The screams can be heard from outside the house — a raucous cacophony punctuated by a single, high-pitched shriek.
It’s 7 a.m. and I’ve just made the nail-biting, hairpin turn-studded drive up Las Flores Canyon, in Malibu, to a vast, almost abstract-looking modernist home — 10 bedrooms, eight bathrooms, plus solaria encased in angled steel, concrete and glass. Perched on a hilltop overlooking the ocean, the house literally glistens against the rising sun, with a blanket of frothy, amber-hued fog wafting below.
The scene oozes tranquility: Buddha heads dot the property. A basket of pastel-colored yoga mats sits on one side on the front lawn (fake) and a smattering of crystal bowls, for sound healing, are laid out beneath a tree (real). It’s an appropriate setting for a wellness retreat aimed at deflating anxiety.
Attendees participate in a Michael Gazzo-led breath work session. (Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times)
Then the screams come again, this time uproarious and mingled with thumping hip-hop jams. Turns out there’s a sunrise dance party in full swing on a patio off the kitchen, complete with swirling disco balls, streamers and a 3-year-old Staffordshire Bull Terrier named Hippo, ambling through the crowd.
Welcome to Kelsey Darragh’s Don’t Panic! Retreat — for “bad bitches” kicking anxiety’s butt.
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The social media comedian, podcaster-turned-filmmaker and former BuzzFeed video star is co-hosting her first wellness retreat. It’s the IRL version of her book, “Don’t F*cking Panic: The S— They Don’t Tell You In Therapy About Anxiety Disorder, Panic Attacks, & Depression,” which she published in the early days of the pandemic. Like the voice in her book, her BuzzFeed videos, TikTok shorts and podcast, “Confidently Insecure” (co-hosted with Zach Noe Towers), Darragh is leading this four-night retreat with candor, comedy and a “take no prisoners” attitude.
“Woooo, that’s right, moooove,” she screams, while dancing atop an outdoor dining table in a lilac yoga tanktini and shorts. She swirls her hips while waving a streamer above her head. Little ponytail-like bunches, sticking up like antennae above her temples, whip in the wind as she tosses her blond head around to the music.
A dance party, led by Kelsey Darragh, underway at the Don’t Panic! Retreat. (Deborah Vankin / Los Angeles Times)
Most of today’s attendees, all women, are bunking in the house, with a few day passers — 13 guests in all. Still in their PJs or cozy clothes, the women bump and shimmy around the patio, some reserved, most going for it. Darragh sticks out her tongue and wriggles it. “Yeah, that’s how my face twerks!” she jokes. Laughter all around.
There’s a serious undertone to this retreat, however. Today is “Body Bestie Day” and Darragh, who’s been candid in talking about her anxiety, depression, panic attacks and ADHD on public platforms, will be leading workshops incorporating the most useful tactics she’s learned from therapists, books, other retreats and friends over the years. She’s not a medical professional herself, and there are no therapists or doctors working directly with the retreat. Instead, Darragh is drawing on her book, for which she consulted with medical professionals, as well as from what’s worked for her, personally. This is her version of wellness — and aimed at her followers.
Darragh also brought in practitioners, such as “healing music producer” and breath work coach Michael Gazzo. Some of the retreat’s therapeutic activities are time-tested go-to’s such as yoga and meditation; others are “new age-y therapeutic recommendations.” Like for nervous people, “fidget toys” — sensory objects to fondle — help ground you, Darragh says, gripping a clementine. Throughout the day, she almost always has one in hand.
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Why the dance party? “To show people they can wake up without stimulants like coffee,” Darragh says after the rave. “It gets the blood pumping naturally. Shake your ass; it helps.”
“Disco boob” centerpieces adorned the tables at breakfast at the Don’t Panic! Retreat. (Deborah Vankin / Los Angeles Times)
Tiff Tsai, Tianna Dao, co-founder of the Don’t Panic! Retreat, Erica Hernandez, Logan Potter and Eva Gonzalez show unity while making arts and crafts panic attack prep kits. (Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times)
The disco balls are a theme. Darragh has one tattooed on her inner arm and an image of one adorns guests’ gift bags — filled with vibrators, it’s worth noting. Because: Body Bestie Day. Also: sponsors. An array of disco balls, sawed in half, lay flat on table tops and counters, “disco boobs,” as Darragh calls them.
“I believe we are all like disco balls,” Darragh says. “A thousand tiny broken things made into something beautiful.”
Veralucia Quispe during an arts and crafts workshop making “panic attack prep kits.” (Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times)
As the women help themselves to coffee and settle onto armchairs and couches with views of the garden, the vibe is decidedly sorority slumber party-meets-wellness spa-meets-MTV reality show (a dozen women move into a luxury home in the Malibu hills where they feast on plant-based meals…) accentuated by comedy zingers from Darragh.
The attendees are a diverse, accomplished bunch ranging in age from early 20s to early 50s, though most are millennials who identify as LGBTQ+ and who heard about the retreat on Darragh’s Instagram. They’ve traveled from all over to be here — from Toronto, Chicago, Minneapolis, New York and around Los Angeles. Kristy Porter, 33, is a materials scientist; Veralucia Quispe, 28, is a sound mixer for documentaries; Jordan Harrod, 27, is a PhD candidate at Harvard and MIT focusing on neurotechnology for clinical applications for machine learning.
The throughline: They all wrestle with forms of anxiety or depression and they’re all unabashed Darragh fans.
“I have extreme driving anxiety and that just started last year going through menopause,” says Angie Silva, 51. “But I’m trying to push through. I found Kelsey on Instagram. She’s open and honest and blunt. Her energy, it’s universal.”
“I looked into other retreats,” says Harrod, who’s been following Darragh since high school. “This isn’t ‘go into the woods and scream’ crunchy but it’s also not a luxury spa with people who make millions of dollars. It’s a retreat where you can be yourself, whether that’s silly or sad.”
Darragh says that post-pandemic, she felt people were longing for in-person community around mental health. Herself included.
Tianna Dao, left, and Kelsey Darragh, co-founders of the “Don’t Panic! Retreat,” on the grounds of a private home in Malibu where the event was based. (Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times)
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“I wanted to go on a retreat at the end of last year,” Darragh says. “I was going through a breakup. But I couldn’t find one that felt as realistic and badass as the voice of my book. So I made the retreat I wish I could have gone to: empowering and healing and badass.”
Darragh is co-hosting this inaugural “Don’t Panic! Retreat” with Tianna Dao, a yoga teacher and friend who lives in Mount Washington. The two met last year when Darragh accidentally wandered into Dao’s West Hollywood class.
They’ve kept this iteration of the retreat — for which day passes cost $700 for four days and overnight participation is $1,800 to $2,250 — purposefully small, to iron out kinks. And between the scream therapy, the near-naked body painting, the Beatles-backed breathwork and a round of bone-chilling ice baths, among other activities, kinks do come from time to time. But Darragh’s motto holds true: Panic has no place here among “the sisterhood,” as she refers to her new best friends.
“OK! Now it’s time to really get this party started,” Darragh bellows, popping clementine pieces into her mouth.
Carly Meyer, left, and Tiff Tsai, center, are congratulated by Tianna Dao, co-founder of the Don’t Panic! Retreat, after successfully completing the cold plunge. (Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times)
Don’t Panic: Strip down and get messy
After yoga in an almost laughably luxurious location — under a towering Buddha statue on a bluff overlooking the ocean — followed by downtime for journaling or naps and a breakfast of avocado toast with paprika-spiced chickpeas and fresh fruit, we strip down to our bras and undies.
Sitting outdoors, near naked under a voluminous pepper tree, in public might cause anxiety for many people. But these gals seem at ease, Darragh chief among them.
She gives a talk about central nervous system regulation. Then: “Get bare, get raw, get cozy and confident!”
We’re sitting on paint-stained drop cloths, spreading red paint onto the body parts where we most feel our anxiety. We’re then encouraged to accept our feelings, without judgment, and then spread those same body parts with cooler-looking green and yellow paint.
Darragh admits she had doubts, after a recent breakup, about leading this retreat before realizing it’s exactly what she should be doing. As she talks, she smears so much red paint onto her chest and belly it starts to thicken, wrinkle and cake.
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“Nervousness lives in the belly,” she says. “I get the nervous s—, let’s be real.”
Kristy Porter, left, receives coaching from Kelsey Darragh during an ice bath. (Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times)
Don’t Panic: You can do hard things
“The ice never lies,” Darragh tells us. We’re about to cold plunge, three people at a time, each in separate tubs. Each group chooses a walk-on song. Studies on the health benefits of ice baths are inconclusive. The ice is 38 to 42 degrees today — cold enough to supposedly give you a dopamine rush and reduce inflammation, but prolonged ice bathing may also mess with your heart. The idea? Force our bodies into a hyper-aroused state of fight or flight — panic — so we can learn how to sit with it. Widen our windows of tolerance.
Expect burning fingertips and toes, racing hearts and quickening breath, involuntarily shaking. Also expect, well, emotions to come up, Darragh explains. “The ice will tell you the truth. Things will come up that you don’t want to confront or deal with. That’s what you need to pay attention to.”
We are to stay in for three minutes — or as long as we can bear it.
Lifestyle Ice bath dates? Yes, people do that in L.A. A Venice ice bath studio played matchmaker to more than 100 singles, inviting them to speed date in cold plunge pools. Did things heat up in the freezing cold?
As each person thrusts their bodies into the chilling water, their reactions are visceral and frightening-looking. There is rapid chest heaving, lips and eyebrows are contorted into almost comical angst. One woman sheds tears. Darragh and Dao move from tub to tub, coaching participants. Sza’s smooth R&B “Good Days,” and later rapper Doja Cat’s “Paint The Town Red,” blares in the background.
“Breathe,” Darragh urges me at the start of my first-ever ice bath (likely my last). She’s crouching by the side of my tub, gripping the edge, her eyes locked with mine and breathing exaggeratedly in sync with me — as if coaching me to give birth. “You can do this! People do this every day. Focus on your nose, one more breath. You can do hard things!”
After the longest 180 seconds I can remember, we leap out of the ice water and thaw in the sun. A round of wet high-fives and hugs ensues, with Darragh still coaching us in the background.
“Notice how you feel, how dope and awesome and powerful!” And as silly as it seems, she’s right.
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Marlee Liss, attendee at the Don’t Panic! Retreat, makes her way to a lower level on the grounds of a private residence in Malibu during the four-night retreat. (Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times)
Don’t Panic: Just pivot
The conversation, over lunch, runs from pet names and dating escapades to Glennon Doyle and Abby Wambach’s “cute chemistry” to TikTok memes about girl dinners to — you knew it was coming — Taylor Swift’s “Eras Tour” movie.
Rachel Platten’s “Fight Song” climaxes in the background when chef Drea Anoka, of the Alkalign Lifestyle Cafe, takes the stage. She’s catering the retreat’s plant-based meals — “food that helps you align with your authentic self” — and she has a lesson to share.
Anoka had been intending to serve a green goddess dressing she’d made with almond yogurt for lunch, but after receiving a list of attendee’s allergies, learned one guest is allergic to nuts. There’s no panic, though, despite this being Anoka’s first gig with Darragh. Instead, Anoka took a deep breath, she says, and pivoted, substituting leftover avocado mash. It’s so good that she serves extra spoonfuls of the dressing straight out of the mixing bowl, dropping dollops of it onto our plates.
“Instead of having this ‘I have to be perfect’ mentality,” she tells us, while moving between tables, “it was ‘I’ll just roll with the punches and make something amazing out of whatever I have.’ We have all that we ever need.”
Chef Drea Anoka prepares green goddess nourish bowls for lunch. (Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times)
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Kelsey Darragh leads a mirror mantra class. (Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times)
Don’t Panic: Reflect … and make noise
Things get emotional when we face ourselves — literally. We’re splayed out on the grass, each of us in front of full-length mirrors, having just conversed, out loud, with our reflections for three minutes.
Now we are to come up with a mantra, Darragh tells us, and the group will scream it back to us. “Your sisters are here for you!” she yells.
“In the wellness space we’re taught to stay calm,” Darragh says. “Finding ease and relaxation is totally valid. But an intense emotional release such as screaming is valuable too.”
As Darragh talks, she walks among us, wielding a can of bug spray and spritzing attendees who need it.
We form a circle and, one by one, scream our mantras into it.
“I trust myself!” one woman shrieks, and the group howls it back to her.
“I am enough!” wails another.
After the exercise, Rebecca McDonald, 28, is in tears. She and Darragh move off to the side. Darragh consoles her, hand on shoulder, face up close and whispering encouragement, then offering hugs and slices of clementine.
“I’ve been trying to get back to myself post-pandemic,” McDonald says later. “It’s been hard. This helped.”
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An attendee at the Don’t Panic! Retreat in Malibu takes in the sunset. (Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times)
Don’t Panic: There’s more to come
Tomorrow will bring “Inner Child Day,” followed by “Integration Day,” where the topics of play and implementing anti-anxiety tools, respectively, will be addressed.
But first, things get very … Pink. Several of the ladies are now wearing pink sweats and snuggle on pink blankets on the floor or recline on hot pink blow up chairs to watch — what else? — the “Barbie” movie. Some don pink crowns, others aqua, star-shaped glasses. They might be exhausted from the day’s activities but the chit-chat — and snacks — flow merrily.
Heading outside to my car, the moonlight illuminates the canyon. But the serenity is cut by one last round of screams, this time backed by the sugary pop of the “Barbie” soundtrack.
It’s a “cuddle puddle,” as Darragh calls the evening activity, adding that silliness and laughter activates the parasympathetic nervous system and relieves stress.
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Why “Barbie?”
“Oh,” Darragh says, “to feel empowered and feminine as f—.”
Inside Kelsey Darragh’s wellness retreat for ‘bad bitches’
