This is an incredibly special place.
The location is perfect — it is incredibly peaceful and tucked away, yet only a c.3 hour drive from Colombo. With a majestic lagoon on one side and the ocean on the other, you feel completely enveloped by Mother Nature. The way the buildings are built allows you to feel close to nature (each treatment room backs onto a small garden, for instance, allowing you to listen to the wind in the trees and even the crashing waves during treatments).
It is hard to do justice to how wonderful the people who work here are in words. This is a heart-led place; I experienced such kindness from each and every member of the team, from the guys who cleaned my room, to the small army of very skilled therapists, to Madu who is front of house and chief of day to day logistics, to the guys serving food and the chefs, to the Ayurvedic doctors, to Sam, who runs the sanctuary with his brother and co-founder.
This is not just a place to receive world class massages and do some yoga next to a pristine beach, this is a spiritual place that will ground you, heal you, and elevate your consciousness, if you let it! The completely delicious organic food will also nourish you from the inside out.
The Ayurvedic doctors are really wonderful — I was a little apprehensive about this aspect as I hadn’t experienced it before, but I really trusted the chief doctor — she explained everything really clearly and I felt very seen and cared for.
I was lucky enough to be at Sen for the Golden Summer Retreat. Our teachers were therefore co-founder Sam, yoga teacher Mariana, and Alex, who led a breathwork session with us (and is a wealth of knowledge on so many topics from meditation to yoga to free driving to marketing & SEO!). I was so moved by Sam’s wisdom and generosity. From meditation sessions to the cacao ceremony, to bits of wisdom shared at dinner, he leads with a grace and open heartedness that is not easy to explain until you have experienced it. Sam and this retreat have set me on a new path that I’m very excited about. Mariana was equally wonderful — her morning yoga and her presence throughout the retreat helped me to feel grounded and she also injected so much fun & lightness into the retreat. Mariana led a breathwork session that is unlike anything I have experienced before — the music was perfect, the way she held space for us, supported us and brought such energy was so authentic and joyful. It will be hard to top that experience in the future.
My long term health — physical and spiritual — will undoubtedly benefit greatly from my time at Sen. I could not recommend it more highly.
I have one tiny bit of feedback I would like to share. For me, I felt sad and distracted whenever people brought phones to yoga in the mornings. Just seeing a phone right next to my yoga mat detracts from the rest of the practice, and from the serenity of being in those beautiful surroundings, for me. (Phones did also go off a few times during class). It was mentioned at the beginning of the retreat to try and not bring our phones to dinner — if this could be stated a bit more clearly/forcefully, and regarding yoga (and indeed all of the ceremonies) as well, I think people would respect this (and they would benefit from it too!)
(An optional digital detox, even just for a few days, might also be an idea — to give people the option of handing in their phone when they arrive (I have done this on retreats before) and maybe have alarm clocks to hand out.)
