The Body Knows Before You Do

Before we think our way into change, our bodies already know. The tightness in your chest when you walk into the office. The way your shoulders rise when certain names appear on your phone. The exhaustion that no amount of sleep seems to fix.

This pillar works with that knowing — not around it, through it.

Daily Somatic Practice

Each morning begins with embodied practice designed to ground you in sensation before cognition.

• Breathwork in the cold morning air — regulation of the nervous system through controlled exposure
• Intentional movement — not exercise, but presence in the body under extreme conditions
• Silent awareness — learning what your system is carrying before the day's inquiry begins

These are not warm-ups. They are entrances into the work.

Facilitated Group Inquiry

The core psychological work happens in structured facilitation sessions led by Stuart Voaden and Russ.

Identity Inquiry: "Who Am I Now?"

Most of us carry a self-concept built years ago — often at a moment of success or survival — and we've been living inside it ever since. This session explores the gap between the person you've been and the person this moment is asking you to become.

• Mapping what has formed you: place, people, pivots
• The stories you carry about yourself
• Where performance ends and presence begins

Purpose Work: "What Is My Purpose?"

Not what you do. Not your role. Not your resume. What are you actually for at this point in your life?

• Distinguishing purpose from achievement
• The body as instrument: where do you feel most alive?
• Paired inquiry — listening without fixing

Threshold Crossing Ceremony

The literal and symbolic act of crossing from the known into the unknown with intention and witness. This is not metaphor. Participants walk into the Yukon landscape, name what they are releasing, and commit aloud to what they are stepping toward.

Facilitated by Stuart with ceremony and care. The group witnesses each person's crossing.

Navigation Framework: Making Sense of the Shift

How do capable people stay grounded when everything is shifting?

• Why so many high-achievers feel disoriented right now
• What do I actually trust when information overload is constant?
• Building your personal framework for navigating hard terrain

Integration Tools

You don't leave this work in Dawson. You take tools home.

• Peer coaching triads (accountability partnerships with other participants)
• Journaling frameworks designed for threshold moments
• Somatic practices you can sustain independently

Solo Vigil

On Day 4, each participant spends 2–3 hours alone in the landscape with a single guiding question:

This is the program's threshold crossing in its most concentrated form.

How it works:

• You choose your location (riverbank, town bench, wilderness edge)
• Stuart prepares you beforehand with clear framing
• Facilitators know where everyone is — this is held, not abandoned
• No devices, no distractions
• You can end early if needed — there is no performance pressure
• Return Circle at the end for integration and witnessing

In our experience, this is often the session participants name as most significant. It is also the most carefully facilitated. The day before and the day after carry it.

Nightly Storytelling Circles

After dinner, the group gathers for storytelling. Not curriculum. Not teaching. Just the fire (literal or metaphorical) and the circle.

• Circle 1: "A moment when everything changed"
• Circle 2: "What I thought I wanted versus what I actually need"
• Circle 3: "What am I no longer willing to carry?"
• Circle 4: "What I'm taking home / leaving behind"

These circles are facilitated spaciously. No one is required to speak. But by Circle 3, the group has accumulated enough shared experience and trust that people speak more honestly than they usually do.

This is where community forms.

Who Leads This Work

Stuart Voaden

UK-based Certified Integral Facilitator, artist, and business advisor with over 35 years of experience in organizational and leadership settings.

Stuart's work integrates developmental psychology, systems thinking, and embodied practice. He is especially focused on the poetics of leadership — the role of creativity, art, and story in enabling meaningful change. His facilitation style combines movement, art-based processes, and reflective dialogue to help participants experience insight rather than only analyze it.

Beyond facilitation, Stuart maintains an active practice as a contemporary artist, exhibiting landscape-inspired paintings and conceptual maps. This artistic dimension informs his leadership work.

Russ

Italy-based integral facilitator and podcast host with deep expertise in somatic practice, storytelling circles, and wilderness-based transformation.

The Body Knows Before You Do

Most people don't connect what they eat with how they think, how they feel, or why they can't sleep. But your gut and your brain are in constant conversation. Inflammation in one creates fog in the other. A dysbiotic microbiome doesn't just cause digestive issues — it affects mood, energy, decision-making, and stress resilience.

This pillar treats food as medicine. Not metaphorically. Clinically.

Jeff's Purposeful Cuisine

All meals across the eight days are designed by Jeff, our culinary director at Evergreen Table.

The Approach:

• Plant-based menu for all participants
• 1–2 whole food plant-based (WFPB) options at each meal for variety
• Anti-inflammatory, microbiome-supporting ingredients
• Nutrient-dense, satisfying, delicious
• Designed in consultation with Dr. Alan Desmond's gut health principles

The Philosophy:

We strongly encourage whole food plant-based eating and no alcohol during the program for the clinical benefits (reduced inflammation, optimized gut health, mental clarity). But we don't force it.

• Alcohol is available
• Sentia (a sophisticated, science-backed alcohol-free alternative) is also available
• The optimal path is made clear; the choice is yours

This is about agency, not compliance. We give you the clinical reasoning. You decide.

Live Seminar with Dr. Alan Desmond

On December 17 at 1pm, Dr. Alan Desmond joins via Zoom for a 30–45 minute talk and Q&A.

Topics:

• The gut-brain connection: how your microbiome affects mood, cognition, and stress response
• How plant-based nutrition reduces systemic inflammation
• Practical protocols for gut health you can sustain at home
• Q&A with participants based on their individual health contexts

Dr. Alan Desmond is a UK-based consultant gastroenterologist specializing in plant-based approaches to IBD (Inflammatory Bowel Disease), IBS, and gut health. He is the author of The Plant-Based Diet Revolution and The Gut Health Diet Plan.

Books & Resources Included

Each participant receives:

• Both of Dr. Desmond's books (The Plant-Based Diet Revolution and The Gut Health Diet Plan)
• Meal planning templates and recipes to take home
• Ongoing access to Dr. Desmond's protocols post-program

Why This Matters

Lee Manning, founder of Yukon Spaces, lived with Crohn's disease for 30 years. Conventional treatment wasn't working. In 2016, he found Dr. Alan Desmond and his plant-based gut health protocols.

Lee was skeptical. He'd seen so many conflicting approaches. But after 12 months on Dr. Desmond's protocols, he was in full remission. That remission made it possible for him to immigrate to Canada. He's now 47, thriving in Dawson, and this retreat exists because of that transformation.

The Body Knows Before You Do

When we talk about health, people often focus on symptoms. "I'm tired." "I can't sleep." "My digestion is off." But symptoms are downstream. The data tells us what's actually happening upstream.

This pillar gives you that data — not to find disease, but to find opportunities. Where is dysfunction starting to show up? What deficiencies are affecting how you feel? What patterns explain the fatigue, the brain fog, the sense that something is off even when nothing is technically "wrong"?

We use all the tools your family healthcare provider might use, but we look at them differently. We aren't trying to diagnose illness. We're looking for the early signals that your physical health might be adversely affecting your holistic wellbeing.

The Six-Component Framework

01: Biomarker Baseline

Full blood panel on Day 1. Comprehensive metabolic, hormonal, and micronutrient assessment. Individual debrief. Your data, in your hands.

02: HRV Monitoring

Daily heart rate variability tracking throughout the week. Watch what the program — the cold, the vigil, the psychological work — does to your nervous system in real time.

03: Gut Health

Pre-arrival stool panel analyzed before you arrive. Results inform the gut health conversation. Plant-based menu designed specifically for microbiome support.

04: Cold Exposure

Staged cold exposure protocol calibrated to your cardiac screen. Not punishment. Not performance. Physiological adaptation under controlled conditions.

05: Sleep & Darkness

In December in Dawson City, you get 20 hours of darkness per day. We work with that, not against it. Supplementation (Vitamin D, others) matched to your bloodwork to optimize sleep and recovery.

06: Your 30-Day Protocol

On Day 6, Dr. Mike Ellis designs your personalized take-home plan based on your actual data. Not generic advice. Your bloodwork. Your deficiencies. Your body.

What We Measure

Metabolic & Inflammation:

• Fasting glucose
• HbA1c (3-month blood sugar average)
• hsCRP (high-sensitivity C-reactive protein — systemic inflammation marker)
• Fasting insulin
• Full lipid panel (cholesterol, triglycerides, HDL, LDL, ratios)

Hormones & Adrenal:

• Cortisol (morning)
• DHEA-S (adrenal function)
• Testosterone
• Oestradiol
• Thyroid panel: TSH, fT3, fT4

Micronutrients:

• Vitamin D (deficiency is epidemic at this latitude)
• B12 and folate
• Ferritin (iron stores)
• RBC magnesium
• Omega-3 index

Gut & Cardiac:

• Microbiome panel (stool sample before arrival)
• Zonulin (intestinal permeability marker)
• Calprotectin (gut inflammation)
• 12-lead ECG (cardiac baseline and clearance for cold exposure)

How It Runs Across the Week

• Dec 15 (Day 1): Blood draw, ECG, HRV baseline
• Dec 16 (Day 2): Biomarker debrief (1:1 with Dr. Mike)
• Dec 17 (Day 3): Gut health 1:1, optional cold plunge (if cardiac screen clears)
• Dec 18 (Day 4): Pre-vigil check, post-vigil HRV reading
• Dec 19 (Day 5): Results review session, gut health talk
• Dec 20 (Day 6): 30-day protocol design (1:1 with Dr. Mike)
• Dec 21 (Day 7): Closing HRV reading, solstice ceremony

Clinical Lead: Dr Mike Ellis, BNurs(Hons), DHealth, NP(interim), WOCC, RMT, ACC1

Dr Mike Ellis is a nurse practitioner with a doctor of health degree, a registered massage therapist (RMT), and has advanced training in medical aesthetics.

He brings 20+ years of clinical experience, including orthopaedic assessment, musculoskeletal rehabilitation, and functional medicine. Clinical lead at Yukon Spaces.

The Body Knows Before You Do

You've done the bloodwork. You have the data. Now what?

This pillar is where clinical precision meets therapeutic intervention. If your ferritin is low, we don't just tell you to eat more spinach. We offer an iron infusion. If your HRV shows dysregulation, we don't just say "try to relax." We design a nervous system restoration protocol using bodywork, float therapy, cold/heat contrast, and supplementation matched to your physiology.

This is not spa-as-luxury. This is spa-as-medicine.

Therapeutic Interventions (As Indicated)

All clinical decisions are made by Dr. Mike Ellis based on your individual bloodwork and assessment.

Available interventions include:

• Iron infusions (if blood work reveals deficiency or suboptimal ferritin)
• B12 injections (methylcobalamin, hydroxocobalamin — matched to your MTHFR status if relevant)
• Vitamin D optimization (especially critical at 64°N in December)
• Other targeted interventions based on what your data reveals

You are not given generic protocols. You are given YOUR protocol.

Daily Spa & Bodywork

Every evening, participants have access to:

• Thermal facilities: outdoor hot tub, sauna, steam room
• Massage therapy: 60-90 minutes daily with registered massage therapists
• Float therapy: sensory deprivation tanks for nervous system reset
• Aesthetic treatments: facials, etc. (medical-grade skincare available)
• Cold plunge: weather permitting, as part of staged cold exposure protocol

Recovery & Restoration Protocol

Sleep Optimization in Extreme Darkness

You will sleep in near-total darkness (20 hours per day at this latitude in December). Supplementation (Vitamin D, melatonin if indicated, magnesium) is matched to your bloodwork. This isn't a problem to fix. It's a condition to work with.

Contrast Therapy (Hot/Cold Exposure)

Alternating between sauna heat and outdoor cold. Not for performance. For physiological adaptation, circulation, and nervous system resilience.

Nervous System Regulation Through Embodied Practice

HRV is tracked daily. You see in real time what the week is doing to your autonomic nervous system. Adjustments are made as needed.

The 30-Day Protocol

On Day 6, Dr. Mike Ellis sits with you 1:1 and designs your personalized take-home protocol.

This includes:

• Supplement recommendations (dosing, brands, timing)
• Dietary adjustments based on your gut health panel
• Exercise and movement guidance
• Sleep hygiene matched to your cortisol/HRV patterns
• Referrals to local practitioners if follow-up care is needed
• Connection to Dr. Desmond's remote consultation services (if desired)

This is not generic wellness advice. This is clinical precision based on your data.

The 30-Day Follow-Up Call

Four weeks after you leave, you receive a follow-up consultation with Dr. Mike or Lee.

Timing matters. At 30 days, the initial euphoria from the retreat has settled. The pressures of your regular reality are nudging you back toward old patterns. This is when people need support most.

The call is not about judgment. It's about recalibration. How are you doing with your protocol? What's working? What needs adjustment to fit your lived experience?

We care whether you are meeting your own goals. This is health counseling, not compliance monitoring.

Clinical Lead: Dr Mike Ellis, BNurs(Hons), DHealth, NP(interim), WOCC, RMT, ACC1

In addition to his clinical credentials, Mike provides:

• Medical massage and musculoskeletal assessment
• Advanced medical aesthetics (he is trained in medical-grade facial treatments, skin health protocols)
• Functional medicine approach integrating physical, psychological, and social dimensions of health

How the Four Pillars Work Together

Inward/Outward Integral Work creates the psychological space for transformation — the questions, the honest reckoning, the willingness to cross thresholds.

What We Put In Your Body provides the biological foundation — gut health, reduced inflammation, a microbiome that supports mental clarity and emotional regulation.

Clinical Overview gives you the data — where you actually are, not where you think you are. Baseline markers, deficiencies, patterns that explain symptoms you've been living with.

What We Can Do To Help Your Body addresses what the data reveals — iron infusions if you're depleted, bodywork to release what's held in tissue, restoration protocols to support the nervous system during deep psychological work.

Why This Integration Matters

Most wellness retreats treat the body or the mind. We treat the system.

You cannot do deep psychological work if your ferritin is 12 and you're chronically exhausted. You cannot stay present in a solo vigil if your HRV shows chronic dysregulation and your nervous system is in constant threat response. You cannot integrate threshold-crossing insights if your gut is inflamed and your brain is fogged.

The four pillars work together because transformation is not psychological or physiological. It is both. Always.

This is not a retreat where wellness is theoretical. It is clinical, embodied, and honest.

Meet the Guest Speaker

Meet the Team

admin@yukonspaces.com | 1-867-993-3332