Nine Things “Nine Perfect Strangers” Gets Wrong About Wellness Retreats
Have you seen the new Hulu Original drama that everyone’s buzzing about? Based on The New York Times’ bestselling book by author Liane Moriarty, Nine Perfect Strangers takes place at Tranquillum, an award-winning wellness retreat that promises healing and transformation. If you haven’t watched it yet, don’t worry; we won’t spoil it too much.
When the first three episodes of the series dropped on Aug. 18, 2021, viewers quickly realized just how bizarre Tranquillum was. Many questioned wellness retreats, assuming they were all the same, and as additional episodes are released, the buzz about what happens at wellness retreats continues.
With so many misconceptions about wellness retreats, we’d like to clear the air: here are nine of the many things Nine Perfect Strangers gets wrong about wellness retreats.
#1. Guest involvement in one another’s lives
Nine Perfect Strangers
The guests who attend Tranquillum include a family of three, one couple and four individuals. It doesn’t take long for the nine guests to become too involved in one another’s lives and problems quickly ensue. Guests compare themselves to one another, speculating who feels better and is healing faster.
Wellness Retreats
It’s important for wellness retreats to limit the number of guests to a reasonable amount. There are many factors that influence maximum capacity, but participants should be able to relax and focus on themselves. An intimate group of guests is great, but guests don’t want to feel overwhelmed by other participants. In reality, guests who attend wellness retreats are like-minded and supportive people who participate in activities together and often become great friends. Guests maintain healthy boundaries and respect one another.
Skyterra Wellness Retreat
Because Skyterra is limited to 30-35 guests at any given time, there is a strong community among participants. During their stay, guests receive support for achieving and maintaining their goals from other participants. Because of the caring, family-like atmosphere, many guests describe past and present participants as “The Skyterra Family.” Friendships formed at Skyterra often serve as great sources of accountability and support far beyond the conclusion of their stay.
#2. Retreat staff involvement in guests’ lives
Nine Perfect Strangers
Tranquillum staff main characters include the owner and two Wellness Consultants. From the minute guests arrive (and possibly before), they are closely supervised by staff both physically and digitally. Yes, it’s as creepy as it sounds. The owner watches and listens to guests through hidden cameras.
While the application questions and admission criteria are unknown, only 10 percent of applicants become guests at Tranquillum. Guests must submit a complete medical history prior to their arrival, but the owner seems to know every facet of their public and private lives. One guest believes that the owner mixes and matches each cohort “like a cocktail,” hence the word “perfect” in the show title.
Staff “unburden” guests by taking their cell phones away and secretly search their luggage for “forbidden items” including all medication, alcohol, food and technology. Each guest must have blood drawn every few days. When this is questioned, staff explains that it is ”part of how we tailor your wellness journey.”
Wellness Retreats
In reality, wellness retreat staff serve as fitness instructors, recreation guides, massage therapists, chefs, registered dietitians, etc. and spend limited time with participants. Staff do not typically live at the retreat.
Skyterra Wellness Retreat
Prior to arrival, Skyterra guests are encouraged to complete a questionnaire so that staff can review any specific areas of need including dietary restrictions, medical concerns, motivations, and personal goals. Staff provide instruction and supervision during classes for safety reasons, but guests are always free to come and go as they please. A common phrase at Skyterra is “we meet you where you are.” It’s more than a simple phrase to the Skyterra team; it’s a promise.
#3. Purpose and outcomes
Nine Perfect Strangers
Prior to arrival, guests describe what they’ll be doing at Tranquillum in different ways:
- “Healing, massage and gentle fasting”
- “We’re going to become ‘Us 2.0’”
- “We’ll be spending 10 days doing meditation, yoga, healthy eating, and spending quality time together.”
Guests think they are going to the wellness retreat for massages and relaxation, not to face their own mortality.
Tranquillum’s owner is on a mission to reinvigorate guests’ tired minds and bodies. She claims that she was shot dead and one of the Wellness Consultants brought her back to life. She tells the guests that they have “come here to die” and that she’ll bring them back to life.
Wellness Retreats
Tranquillum focuses on the ability of the owner to transform the guests’ lives, while wellness retreats actually equip guests on their wellness journey. Retreat staff members give guests the tools they need to transform their lives, without involving mortality.
Skyterra Wellness Retreat
Skyterra’s mission is to make a difference in people’s lives by demonstrating healthy, enjoyable and sustainable lifestyle changes. We offer a wide range of health-promoting and personal enrichment activities in a relaxing environment. Our wellness retreat is designed to be fun, customizable and holistic, and accommodates diverse priorities.
#4. Promise of transformation and healing
Nine Perfect Strangers
The owner of Tranquillum makes many unfathomable promises. During orientation, she tells the guests that “in 10 days when you leave here, you’ll leave not as the person you are now. You’ll leave Tranquillum and you’ll be happier, healthier, lighter, freer, healed, free - free from the negative habits and chemicals and toxins and thoughts that hold you back. Your mind and body will be clear and changed in ways you never could have imagined.”
While sitting on a bed with a guest, the owner says, “We’re gonna get you well. It’s gonna take courage and sometimes it’s gonna be a little unpleasant. People come here for the suffering.” Many of the guests truly believe that the owner is going to make them new people. They are willing to put their lives in her hands in order to feel better. One guest explains that she’s at Tranquillum for “weight loss, esteem-building, [and] mind and body transformation.”
Wellness Retreats
Wellness retreats do not promise to transform and heal guests. Transformation and healing look different for each guest and even without making promises, participants’ expectations vary.
Skyterra Wellness Retreat
Many Skyterra participants want to lose weight and most of our guests do lose pounds of excess fat, but we do not make guarantees about the number of pounds guests will lose. A guest reports that she returned home from Skyterra “reenergized, even fitter and with a whole new list of exercise, fitness and dietary options.” Another guest said that she was surprised to see improvements in herself over the course of the week she visited Skyterra.
#5. Secrecy
Nine Perfect Strangers
If the owner watching and listening to guests through hidden cameras isn’t creepy enough, guests sign a contract agreeing that they won’t post anything about Tranquillum on social media. When a guest’s husband starts saying strange things, she asks the owner if they are being medicated.
The guests are surprised to find out that the smoothies they have been drinking contain psychedelic mushrooms. Tranquillum’s owner microdoses guests, making them vulnerable enough to share past grief and pain. She uses guests’ altered state to try to heal them, stirring up hallucinations in a creepy social experiment. The nine guests came to Tranquillum in a desperate state, willing to do anything to improve their lives. Tranquillum’s secrecy abounds.
Wellness Retreats
In reality, wellness retreats are open and honest about their methods and philosophies. Secrecy does not help people on their wellness journey. Online reviews and social media help prospective guests find wellness retreats that best fit their needs.
Skyterra Wellness Retreat
Skyterra’s website, social media accounts and online reviews offer prospective guests a plethora of information. Skyterra has close to 150 five-star reviews from past guests who call the experience transformative, life-changing and an excellent travel value. Reservation Specialists at Skyterra also work with prospective guests, answering any questions they may have and providing transparent information about the wellness retreat.
#6. Rules
Nine Perfect Strangers
From taking away cell phones, medication, alcohol, food and technology to requiring regular blood draws, the rules at Tranquillum are absurd. Higher doses of psychedelics require more rules, rules that help guests stay safe but shouldn’t exist at a wellness retreat. Guests are told not to be near water and to use the buddy system, but these rules aren’t enforced. Some guests end up in the pool and others wander around alone and have hallucinations.
Wellness Retreats
Wellness retreats provide suggestions and requests for guests as well as reasonable rules for safety.
Skyterra Wellness Retreat
At Skyterra, rules exist only to preserve the peaceful environment for other guests: we ask that cell phones are in silent mode during classes and meals, guests be on time for classes, no alcoholic beverages are brought to the dining room, and that guests do not smoke in or near buildings.
#7. Classes and activities
Nine Perfect Strangers
Tranquillum offers the following classes and activities:
- Forest bathing — sitting alone in the forest saying negative things about herself out loud
- Dirt digging — guests dig holes shaped like graves and lie down in them while the owner talks about fearing death and tells guests to imagine their funerals as staff throws dirt on them. The owner invites guests to leave the holes, rebirthing themselves into a new life
- Trust fall
- Meditation
- Potato sack race
- Hiking
- Earth Day — guests live off the land for the day and are only able to eat anything they can forage
- Skinny dipping
- Cliff diving
- Acupuncture
- Beat a dummy with a wooden sword
- Meals — food and group discussion/fighting.
The classes and activities take place on Tranquillum’s campus and everything is done as a group except acupuncture (solo) and Earth Day, where men and women are in separate groups.
Wellness Retreats
Most wellness retreats offer a schedule with a wide range of optional classes and activities as well as downtime. The odd activities portrayed in Nine Perfect Strangers do not take place at real wellness retreats.
Skyterra Wellness Retreat
Skyterra guests enjoy a well-rounded roster of enriching lectures and enlivening classes and activities with close to 80 options every week. Programming examples include breathwork and meditation sessions, low- and high-intensity fitness classes, yoga and mobility sessions, nutrition education and culinary demonstrations, hikes to waterfalls, horseback riding, and excursions to local events.
#8. Staff cohesiveness
Nine Perfect Strangers
The staff at Tranquillum are never on the same page, both professionally and personally. General workplace laws and policies don’t seem to apply at Tranquillum. The owner and two Wellness Consultants (a couple) appear to live at Tranquillum and have a love triangle that interferes with their professional work. One Wellness Consultant is shown smoking a cigarette through her bedroom window and her husband questions her about it. She claims that it helps her “cope better with the guests.” She constantly questions the owner about the microdosing protocols and believes they are giving the guests too much too fast. The same Wellness Consultant witnesses the owner eating cake with her hands in the middle of the night.
Even though the owner is supposed to be healing the guests, she has her own problems, experiencing terrifying flashbacks and receiving threatening messages. The Wellness Consultants have to take unknown medications as part of an employment agreement.
Wellness Retreats
In reality, wellness retreat staff rally behind helping guests improve their long-term physical, mental and emotional health. While employees aren’t always on the same page about everything, general workplace laws and policies apply and are enforced.
Skyterra Wellness Retreat
A recent guest shared this message with our staff:
“These people put 110 percent of themselves into this [Skyterra]. You can tell how passionate they are, not only about this beautiful place that they built, but the lives that they’re helping to rebuild. You can just tell people care here. Everybody cares; that’s a huge thing. Thank you for envisioning this [Skyterra] and for the possibilities you bring to us [guests]. From the bottom of my heart, thank you.”
#9. One thing Nine Perfect Strangers gets right about wellness retreats
The thing we can all get behind? Every aspect of your life and health will benefit from resetting, relaxing, recharging, and realigning your life. While you probably won’t find a legitimate wellness retreat as extreme as Tranquillum, there are wellness retreats in every size, location, and philosophy. From all-inclusive options and adventurous wellness retreats to remote getaways and bring-your-own tent options, there are a plethora of wellness retreats to choose from. No matter where you are in life, you can benefit from a wellness retreat.