“Be kind, be formidable and relentless in pursuing your goals, and for God’s sake, make someone’s day!”
This is a condensed introduction detailing how the Monarch Protocols process unfolds, how you start to believe your story is worth being told, scars and all. Not false hope, but real results based on copious data points, from spec ops veterans, first responders, your neighbor struggling with loss and life transitions, addiction; all who confront their suffering and decide to change their lives for the better.
We help people from all walks of life take control of their lives and begin anew. This process is rigorous as nothing matters unless you’re physically and mentally safe and ready to confront the roots of your suffering, and transformation starts with thoughtful screening measures before preparation officially starts. The initial entry includes careful consideration related to the following:
I came to this retreat skeptical that my heart and eyes could be cracked open to self-love and forgiveness. My past traumas have made me who I am, and my time with Monarch showed me despite my hardships, life is beautiful and there is a way forward in life! I’m excited to fully embrace the joy I’ve deserved all this time.
We help you initiate change before you even come onsite, new roots planted, tailored goals and potential in sight. After several preparation sessions using Monarch’s innovative assessment and mental health protocols, you arrive onsite, ready for change while simultaneously anxious about letting go of old patterns, past survival strategies that served a purpose but those that no longer serve your best interests.
We obsess on every detail, no excuses, to help retreat participants let go of ordinary responsibilities and obligations and enter a mindset most amenable to the premise of Monarch’s protocols: not only providing symptom relief but more importantly addressing the roots of suffering, helping clients sustain change months post treatment. With over 50 retreats completed, many including folks with complex PTSD and multiple failed treatments, we tailor each retreat experience to the individual goals of each participant.
We welcome each participant as they are and honor their individual life experiences, stories, pain, and goals by ensuring their comfort and safety on site. This includes:
Enlightening! Dr. Krohn is gifted at finding ‘the need behind the need’ and giving guidance on how to move forward. Words can’t describe how ‘light’ and ‘free’ I feel!
After each tailored, ketamine-assisted psychotherapy guided session bolstered by a music playlist curated to uniquely match your developmental history, present context, and future goals, every Monarch participant engages in individual and group integration. It’s imperative to understand your past, set your sails in a new direction, and solidify being the agent of your new chapter of life by implementing tangible steps you’ll carry with you when returning home.
This means the Monarch Protocols think about clinical work not as a single treatment but as a rigorous therapy model, anchored in preparation and integration, with neuroplastic agents facilitating change.
One way to think about this step: if you wake up and it feels like getting through your day is akin to drudging, one hard step at a time, up a mountain as big as Mt. Kilimanjaro, we help you start at the peak and give you the freedom, confidence, perspective, and renewed agency to decide your path down, fresh snow and terrain in sight.
That’s deeply important to our mission, as there is no such thing as panaceas. In fact, the illusion of them robs one of the process and resulting pride in seeing one’s change and progress. Yet we help you dream again, embrace your true self, and place the pen back in your hands, next chapters unwritten.
This is, without question, the most extraordinary program and experience I have ever been a part of. This program allows you, almost forces you, to truly see yourself—to reconnect with that part of you that is the real you, the you that God created, not the one the world has forced you to become. Damon and Jessica use their “spidey” sense to peer into the darkest of places, find you there, and help guide you back into the light.
This is a truly special place and a profoundly transformative program. The retreat is not easy. It asks you to be vulnerable, courageous, and willing to do the hard work. But if you give yourself those four days and fully commit to the process, I promise you, your life can be forever changed. I cannot begin to express the depth of my gratitude, love, and admiration for Damon and his team—or for the changes in me. They allowed me to get out of the rut, that day to day grind that seems to suck your soul right out of you. You can be free. You can change those patterns and routines that keep you stuck in the status quo. A different life is possible, and this program can help you find your way toward it.
The pen is in your hands: what story will you write?
Monarch’s onsite experience concludes with careful intentionality regarding the following components of transitioning post retreat:
In summary, Monarch Protocols help every participant relinquish problematic patterns, find symptom relief, address the root causes of their suffering, and provide the insight and tools post integration to give folks agency, confidence, and the strategies to write the next chapter of their lives.
My name is Larry Hill, and I spent 14 years working in law enforcement in a variety of roles. Like many people in that profession, I learned how to push through stress, trauma, and emotional weight without ever really dealing with it. For a long time, I thought I was managing just fine, but in reality I was only getting by.
Attending the Ketamine Wellness Retreat at Monarch Wellness Institute was the most meaningful and impactful thing I have ever done for my mental and emotional health. I was nervous going into it. Stepping into something unfamiliar is not easy, especially after years of being expected to stay in control at all times. That anxiety faded quickly once I arrived. The setting was peaceful and calming, and the staff were incredibly kind, patient, and accommodating. From the beginning, I felt safe and supported.
What made this experience truly powerful was not just the ketamine sessions themselves, but the work that happened before and after the retreat. The ketamine treatment, along with the tremendous work Damon has done with me, has truly given me new and healthier ways to manage my mental and emotional health related to both my professional and personal trauma.
The preparation and integration led by Damon Krohn, PhD, and Dr. Ken Patterson was essential to my healing. The pre-work helped me understand the process and set meaningful intentions, while the post-work allowed me to process what I experienced and apply it to my daily life. That is where the real, lasting change came from.
Ketamine-assisted therapy is known to help reduce symptoms of depression, anxiety, and PTSD by helping the brain form new, healthier pathways. When it is combined with structured preparation and integration, the benefits are deeper and longer lasting. I experienced this firsthand. This was not a short-term boost or temporary relief. It changed how I think, how I feel, and how I respond to stress.
Because of this treatment, I now have tools and awareness that allow me to manage my mental and emotional well-being in a way I never could before. The impact has been truly life changing. I am deeply grateful to Monarch Wellness Institute, to Damon Krohn, PhD, and to Dr. Ken Patterson for their care, guidance, and commitment to doing this work the right way. This retreat gave me clarity, healing, and a renewed sense of hope. It gave me my life back.
Every participant also leaves with The Monarch Companion, a keepsake retreat and integration journal to carry the work forward long after the retreat ends.
We don’t talk about change, retreat after retreat, Monarch helps clients enact it, lead with purpose and intention, and sustain long-term change. To end, a reflection from a former retreat participant:
I have struggled to find adequate words to describe what has changed within me through the Monarch Protocol because the experience has not been a single event with a definitive ending. The treatment itself was profound, but the integration that has followed has been equally impactful. It feels less like something happened to me and more like I am continuing to awaken to parts of myself that have been dormant for a very long time.
The changes are physical, emotional, and mental, and together they have fundamentally altered my relationship with myself and the world around me.
Physically, I move through life differently. My breaths are deeper and fuller, as though my body no longer feels the need to brace itself against life. My shoulders rest higher and more open. My chin naturally lifts. My steps feel lighter. Even exercise has changed. Activities that once felt exhausting and required significant effort now seem to cost only a fraction of the energy they once did. My body feels less burdened, less resistant to living.
I have also become acutely aware of my senses. I notice warmth on my skin, the coolness of rain, and the movement of wind in ways that feel entirely new. I feel heat and cold more intensely. I notice the elements more deeply. My sense of smell has become stronger. It is as though my nervous system has increased the volume on life itself.
There are aspects of my physical experience that I did not realize had required so much effort. I had no idea that pleasure could feel so natural and effortless. I did not realize how much mental and physical energy had previously been required simply to inhabit my body fully.
The emotional changes have been perhaps the most profound. I feel everything more deeply than I ever have before. Fear feels more real. Anger feels more honest. Hurt, frustration, and disappointment all arrive with greater intensity. Yet these emotions no longer consume me. For most of my life, emotions often felt like something that happened to me, something to either suppress or become trapped inside. Now they feel more like information. I can experience them fully without becoming imprisoned by them. I no longer add suffering to suffering by criticizing myself for having an emotional response. I can acknowledge the emotion, become curious about its origin, understand what it is communicating, and then thoughtfully consider how I would like to respond.
I can feel deeply while remaining grounded.
This may be one of the greatest gifts the Monarch Protocol has given me: the understanding that emotions are not problems to solve or enemies to defeat. They are messengers. They are information. They can be experienced fully and still allowed to pass.
The most beautiful changes, however, have been in my experience of joy and connection. Everything feels like a gift.
Sunshine feels warmer. The sound of birds singing captures my attention. Watching grass push its way through cracks in concrete can move me to tears. I find myself pausing to appreciate ordinary moments that previously may have gone unnoticed.
My capacity for love, compassion, and kindness seems to have expanded exponentially. These qualities no longer feel like virtues I must consciously work to produce. They feel readily available, always waiting to be expressed.
I have also noticed an incredible expansion of empathy. I can genuinely feel other people’s excitement and passions and experience joy simply because they are joyful. I delight in witnessing people come alive when speaking about something they love. Their happiness no longer exists separate from me. I can feel it and participate in it.
I cry more than I ever have before, but these are not tears of despair. They are often what I can only describe as beautiful tears, the kind that emerge when something is profoundly true, deeply meaningful, or overwhelmingly beautiful. They arise because I feel more connected to my own humanity and to the humanity of others.
The Monarch Protocol did not remove difficult emotions from my life. It did something far more remarkable. It gave me access to my full emotional experience while simultaneously giving me the ability to process that experience with curiosity, understanding, and intention. I feel more deeply than I ever have before, but I no longer feel controlled by my emotions. I can experience them fully, learn from them, and use them for my own growth and for the benefit of those around me.
Perhaps that is the simplest way I can explain it.
I do not feel like a different person.
I feel like a more fully realized version of myself, more present, more connected, more compassionate, more alive, and profoundly grateful to participate in my own life.
— Briana Smellie
