She Who Remains - Your Fast Track to Freedom.
I’m sitting here planning another retreat, drawing on why I feel so inspired to do so … and why I resonate with the name “She Who Remains”.
2025 totally unraveled me. Chosen intently, but not without a little human resistance and a lot of courage inspired from a healing relationship. I had a similar unraveling in 2020 right after I had graduated from my first degree and because of how miserable (functionally depressed and anxious) I was feeling, I didn’t see any other option at the time but to let go of the old and choose something new.
This time was a little different because I wasn’t miserable. Actually, I was really happy and content in a lot of ways. I had moved to a beautiful spot in Sedona, with a long list of clients and thriving health & nutrition business, and meaningful connections. By all visible measures, I was living my dream. And yet, in March of 2025, looking into the mirror - deep into my own eyes - there was something within me that felt like it rose from the base of my spine and whispered, there is more. It wasn’t urgent or dramatic but it was a deep desire waiting to be filled.
I knew that even if I didn’t choose it then (because I didn’t have to), it would meet me again in the future as a subtle dissatisfaction, a small shrinking, a familiar feeling that life had begun to feel small again. Nothing was wrong, but it wasn’t entirely right either. I wasn’t craving chaos or change for the sake of change, I was craving depth. Something that comfort alone couldn’t offer.
The more I’m speaking about isn’t more money, more travel, more things, although those experiences can serve what I’m touching on. However, they can just as easily distract from it. So you see, the experience is not as relevent as the person doing the experiencing.
The “more” I’m speaking of is simple and profound.
It’s me writing this from my heart and deeper self-acceptance.
And the closest metaphor I have for it is this:
the Rio Abajo Río, the river below the river, that runs through all women whether we like it or not.
The engine lets out a deep hum.
Simultaneously something inside me begins to hum too.
The call comes from a repressed place deep within and like a rushing jungle river, pours through every vessel of my body.
As it gains speed, it searches for the doorway out.
Rushing and crashing against the river rocks.
Pouring over onto shore.
It begs to expand.
Rio Abajo Rio.
The river below the river.
She hears the plane engine hum and she wants to fly too.
My hand aches to feel pen against paper.
My hips ache to dance.
And my mouth to sing.
For now, I must suck the flowing river dry.
Too scared to fly.
And yet, reprieving a small amount.
Just enough to pour into writing this.
My hand effortlessly glides pen against paper. The words pour out, no longer inside of me.
My hips loosen and my heart picks up the beat, freeing the best parts of me.
As I hum and sing, it ripples through my body, massaging the depths within me.
I expand, I release.
I write, I dance, I sing, I create.
I rip open the flood gates.
I free myself, those next to me and those to come.
Rio Abajo Rio.
The River Below The River.
She hears the plane engine hum.
And she takes flight too.
Rio Abjao Rio - Liberating our Life Force. Written by Amanda Crocitto.
While I channeled the poem one morning on a flight (initially sparked by the pure joy and exhilaration I always felt during takeoff), the name itself is not original to my creation. It comes from a long-standing tale I first encountered in Woman Who Run With The Wolves. It stuck with me long before I even knew what I was writing toward. I didn’t understand it intellectually then. I felt it.
(I find it to be such a gift when we feel things and have the opportunity to make our own truth of it as time goes on. There’s something sacred in discovering rather than always “knowing”. Always “knowing” seems to strip away the magic.)
Much too often, women are taught to repress this river - to be digestible, choose what’s safe, and to live within the confines of what’s “acceptable” for the feminine. Or we’re told to give up parts of ourselves as we get older and to “be responsible”.
There have also been many interpretations of feminine empowerment, and I hold immense gratitude for the generations of women who brought us here. But right now, it still feels like “empowerment” is trying to fit into a distorted template. Low libido is normalized, disconnection from the body is common, fertility rates are dropping … life force is muted.
And while that could be an entire book, I’ll return to the essence:
I dove head first into the unknown (to find out what I was looking for) after a specific night in 2020. I was finally going to give my dreams a shot. I started my business while working one full time and two part time jobs. I began posting shamelessly about my weight gain on social media (I began speaking shamelessly about a lot on social media). Eventually I quit the full time job that would’ve paid for my masters and I packed up my small Mazda 3 to move across the country to Denver, Colorado when I was making only $2000 a month and my rent would be more than 1/2 that. I spent 6k on a business coach even though I was racking up student loans like it was nobody’s business, and actually I started 2024 with 70k in student loans. Not to mention, they were loans from a degree that studied holistic nutrition and herbalism, which is not as widely accepted as more traditional degrees. When I moved to Arizona in 2023, I had basically gotten evicted from an apartment I had rented through air bnb because the owner wasn’t paying the rent (even though we were paying air bnb). In 2024, I moved to a third world country knowing no one because it felt right. I’ve driven across this country solo more times than I can count. I’ve spoken my mind even when no one else agreed. I’ve done plenty of things others would classify as embarrassing. And a whole bunch of other universe leaps that would probably put many in cardiac arrest.
Now with that said, I’ve also supported more than 3,000 client sessions helping both men and women heal, completed my masters degree, created an abundant & successful six fig business, paid off most of those loans in 2 years, lived in a blue zone and on the best surf beach in the world in Costa Rica, made connections with high level communities that included some of the most incredible new health (and world) leaders, shared my writing and art with the world (I mean come on, how many actually give themselves permission to do this?!). I fell in love with womanhood and let go of judgment and comparison, choosing connection instead. I built trust with my inner wisdom, intuition, and the cyclical power of being a woman. Now I live on sacred land that feels meant to be honored, creating retreat spaces where women remember who they are.’ve had countless life changing spiritual experiences, lost the weight I had been carrying, healed chronic GI issues, healed hormonal issues and symptoms, grew back my hair…
and have had the most ridiculous, unadulterated JOY doing it all.
These are things that manifested from me facing my deepest fears, feeling my own pain, letting go of what others think of me, the negative voice in my head, letting go of obligation energy, the “shoulds”, and becoming unapologetically me. I didn’t even know some of the things I had struggled with had real answers and solutions! And trust me, there’s so much that’s still a work in progress.
What am I sure about is this - the more we allow love in, to touch those parts of us that dont feel worthy, the more miraculous and loving life gets to be. We are all here to re-remember that we are love(d).
So this past year, I realized, that yet again, even though I was doing amazing work in my business and helping many, my business had sneakily shifted into something built on survival. I didn’t want to be confined by the typical health or business model, nor did I believe it was the most beneficial for those I served. I needed room to breathe, to bring more truth into my work. Not just chasing the amount of people I could help and $$ in my bank account but to have the privilege of creating something from an open heart.
While follow your heart may sound cliche - it’s some of the most profound health guidance you can get.
And while I had found this truth before, I don’t believe it’s something we arrive at once and keep forever. We are invited into remembering again and again. Each time with the same choice: the safety of temporary comfort, or the courage to live from what is real.
Many are told this way of living isn’t possible. That dreaming smaller is safer.
I disagree. I stand for a life fully lived - where every part of us has room to breathe, where we know our power, and feel the pulse of life moving through us daily. Free. Alive.
How could I guide others toward wholeness without choosing that myself?
The ability to open our hearts, without judgement or internal compromise. Acknowledging the fear but having the courage anyway…
We feel a beautiful, nurturing world this way. We learn to trust the Rio Abajo Rio - the river below the river. The natural flow of life, that yearns to flow through us all.
Beginning with the courage to listen for the whisper of our ❤️🌊
This retreat is for the woman in you who feels the pull for more - more freedom, more love, more presence, more creation, more life. Your more will look different than anyone else’s, and if you’re here, you likely already sense what yours is.
Who are you when the noise falls away and you meet yourself in quiet acceptance? Beyond the shoulds, the expectations, the roles you’ve known. When you touch that place, life has a way of meeting you with unexpected miracles.
Wherever you are in your life, if there is a version of you waiting to be expressed, trust that it is possible. Let this be your permission slip.
She Who Remains is for the woman in your heart who deserves to be believed in.
With Love and deep gratitude,
Amanda
She Who Remains - A Sedona 2026 Retreat
Feb 26 - March 1, 2026
