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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.
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.
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.
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.
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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.
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.”
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.”
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.
“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.
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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.
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.
“Nervousness lives in the belly,” she says. “I get the nervous s—, let’s be real.”
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, involuntary 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.”