The Omega Institute + MEA presents…

Women Thriving Beyond Transitions:

Awakening Wisdom, Power, and Possibility

Apr 7 - Apr 12, 2025 in Santa Fe, USA

Led by: Carla Goldstein, Leslie Salmon Jones, Christine Sperber, Darby Rose

Financial aid is available. Apply Here.

Women: It’s time to awaken your creative potential and use your power for living with clarity and purpose

What if reconnecting to your inner wisdom and creativity could open doors to a future filled with purpose, possibility, and abundance?

Omega Institute CEO Carla Goldstein and Afro Flow Yoga CEO and cofounder Leslie Salmon Jones invite you to join them for a transformative five-day exploration of honoring your journey, awakening your creative potential, and reimagining what true power means. Together, you will step into an ecosystem of healing and empowerment, where personal growth and collective wisdom intertwine.

Using the metaphor of “the braid” – a symbol of strength, lineage, and wisdom – you will weave together the threads of your past, present, and future into a tapestry of creative abundance and healing. These threads form a resilient structure that will carry you forward with clarity, creativity, and purpose.

During this empowering workshop with Carla, Leslie, and MEA co-founder and Chief Experience Officer Christine Sperber, you will embark on a journey of personal transformation, collective healing, and creative abundance and discover tools, insights, and meaningful connections that can help you navigate life’s transitions with courage, creativity, and grace.

What you’ll gain

Drawing on more than a decade of expertise as co-faculty of the Omega Women’s Leadership Intensive, Carla and Leslie will offer a blend of their embodied practices and somatic explorations integrated seamlessly into MEA’s own experiential curriculum to help you:

Awaken to Your Potential: Explore what you need to feel whole, inspired, and supported – while reimagining power as a shared, generative force.
Harvest Inner Wisdom: Transform challenges into growth and creativity, learning how to embrace transitions as opportunities for renewal.
Reconnect with Nature: Embody the rhythms of the natural world, including immersive interactions with horses as mirrors of resilience, strength, and grace.
Build Collective Strength: Share stories, honor your lineage, and braid intergenerational wisdom into a supportive community that uplifts and inspires.
Cultivate Spaciousness: Step outside the grind of daily life to access a limitless source of creativity, clarity, and empowerment.
Weave Your Wisdom: Join a vibrant community with whom you can braid your shared knowledge and co-create a future filled with abundance and possibility.

You leave feeling renewed, empowered, and deeply connected—to yourself, the earth, and a network of inspired and supportive women.

Plus you’ll get to enjoy The EQUUS Experience®

Experience breakthrough learning with The EQUUS Experience®, where horses—our millennia-old wisdom partners—will help us understand our true selves. Guided by EQUUS® facilitators in training Lee Johnson and Sue Izzo on our own Rising Circle Ranch, this non-riding interaction with horses offers self-discovery through intention-setting, observation, and group discussion.

Created by Kelly Wendorf, Founder of EQUUS®, an award-winning equine-assisted learning process, this unique opportunity is available at MEA's Santa Fe campus, where your workshop will be held.

It’s a powerful enhancement to your workshop experience that will make you feel more profoundly connected to yourself and to the world around you.

Meet your faculty

Carla Goldstein

Omega Institute President & CEO | Co-founder of the Omega Women’s Leadership Center

Carla Goldstein, JD, is president and chief executive officer of Omega Institute, the nation’s premier holistic learning center, offering innovative educational experiences that provide an integrated approach to personal and social change. She is also the co-founder of the Omega Women's Leadership Center, a hub for convening, inspiring, and training women to Do Power Differently®.

In addition to her role as President & CEO, Carla teaches emerging and established leaders how to apply holistic principles at work, at home, and in community. She is a collaborative partner with the Harlem Wellness Center and the Wellbeing Project and serves in an advisory capacity to several organizations including: Women without Borders, Connected Women Leaders, Project Dandelion and Living Room Conversations.

Prior to joining Omega, Carla worked extensively in city and state government and the nonprofit sector in public interest advocacy. She has been recognized for her lifelong commitment to women’s leadership, public interest advocacy, and women’s rights with several awards including being the recipient of the Athena Award and the Helen Gurley Brown Genius Grant.

Leslie Salmon Jones

Afro Flow Yoga Co-founder and CEO | Omega Women’s Leadership Intensive Co-Creator and Co-Facilitator

Leslie Salmon Jones helps individuals, communities, and youth master their physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual well-being through a harmonious blend of professional dance, yoga instruction, wellness coaching, public speaking, and community activism.

Her journey with embodied learning and mind-body wellness began at the renowned Alvin Ailey School in New York, where she nurtured her passion for dance and discovered the transformative teachings of yoga.

Building upon her interdisciplinary foundation in health sciences and dance, Leslie established a healing movement and holistic wellness studio in the heart of New York City. Through a decade of collaboratively working with clients to improve their health, Leslie created her "Living From Your Core" program, along with specialized training, courses, and workshops for diverse communities.

In partnership with her husband, Jeff Jones, she also co-created Afro Flow Yoga®, which provides a wide array of experiences that foster diversity, inclusion, and interconnection, and impacts communities worldwide.

Leslie's advocacy work extends to board leadership, urging organizations to embrace anti-racist and inclusive cultures. She has served on the Yoga Alliance Board, the United Nations Association of New York, and contributed to Free Arts for at-risk youth.Throughout her career, her commitment remains steadfast: to be a catalyst for positive change.

This workshop is for you if...

You identify as a woman in midlife and you’re looking for tools and practices to help you navigate your next chapter

You're curious to explore what it means to "do power differently" and embrace a more generative, collaborative approach to leadership

You’d like to learn embodied movement practices that can help you reconnect with your inner wisdom and creativity

You're seeking renewal, empowerment, and deep connection—to yourself, the earth, and a network of like-minded individuals.

You’re ready to heal your past and honor your lineage while collaborating with other empowered women to co-create a more inclusive and vibrant future

You're excited to access your own internal source of clarity, empowerment, and creative potential

Do this powerful work on our beautiful regenerative ranch in Santa Fe

Santa Fe, USA

Rising Circle Ranch

An upscale regenerative ranch featuring traditional Pueblo architecture and spanning nearly 2,600 acres of wildlife, hiking trails in the arroyo, with ancient petroglyphs, and awe-inspiring beauty. Close to historic Santa Fe, an artisan’s mecca.

Big-sky desert country
Breathtaking nature
Interaction with horses and donkeys
Evenings around the campfire
Star-gazing

Meet your MEA facilitators

In addition to the powerful sessions conducted by Carla and Leslie, you will be guided through the core MEA curriculum by our own wonderful faculty:

Christine Sperber is a former professional snowboarder and seasoned entrepreneur who has launched and operated hotels, managed pro athletes, and worn the hats of writer, restauranteur, and more.

She has been with MEA since the beginning and is a devoted team builder whose authenticity, values-based leadership skills, and empathetic engagement create community wherever she focuses her attention.

Christine is an ardent activist and igniter of new ideas. You’re going to love her boundless energy and dedication to creating transformative experiences that change people’s lives. “I had the sheer pleasure of working with Christine in a number of capacities over 10 years. I have met very few people as passionate, open, personable, and dedicated as she is in any line of work she was engaged in. I look forward to any opportunity I might have to work with her in the future.” – Scott Owen, Executive Sales Management & Strategy

Darby Rose is a multidisciplinary artist, arts administrator, cook, actor and animal lover, currently living in Santa Fe, NM. Born into a family of travelers in Austin, TX, she’s lived more places than she can count — all over Texas, Boston, Jackson WY, Baltimore and Los Angeles, to name a few; and outside the US in Peru and Italy. After a long stint in Marfa, TX, the vast, mountainous horizons and monsoons of New Mexico captured her. This travelers life has built in Darby a deep curiosity and compassion for others, and a gratitude for the beautiful complexities of the human condition, with its myriad expressions of love, humor, struggle and strength.

What do you need to feel whole, inspired, and supported in your next phase of life?

Join Carla, Leslie, and Christine for this transformative workshop for a deep-dive exploration of this question – and reimagining power as a shared, generative force that you can access at any time – and leverage to help co-create the world you want to live in.

It’s time to awaken your full potential and thrive.

People come for the workshops,
but they stay for the community

This is truly MEA’s “secret sauce” and something you can only experience in person: the powerful connections you will make, not only with your fellow participants and the incredible MEA faculty, but also the deeper sense of connection you will feel to your own inner self and the natural world around you.

Research into aging shows that your relationships play a HUGE role in your health and wellbeing later in life. At MEA, you will make deep and lasting connections and become part of a larger community that will make your life richer and more meaningful.

Many of our alumni cohorts have stayed in close touch for years after their workshop and we have a growing number of local alumni chapters all over the world. It’s a joy for us to see them continuing to offer each other community, friendship, and support as they create thriving midlives for themselves. So if you have been feeling at all disconnected or isolated on your journey, we would love to have you join us!

Have we mentioned the food?

The MEA experience is designed in part by Chip Conley, a world-renowned boutique hotelier, which means the food is amazing.

All of the ingredients are locally sourced, organic, and made from scratch in our kitchens by hand-picked chefs. The delicious breakfasts, lunches and dinners will leave you feeling nourished inside and out – not to mention the blended drinks made with fresh fruit and other top-shelf ingredients.

Each retreat center has multiple kitchens that always have snacks and beverages available. At MEA, we believe that thriving is delicious!

Your Workshop Includes

5 days and nights of lodging at our boutique luxury retreat center in Baja or Santa Fe with all of your meals, snacks, drinks and other amenities included
Daily sessions and experiential activities to help you connect with your inner self, envision your desired experience, and release what no longer serves you
Meditation covering a range of practices to soothe your nervous system and help you cultivate greater mindfulness and presence in the moment.

Movement to get the energy flowing and build your strength and agility as you chart your course forward to the life you want to live.
Incredible bonding experiences with the most amazing humans you’ll ever meet.
Three delicious, chef-prepared meals plus snacks throughout the day prepared from scratch with the freshest local ingredients.
Festive gatherings to cultivate connection and celebrate the joy and beauty of life.

Tuition starts at $4,000

Ready to start your journey?