Where Creativity Breathes

The Creator Retreat ~ a quiet space for sensitive souls to create in community

My First Published Book!

The box was heavier than I expected.
100 copies of my very first book.

I stood in the entryway of my parents’ house where I was living in alone, nine months post divorce, while they “chased the sun” for the winter in Arizona.

I cut the packing tape with kitchen scissors, lifted the flaps, and pulled one out and ran my fingers over my name on the cover.

And then I looked around.
Just me, my book, and the sound of the furnace kicking on.

I’d fucking done it.
And there was no one to tell.

“‘We’re behind you. Imagine us behind you today.’
I felt that. I really felt that.”
Sam Messersmith ~ Creator Retreat Cohort 2025

The Invisible Taxes of Creating Alone

As a sensitive soul, my divorce chewed me up and spit me out, and I poured my pain into my writing. But having just lost my life partner and best friend, I self-isolated, wallowed in hyper-independence, and didn’t know how to ask for help.

I didn’t realize until I opened that box containing my lifelong dream to see my name on the cover of a book that I had been paying invisible taxes throughout my entire creative process, leaving me bankrupt in more ways than one.

The Creative Tax ~ Ideas dying alone

Because I didn’t know how to ask for help, feedback, or companionship in the process, my best ideas echoed around in my head until they lost oxygen. Without someone else to hold them with me and encourage them (and me), they withered.

By the time book was finished, my well was dry.

I had notebooks full of other book ideas waiting their turn. They never got it. The spark that lit them had already burned out.

Have you ever felt an idea arrive alive only to watch it fade because you were carrying it alone?

Creativity wants a good friend, or better yet - a small supportive community, to gently pull you back, slow your pace, and say, wait… look at this! When there’s time to wander and company to share the moment with, ideas deepen, surprise you, and grow legs of their own.

“ I never would have developed [Ghost Mother] beyond an essay
without these nine months.”
Jeannie Ewing

The Emotional Tax ~ Unwitnessed joy fading

I worked on the book with my own spiraling brain as my proofreader, content editor, and self-critic. Every small victory happened in isolation. Breakthroughs rose up inside me, bright and electric. But, with no one to see them or to pinch me and tell me they were actually real, they had nowhere to land, so my joys evaporated into static.

When things felt good, there was no one to say, “Yes, this matters!” When things felt hard, there was no one to remind me that yesterday I felt steady, or to point at all the past successes showing me how far I’d actually come.

My emotional world became a closed loop. Highs spiked quickly. Lows dropped fast. Sometimes all of it happened within twenty minutes.

Have you ever felt joy flicker through you and fade before it could take root?

Sensitive emotional worlds need other sensitive souls to help us metabolize our experiences. In the presence of others who are paying attention, feelings are allowed to move slowly, and joy learns how to stay.

“The rhythm came first. The confidence came after.
The practice is what changed me.”
Mel Moseley

The Financial Tax ~ Energy leakage

After spending way too much time and money on online courses and coaching programs that left me more alone, I settled into a hyper-independence trauma response, and spent more money and energy in all the wrong places.

I poured hundreds of hours into endless trial and error—learning software, web design, Photoshop, formatting rules, graphic design. I passed up paid teaching opportunities because I was stuck in learning-curve hell, trying to piece together skills with my non-dominant hand.

The cost was both financial and energetic. As my bank account suffered, my attention leaked, and my vitality bled out in small, constant ways.

Have you ever watched your energy disappear just trying to figure it all out on your own?

When learning happens alongside others, effort settles. You learn from each other rather than reinventing everything in isolation. With shared guidance and time to integrate, work begins to feel sustainable again.

“We can be wherever we are that particular day.
We’re allowed to be vulnerable and we don’t feel judged.”
Eddie Burns

The Identity Tax ~ Self-trust erosion

Over time, my intuitive voice grew quiet. My inner critic took the microphone.

I told myself stories: I can figure this out myself. I should be hustling more.
And I gave myself deadlines: I need to be successful (like everyone else) before I turn 45. I should be doing better than this by now.

I shoulded all over myself through the process of publishing seven books.

Seven.

Each one felt like giving birth, by myself, and then looking around the delivery room eager to share my baby with the world, and no one there to receive her, or me.

Somewhere in that forced independence, I forgot how powerful I was.

I ghosted myself.

Have you ever made yourself smaller for so long that it started to feel normal?

When you allow others in, and settle into a slower and steadier pace, Creativity can return to its original roots. Your strength, your voice, the way you move through the world—self-trust begins to return. In the presence of people who recognize you, something essential comes back online.

“I claimed it and said, ‘I am a healer,’
and felt an enormous expansion of my own energy.”
Kyle Fisk

The Opposite of Ghosting

Ghosting is when someone disappears and you’re left in the void, filling in the gaps with your worst thoughts.

What did I do wrong? Is there something I can do to fix it? What is wrong with me?

I’d already tried the louder coaching programs and learned that I felt like a ghost there too. I’d tried listening to the “experts” who talked down to me and didn’t trust my instincts, and I felt like a ghost with them too. (one of my high-ticket coaches actually did ghost me!)

Eventually, I got to thinking, What is the opposite of ghosting?

Cuz it certainly wasn’t present in the louder communities that were preying upon me.

I wanted something quieter, something sensitive, something that nurtured my HSP soul.

I wanted that quiet little presence that says: I’m here. You’re good. I see you.
—like Casper the Friendly Ghost.

The opposite of Ghosting is Caspering!

• The person who says “I’ve been thinking about what you said” three weeks later.

• The quiet nod of recognition that tells you yes, this thing you’re making matters.

• The voice that doesn’t interrupt your process—it just witnesses it.

We sensitive souls need Caspers.

We need people who show up gently, consistently, quietly, to hold our ideas with us so those ideas can breathe and find their own rhythms.

And that’s exactly what The Creator Retreat is—a Caspering Container.

We are built for the too-sensitive weirdos, the introverts, the deep thinkers, and the creative souls who crave belonging to a quiet, sensitive, deep-meaning-seeking space.

We are here for those who have felt unseen, unheard, and doubted, and who are ready to feel celebrated just as they are.

Applications for the 2026 Cohort are now Open!