• Live In-Person Retreat •
WRITE TO HEAL BALI
An In-Person Healing Writing Retreat on the Island Of The Gods
February 22–27, 2026 With Dr. Lissa Rankin
Dear Friend,
Have you ever wondered what might happen to the quality and depth of your healing and your writing if you got out of your comfort zone, journeyed on an overseas pilgrimage to a beautiful island, splurged on gifting yourself a healing retreat, and surrounded yourself with natural and architectural beauty, in addition to open-hearted writers who are also working on their writing for therapeutic, creative, or professional purposes?
Have you ever thought of writing your memoir as part of your therapeutic healing process or doing your own trauma healing as part of writing a better memoir? Then we have good news. You're officially invited to join author and IFS teacher Dr. Lissa Rankin, MD for this rare transformational live in-person five day writing workshop in Bali.
- Do you feel called to tell your trauma-to-transformation story, but you’re concerned about the safety to your own psyche of revisiting painful memories that might make for a riveting memoir but might also cause backlash if those multi-sensory memories are not retrieved in a trauma-informed way?
- Do you feel like you have a story buried deep inside that you need to get out of your body and onto the page?
- Are you interested in integrating Internal Family Systems (IFS) and therapeutic memoir writing as part of your own healing and creative process?
Kick off your creativity and deepen your healing journey and join memoir writer and IFS-informed physician Lissa Rankin, MD for Write to Heal Bali 2026!
Please watch the video below to learn more:
“If you’re writing, you’re a writer. Write like you’re a goddamn death row inmate and the governor is out of the country and there’s no chance for a pardon.
Write like you’re clinging to the edge of a cliff, white knuckles, on your last breath, and you’ve got just one last thing to say, like you’re a bird flying over us and you can see everything, and please, for God’s sake, tell us something that will save us from ourselves.
Take a deep breath and tell us your deepest, darkest secret, so we can wipe our brow and know that we’re not alone." - Alan Watts
Dr. Lissa Rankin
New York Times bestselling author, doctor, researcher, and teacher.
By all means, write! But let’s prepare you to write safely about your memoir-making material. Not only does creativity require safe, brave spaces in loving community to coax our shy muses out of hiding. It also requires a guided therapeutic process in order for us to be able to safely dive into memories we may have long exiled because they’re just too painful to revisit without backlash.
When something crushing happens, we can either get pummeled by our traumas or we can connect to our true Self inside and muster up the courage to transform those experiences into beautiful, soul-touching art. All of our traumas are memoir-making material, and it's incredibly healing when we can alchemize our pain into gold.
Writing and sharing our stories while allowing the emotions that accompany them to flow through us in a safe, sacred space is a key part of the healing process. To write exquisite memoirs, we have to revisit the past emotionally. But doing so can be very frightening for some of our parts that have buried our pain, locked up our wounded parts, and tried to throw away the key.
The good news is that, with Internal Family Systems riding shotgun with our memoir writing experience, we can go even deeper and do so in a safer fashion, making sure we get permission from the parts of us that are afraid to get in touch with most wounded parts of us, even in our writing. We also benefit from having masterful facilitation to help us reunite our wise adult Self with those hurt parts during every stage of the writing process. That way, we wind up with a Self-led memoir, not a messy parts fest.
Often, when we tell our painful stories in our own families or with others who have abused us, we're met with blame, shame, defensiveness, denial, gaslighting, delusion, attack, magical thinking, or spiritual bypassing, rather than the unconditional acceptance, love, and validation of Self- and others holding Self energy- that really helps us heal.
WRITE TO HEAL offers just the opposite, inviting an experience of memory reconsideration and healing. If we write our memoir stories and have our heart-breaking and heart-opening stories witnessed, attuned to, mirrored, validated, co-regulated and even celebrated in safe brave spaces with other memoir writers, healing happens. Not only can we create beautiful writing that helps us rewrite our trauma stories into stories of repair, resilience, and courage; we also get to help others with the stories we write, making meaning out of what happened to us and even turning our stories into service.
You don’t have to intend to publish your memoir material or ever let anyone else read it in order to benefit from doing IFS parts work via writing. And while this workshop is an experiential practice and not an official training, if you’re a therapist, physician, life coach, or other helping professional, the processes we’ll be practicing in this workshop may wind up being clinically useful for those you serve, especially if you’re already using IFS in your practice.
"Everyone has a story to tell and telling it is important. Sharing 'this is who I am, these are the things that shaped me, this is where I am now' allows a kind of magic and healing to happen." - Nancy Slonim Aronie, author of Memoir As Medicine
The Location
Ritual
Art
Nature
Culture
Tucked away on Bali’s tranquil eastern coastline, just over an hour’s drive from Ngurah Rai International Airport, our retreat takes place at a boutique beachfront resort overlooking the island’s dramatic black sand shores. Far removed from the bustle of tourist hubs, this stretch of coast is known for its quiet charm, warm ocean breezes, and stunning sunrise views over the water.
Our retreat sessions are held in a traditional Balinese joglo-style wooden shala, thoughtfully designed with air-conditioning, ceiling fans, and open walls that invite in the tropical gardens and sea air—a perfect balance of comfort and nature.
Between sessions, you can stroll the gardens, relax by the pool with an ocean view, or take long walks along the beach where local fishing boats rest in the sand. The resort also offers a full spa, daily yoga classes, and a fitness center, so you can nourish both body and spirit. Guests may book traditional Balinese spa treatments, sound healing, or surf lessons through the hotel, as well as excursions to nearby rice terraces, temples, and artisan villages.
Here, the pace slows, the senses open, and you’ll find yourself in the ideal environment for rest, writing, and deep personal renewal.
Who Is This For?
What To Expect
This intimate retreat invites you to explore how writing can become a portal to healing, self-discovery, and inner reconciliation.
Through a powerful blend of Internal Family Systems (IFS), creative expression, and trauma-informed ritual, you’ll be supported in meeting the stories that live inside you—not to craft a memoir, but to deepen your relationship with the parts of you that long to be heard, held, and understood.
This retreat offers a rare chance to write, reflect, and reconnect under Lissa’s guidance in the lush stillness of Bali’s coastal beauty. Together, we’ll write not to publish, but to reclaim, reframe, and restore.
This retreat will incorporate trauma-supportive practices like:
- Rituals to help you arrive fully in the space, grounding you in the beauty of Bali’s natural setting;
- Singing to invite connection and joy and feel the collective resonance;
- Movement to support release, embodiment, and presence.
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Making Art to access hidden parts of yourself through intuitive creativity.
and of course... -
Writing
Image by Nyoman Silver Abe Do
What's Included?
- 6 days-5 nights in a private room at our beautiful coastal venue in Bali;
- Three daily à la carte meals, made from fresh, local ingredients and served at two on-site restaurants. (Dietary needs can be accommodated upon request);
- Balinese joglo-style wooden shalas, complete with air-conditioning, ceiling fans, and open access to the surrounding greenery;
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Welcome dinner, a farewell celebration;
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The complete retreat program with Dr. Lissa Rankin.
Booking Process
Our travel advisory desk will help you and answer any travel-related questions you may have
Make your non-refundable deposit of $995 before October 1st 2025 to secure your early bird price of 2,695 USD for a private single room.
Pay the balance by December 15th 2026 to secure your spot.
Please note:
The checkout is per Indonesian government regulations in IDR (Indonesian Rupiah). The approximate exchange rate is 1 USD = approx. 16,500 Rp. (100 USD = approx 1,650,000 Rp).
This event is exclusively hosted and managed by IFS Bali.
Refund Policy
All payments for this workshop are non-refundable.
Participants are strongly advised to obtain comprehensive travel insurance (domestic and international as applicable) that covers medical care, trip disruption, cancellation, and other unexpected expenses.
It is the participant’s responsibility to ensure their policy provides sufficient coverage.
The organizers shall not be held liable for any costs, losses, or damages arising from disruption, cancellation, or circumstances beyond our reasonable control, including but not limited to natural disasters, travel restrictions, illness, or other force majeure events.
Frequently Asked & Answered
- Our travel advisory desk will help you and answer any travel-related questions you may have. Please contact info@ifsbali.com with any questions;
- If you are flying into Bali you will be greeted at the airport by a driver who will bring you to our hotel taxi for a safe and comfortable drive to your hotel;
- Your airport is Bali’s Ngurah Rai International Airport (Denpasar – DPS);
- The retreat starts Sunday, February 22nd, 2026 at 4:30 pm, with check-in available from 3 PM on, and concludes on Friday, February 27th, in the early afternoon;
- You may extend your stay. Please contact info@ifsbali.com to check on availability;
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Please schedule your flight to arrive in Bali by 12:30 PM at the latest on Sunday, February 22nd;
- Your investment for the IFS Write to Heal Retreat, 6-day / 5-night, Dr. Lissa Rankin, hosted at a beautiful beachfront hotel in Bali, is 2,695 USD for a private single room. (2,995 USD after October 1st, 2025.
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To secure your spot, a non refundable deposit of 995 USD is due upon registration. The remaining balance is due by December 15th, 2025.
- We recommend purchasing travel insurance. Please note that we cannot be liable for any delays, cancellations, or changes to your travel itinerary.
None of us would ever wish for heart-wrenching traumatic experiences so we'd have material for writing kick-ass memoirs. But if you've survived something challenging, your story can not only be healing to write for your own therapeutic purposes, it can also help heal others who are struggling in similar ways.
++ BonuS RESOURCES
All Participants will receive unlimited online access to the following resources:
# 1 Memoir as Medicine Companion Workbook
Writing a memoir can be a powerful and transformative experience. It allows us to process and make sense of our own experiences, and can provide us with a deeper understanding of ourselves and our place in the world. It can also be a cathartic and healing process, helping us to work through difficult emotions and experiences.
This workbook is organized into a series of exercises and prompts that will guide you through the process. Each exercise is designed to help you dig deeper and explore the stories and experiences that are most meaningful to you.
Pre-Recorded Workshop
# 2 IFS for Self Healing
With Dr. Lissa Rankin
A Trauma-Informed Practice For Healing Yourself. Are you looking for self-help ways to deepen your personal growth, trauma healing, emotional intelligence, relational depth, preventive or therapeutic health interventions, and spiritual development?
Pre-Recorded Workshop
# 3 Write To Heal
Drs. Lissa Rankin & Frank Anderson
A Healing Writing Workshop. Join Memoir Writers and IFS practitioners Lissa Rankin, MD and Frank Anderson, MD as they combine forces for this transformational live Zoom workshop.
+++ BonuS Offer
For the first five people to register and bring a friend
In-Person
Private 50-min Session With Lissa
Dr. Lissa Rankin
Meet in person for a transformative session with Dr. Lissa Rankin in Bali after class.
About Lissa Rankin, M.D.
Lissa knows personally how transformational that kind of safety can be for the creative process.
Lissa had never written a book when she first took Nancy's Writing From The Heart workshop at Esalen in 2007, right after her father died, she had a baby, and she quit her job as a doctor in the wake of her Perfect Storm (aka memoir-making material.)
After that workshop, her first memoir flew out of her. Nancy and the community of other memoir writers opened up her writing voice, and although that first book didn't get published (Lissa had no "platform" at the time), she's published seven books since then, including two memoirs.
Owning, writing, and transforming your own story from pain into magnificence is worth doing purely for medicinal purposes, regardless of whether anybody else ever reads your writing. But some trauma survivors feel passionate about sharing the lessons they've learned from their memoir-making material and have a bee in their bonnets about helping others who are still in hell when they've been to hell and made it back with holy grails of wisdom. >>>
While you certainly don't have to publish your memoir in order to receive the healing benefits of writing it, sometimes holding your story in a book in your hands helps you get it out of your body and into something beautiful that can help others, even if you self publish it.
"I really needed and enjoyed the excuse to write regularly and in a community of like-minded, loving, badass people. And it is so medicinal to me to continually be exposed to the unique and beautiful way Lissa articulates a nuanced perspective on how to heal, at the personal as well as societal level, melding wisdom about the connections between mind, body, and spirit without spiritual bypassing and abandoning social and eco-justice principles." - Kaeley
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