage and Family, tracking 2,050 families over 18 months, found that the quality of co-parenting cooperation—not marital status—was the single most powerful predictor of children’s outcomes after divorce. Children of parents who maintained cooperative, low-conflict relationships showed nearly identical gains in emotional regulation and wellbeing as children in intact families. Children of high-conflict parents, regardless of whether those parents were divorced or still married, showed increased anxiety, depression risk, and academic difficulty.
In other words: conflict is the problem. The divorce itself, handled well, does not have to be.

A 2024 systematic review examining co-parenting conflict and children’s mental health outcomes across multiple studies found that destructive parental conflict following divorce was a significant risk factor for a wide range of difficulties in children, including anxiety, depression, and emotional dysregulation, while interventions that reduced conflict between parents and enhanced parenting cooperation produced meaningful protective effects.

Separately, a 2024 meta-analysis published in Family Court Review, examining education programs for separating and divorcing parents across multiple studies, found consistent evidence that structured support for parents during separation improved parental wellbeing, reduced stress, and provided practical strategies for shielding children from harmful exposure to conflict.
The research converges on the same point: the moment of separation, and how it is handled, has consequences that extend far beyond the legal paperwork.

The Problem with the Adversarial Model

Contested litigation is designed for conflict. It places two parties on opposite sides of a table, each represented by an advocate whose job is to win, and asks them to resolve one of the most emotionally charged transitions of their lives in an environment ripe for combat.

The financial cost alone is significant. The emotional cost is harder to measure but arguably greater. The adversarial process tends to reinforce positions, amplify grievances, and make cooperative co-parenting, the thing the research most consistently identifies as protective for children, significantly harder to achieve afterward.

This is why alternative approaches have grown substantially. Settlement-focused processes, including both formal mediation and collaborative methods, have consistently demonstrated better outcomes: lower conflict, higher satisfaction, more durable agreements, and stronger post-divorce co-parenting relationships. The motivation to resolve is strong when both parties understand the stakes of the alternative, and when the process itself isn’t designed to pit them against each other.
But formal mediation and collaborative divorce, while valuable, still operate within legal and professional frameworks that some couples find intimidating, expensive, or simply not the right fit.

A Different Kind of Space

When a couple comes to The Oasis for an intentional divorce support session, they are not coming for legal advice, mediation, or therapy. Kristy is a holistic grief practitioner and divorce guide. What she offers is something those services rarely provide: a warm, unhurried, and private human space where the emotional reality of what is ending can be acknowledged and held before the logistics take over.

The afternoon might look like this: a beautifully set table, a setting designed for luxurious comfort, and Kristy as a calm, neutral, experienced presence. Not to advise, not to take sides, and not to manage the legal dimensions of separation, but to help two people who are about to become co-parents, or simply two people who once loved each other, find a way to talk that doesn’t have to begin with conflict.

Research on neutral third parties in high-conflict divorce situations consistently emphasizes that the most effective practitioners remain genuinely neutral, validate both parties equally, and create conditions for communication rather than directing its content. That is the spirit of Kristy’s practice.
For some couples, a session like this is a single afternoon that sets a different tone for everything that follows. For others, it becomes a series of conversations as they work through the practical and emotional dimensions of a shared life being carefully, intentionally, unmade.

The Grief That Lives Inside a Divorce

There is an important dimension worth naming here. Divorce is grief, documented, researched, and clinically significant grief, and it rarely gets treated as such in the adversarial legal process.
Research consistently shows that 60 to 70 percent of divorced individuals experience clinical symptoms of grief, including intrusive thoughts, sleep disruption, and profound disruption of identity. The loss of a marriage involves not just the loss of a person but the loss of a shared future, a family structure, and a version of oneself that existed within the relationship.
Sitting with that grief, rather than rushing past it or having it steamrolled by litigation, is part of what makes intentional separation possible.

Who This Is For

This offering is for couples who want to end their marriage with dignity intact, for parents who want their children to see that love, even when it changes form, can still be handled with care. It is for two people who recognize that how they say goodbye will shape what comes next — for themselves, for each other, and for everyone who depends on them.
It is not for every situation. Circumstances involving domestic violence, significant power imbalances, or contested legal matters require the involvement of appropriate legal and clinical professionals, and Kristy will always be direct about when this offering is and isn’t the right fit.

When it is the right fit, a series of supported intentional divorce sessions at Corrales Grief Spa is an invitation to approach one of life’s hardest transitions with the same care and intention you would bring to any other threshold worth crossing.

Frequently Asked Questions

What are intentional divorce support sessions?
They are private, supported sessions at Corrales Grief Spa at The Oasis in Corrales, New Mexico, where a couple navigating the end of a marriage can come together in a warm, neutral environment to begin the process of separating with intention and care. It is not legal mediation, therapy, or counseling. It is a human space for a human transition.

Is Kristy a licensed mediator or attorney?

No. Kristy is a holistic grief practitioner and ceremonialist with over thirty years of experience sitting with people in transition..
Who is this offering for?

It is for couples who want to approach the end of their marriage with dignity, care, and as little unnecessary conflict as possible, particularly those with children who want to lay a foundation for cooperative co-parenting.

What is a session like?

Sessions are held at The Oasis and vary depending on what a couple needs. They typically involve a warm, private setting with light refreshments, an unhurried pace, and Kristy’s presence as a neutral, supportive witness. Some couples come once, and others return for a series of conversations as they work through the dimensions of a shared life being intentionally brought to a close.
Can this happen virtually?

In some cases, yes. Reach out to Kristy directly to discuss what would work best for your situation.
How do we begin?

The first step is a conversation with Kristy to discuss your situation and whether this offering is the right fit. Reach out directly, and she will speak honestly about what she can and cannot offer, and help you find the right support for where you are.

Please enable JavaScript in your browser to complete this form.

Name *

First

Last

Email *

like or Name

Phone Number *

I would like more information on:

• Stay - Lodging and Accommodations
• Grow - Custom Retreats & Workshops
• Heal - Healing Sessions & Spiritual Services
• Link - Virtual Grief Support & Wellness Workshops

Comment or Message

Connect With Us

Welcome to the Bosque Oasis executive retreat, just steps away from the Rio Grande Bosque, one of the rarest ecological environments in North America. It has drawn people to it for thousands of years—because something in the body resonates when it sees water, cottonwoods and a clear New Mexico sky.

For the executive, the founder, the leader who has spent months or years operating on no margin, the quiet is immediate, and the distance from the demands of ordinary life begins the moment you close the gate.

A Smaller Space. A More Complete Quiet.

The Bosque Oasis at The Oasis Spiritual Spa and Executive Retreat in Corrales, New Mexico is an elegantly cozy suite. At 600 square feet, it is intimate, warm, self-contained—looking directly out onto the Rio Grande Bosque.

Rated 5.0 on Airbnb across every single category, the Bosque Oasis is a lavish private guest suite on a fully gated luxury estate in one of Corrales’s finest neighborhoods.

The property is fully gated for security and privacy. Your parking is private. And while the Bosque Oasis shares a wall with the main house, it operates as a fully self-contained, private space, with its own entrance, its own rhythm, and its own quiet.

The Space

Warm decor and carefully chosen furnishings invite you to get cozy and deeply restore. Open your door, and look directly onto the Rio Grande Bosque, one of the rarest riparian corridors in the American Southwest. The cottonwoods, the water, the particular light of the New Mexico morning—this is what your nervous system has been asking for.

Inside, you’ll find:

• A sumptuously appointed king-size bed for the deepest sleep you’ve had in months
• A well-appointed kitchenette with a 2-burner hot plate, a combination microwave/air fryer/convection oven, and a full-size refrigerator and freezer — everything you need to eat well and simply
• A dedicated workspace for the days you need to stay connected
• WiFi and TV
• Private, fully gated parking
• Direct Bosque views from your door.

The Healing Is Available When You’re Ready for It

What sets The Oasis apart from any other private accommodation is not simply the suite itself, but what exists 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, entirely on your timeline, she offers access to a range of transformative healing modalities that are rarely available outside specialized clinical settings.

The Reflections Room: a modern reimagining of the ancient psychomanteum, developed under Kristy’s direct mentorship with Dr. Raymond Moody, the pioneering near-death researcher who brought this practice into contemporary therapeutic use. It offers a quality of stillness that productivity tools, standard vacations, and conventional therapy cannot typically reach.

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

Corrales, New Mexico: The Setting Itself Is Therapy

The village of Corrales runs along a stretch of the Rio Grande Bosque that has drawn people seeking beauty, quiet, and renewal for generations. The Bosque Oasis sits directly on it.

Approximately 2.5 miles from the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta Park, and minutes from shops, galleries, restaurants, breweries, and wineries, Corrales offers the rare combination of genuine natural solitude and easy access to everything you might want when you surface. The most effective burnout recovery retreats combine nature immersion, distance from daily demands, and structured wellness support as a single unified environment. Here, the Bosque handles the first. Kristy handles the rest.

Who This Is For

The Bosque Oasis is for the executive who needs something smaller, more contained, and more complete than a resort. For the founder who wants to be close to the water and far from the noise. For the leader who travels alone, needs to think, and deserves to rest deeply while doing it.

It is also for anyone at a threshold, whether a decision, a transition, a season of change, who needs a warm, private, beautiful place to remember what they actually want.

The Bosque is waiting just outside your door.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the Bosque Oasis?

The Bosque Oasis is a 600-square-foot private luxury guest suite on the gated estate of The Oasis Spiritual Spa and Executive Retreat in Corrales, New Mexico. It looks directly onto the Rio Grande Bosque and holds a perfect 5.0 rating across every Airbnb category. It is designed for complete privacy, deep rest, and, if you wish, access to the holistic healing practice of host Kristy.

How is the Bosque Oasis different from the O’Waken Oasis?

The O’Waken Oasis is the larger of the two accommodations on the estate, at 1,350 square feet, and includes features like a cinematic projection screen, pool table, and four-post beds. The Bosque Oasis is a more intimate 600-square-foot suite, with direct Bosque views and a warmer, cozier feel. Both hold a perfect 5.0 rating and offer access to the same property, the same host, and the same healing offerings.

Is this only for people dealing with grief?

No. The Oasis welcomes anyone seeking rest, privacy, renewal, or meaningful retreat, including executives recovering from burnout, founders at a crossroads, remote workers who need a beautiful base, and anyone in a season of change 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 entirely at your discretion—Ericksonian hypnotherapy, Shamanic Angelic Reiki, guided visual imagery, the MARI Card Test, the Reflections Room, yoga nidra, breathwork, expressive art, and sage support. None of it is required. Your stay can be as solitary or as supported as you choose.

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 exactly is The Oasis located?

The Oasis Spiritual Spa and Executive Retreat is in the village of Corrales, New Mexico, directly north of Albuquerque along the Rio Grande—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 Bosque 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 Bosque Oasis on Airbnb → airbnb.com/rooms/1139344055449980932

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.

Please enable JavaScript in your browser to complete this form.

Name *

First

Last

Email *

Phone Number *

I would like more information on:

• Stay - Lodging and Accommodations
• Grow - Custom Retreats & Workshops
• Heal - Healing Sessions & Spiritual Services
• Link - Virtual Grief Support & Wellness Workshops

I Comment would

Comment or Message

Connect With Us

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.

Please enable JavaScript in your browser to complete this form.

Name *

First

Last

Email *

I would Name

Phone Number *

I would like more information on:

• Stay - Lodging and Accommodations
• Grow - Custom Retreats & Workshops
• Heal - Healing Sessions & Spiritual Services
• Link - Virtual Grief Support & Wellness Workshops

Comment or Message

Connect With Us

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.

Please enable JavaScript in your browser to complete this form.

Name *

First

Last

Name or would

Email *

Phone Number *

I would like more information on:

• Stay - Lodging and Accommodations
• Grow - Custom Retreats & Workshops
• Heal - Healing Sessions & Spiritual Services
• Link - Virtual Grief Support & Wellness Workshops

Comment or Message

Connect With Us

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.

How do I begin?

Simply fill out to form to start the conversation:

Please enable JavaScript in your browser to complete this form.

Message Name Email

Name *

First

Last

Email *

Phone Number *

I would like more information on:

• Stay - Lodging and Accommodations
• Grow - Custom Retreats & Workshops
• Heal - Healing Sessions & Spiritual Services
• Link - Virtual Grief Support & Wellness Workshops

Comment or Message

Connect With Us