THE FOUNDER
I’m Anastasia Burns, a Board-Certified Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner, and a clinician whose expertise is matched only by my profound understanding of the human experience. With dual Master's degrees as both an Adult Geriatric Nurse Practitioner and Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner, I bring over 15 years of experience across the continuum of mental health care. My career spans acute inpatient settings, innovative case management, and pioneering specialized care programs for vulnerable populations through case management and partial hospitalization services.
In my private practice over the past four years, I have successfully guided hundreds of high-functioning adults through their journeys with depression, anxiety, PTSD, mood disorders, and ADHD. What sets me apart is my recognition that true expertise comes from both clinical mastery and lived experience. I intimately understand the weight of persistent sadness, the paralysis of unrelenting worry, and the exhaustion that comes from scattered focus. In my day-to-day practice, I help individuals reclaim their authentic strength, rediscover their voice beneath the noise of anxiety, and step into the resilient, remarkable person they've always been.
A Fellow Traveler
I'm a psychiatric nurse practitioner who understands neurochemistry and a woman who has danced with her own darkness. I've lived with the anxiety that makes it hard to fall asleep and the depression that makes breathing feel like an effort.
I'm a mother, a Caribbean woman, a first-generation everything who achieved external success while battling internal chaos—someone who learned that all the accomplishments in the world can't fill the void where self-love should live. What changed everything wasn't another degree or achievement. It was the self-awareness and love that came from profound knowledge and acceptance.
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For many years, I was drowning in plain sight—gorgeous house, beautiful daughter, graduate degrees on the wall. Every marker of success society promised would make me happy, yet I would return to this empty feeling, confused, and alone. I tried everything to fill this emptiness: new hobbies, practicing yoga, wellness retreats, like it was medicine for a wound I couldn't name. The shift started when I finally engaged in psychiatric care and my mind quieted for the first time in decades. Suddenly, I could actually feel peace, sit without racing thoughts, and hear my soul whisper the truth of my divinity. This foundation made all the work in self-awareness, healing, love, growth, and progression possible.
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The deepest awakening came through reflections on heartbreak, when I realized I was unconsciously recreating my childhood traumas in every relationship, passing on the very wound I was trying to heal. That's when I knew this work wasn't just about me—it was about breaking cycles passed down for generations.
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What makes my work different is simple: I honor the full spectrum of healing—scientific and sacred, clinical and mystical. You can't meditate away neurochemical imbalances or therapize your way to spiritual connection. True transformation is holistic. I start with your nervous system because trauma lives in your body; if you're in constant fight-or-flight, you can't access deeper wisdom. Once we create that neurological foundation, your spirit has the opportunity to be heard. ​
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You are not broken. You never were. You're just homesick for yourself—experiencing disconnection from the woman who's been waiting beneath all the doing, achieving, and endless becoming, to be accepted, loved, and cared for.
So I created Journey to Now, a curated space where we can finally exhale, stop pretending, tell the truth about what's happening in our hearts, and discover who we've been hiding, even from ourselves.
A Message From The Founder
The creation of this retreat is my love letter to my fellow womankind. The ones who think they "just" need a vacation, another degree, another hobby, more friends, a love interest, something to take care of, a change of residence, a new city, even a new country. I assure you that none of those external changes will offer the fulfillment or joy you seek, because what you're searching for is internal peace.
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You're running on empty. You wake up tired, go to bed overwhelmed, and spend your days taking care of everyone and everything except the person who needs you most, you. You've forgotten (or, in some cases, never knew) what it feels like to breathe deeply. To move through your day without that constant knot in your stomach. To make decisions from love and abundance instead of fear and scarcity.
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This retreat guides you back to what you've forgotten: that peace lives in simplicity, not in the endless pursuit of more. Here, you'll learn to nourish what's already within you—so you can finally stop searching and start living as the whole, deserving woman you've always been.
