Massachusetts Grief and Difficult Emotions Retreat
At Star Dance Ranch in Western MA
Led By Jon Terrell, M.A.
Click Here For Upcoming Dates
For the last twenty-five years, I've led retreats that help people transform uncomfortable, stuck emotions. Our Massachusetts Grief and Difficult Emotions Retreat is our signature event, held several times yearly in the Pioneer Valley in western Massachusetts. People attend from all over the world.
These intensive, small-group experiences require a phone interview to ensure they are appropriate for you. On the call, you can ask questions, learn about the retreat's day-to-day activities, and find out whether it is what you are looking for.
Why Attend Our Massachusetts Grief and Difficult Emotions Retreat?
People attend our retreats for various reasons, although the primary reason for many participants is grief and loss.
Other feelings intertwine with our grief which helps hold our suffering in place. With all emotions, one is generally on top, in our conscious awareness, while the others are just below the surface of our mind's awareness.
People attend a Massachusetts Grief and Difficult Emotions Retreat to help them heal grief, and yet anger, fear, disappointment, resentment, and many other feelings may show up. As these feelings rise up into awareness, we work them through.
Let's take a look at what often shows up.
Working With Grief and Loss
We grieve when we have lost someone or something that we cherish and love.
Of all the feelings, grief is the slowest to heal. We grieve because we have loved. We don't get over a loss so much as we change through loss.
Grief softens us, opens our hearts, and grounds us.
Working through our grief involves allowing ourselves to enter our grief, feel it, and slowly come to terms with it.
We Grieve Because We Loved
Sometimes We Close Our Hearts Because We Were Hurt
Some people cope by not opening to love, which is sad and tragic, as it leaves so much of life unlived.
People who have been hurt early in life can close off to love as a way to protect themselves from emotional pain. They can end up avoiding close relationships and, therefore, miss the joy and pleasure that relationships can bring.
Or they are half there in their relationships, never really being present to loving and being loved.
Those who are closed off to love, single and have dropped out of the search for a loving partner, or who feel they don't know how to love at all can change.
It is never too late to attend one of our events and open your heart again.
Grief Can Overwhelm And Disorient Us
When people attend our Massachusetts Grief and Difficult Emotions Retreat because of a major loss, they may feel overwhelmed and even disoriented. Their whole life has been turned around and they're in deep emotional pain because of:
- Loss of a husband or wife
- Son or daughter
- Mother or father
- Other losses...a pet, a close friend, etc.
Grieving people need to be heard and supported in their pain. They need our caring and loving attention.
They do not need our advice or distractions.
Our retreats provide a safe, supportive environment to help people experiencing grief and the other feelings that accompany it.
Working With Anger
Anger is the biggest of all our feelings. Anger contains a lot of energy, which can rush out of us without much warning. It's the extrovert of all the feelings, pointing a finger at the perceived problem and saying "You!"
Because it is so big, we often try to suppress it. But suppressed feelings lead to other problems — exhaustion, confusion, powerlessness, physical tension, and dysfunction. Why? Because it takes a lot of our energy to push it down, below awareness.
Anger can usually find a way out of this suppression, showing up in all sorts of ways, as sarcasm, hostility, and impatience, for example.
There is a better way: At our Massachusetts Grief and Difficult Emotions Retreats, participants find relief, ease, and joy as they transform their anger into aliveness and passion.
We don't just get it "off our chest" (and spew it out at another); we free ourselves to make more constructive choices.
Working With Anxiety, Worry and Fear
These feelings take us away from our lives and resources into the future.
Anxiety is about the near future, often the next moment. Something bad will happen and we may be overcome, hurt or exposed.
Anxiety, worry, and fear shrink us and cause us to avoid, run away, or freeze.
At our retreats, the support of the whole group can help us lean into these feelings and help our nervous system and brain unload years of tension and contraction. Anxiety, worry, and fear transform into openness, aliveness, insight, and excitement.
Working With Feeling Stuck
Sometimes we don't know where we should go or what we should do. We may feel depressed, confused, and uncertain. Should we quit our job or end our relationship? Should we move? Which way should we turn?
When we feel stuck, it is because we are holding on to feelings that we need to recognize, express, and free up.
People attend our Massachusetts Grief and Difficult Emotions Retreat who are stuck in their lives and don't know what to do.
We've Helped Hundreds Of People
Our retreats help people work through the emotions that keep them stuck.
We do this by creating a loving environment to hold what may initially feel impossible to contain. As the saying goes, "It takes a village to raise a child" so it takes a community of like-minded participants to create a temporary family to transform the emotional pain of each person.
Early on in the retreat, a group of strangers bond, becoming a strong family for the purpose of helping each other.
We do this each retreat through a series of steps, designed to create more safety, support and connection.
On the first night of each retreat, we set the stage for the work to come by creating, in a step-by-step manner, strong connections among everyone present.
Where Are We Located?
All of our Massachusetts Grief and Difficult Emotions retreats are held at Star Dance Ranch in western Massachusetts. We are located in a small town called Sunderland, near Amherst and Northampton. We are about two hours east of Boston, and three hours north of New York City.
Is the Massachusetts Grief and Difficult Emotions Retreat For You? Next Step
To help decide if this retreat is for you, fill out the form below to speak to me, Jon, about your situation. We can set up a time to talk, when you can ask questions and get help deciding what is best for you.
To learn more about Jon Terrell, M.A., click here.
For upcoming dates, go to our retreat page
Go To Ten Things I Have Learned About Grief
Go To Home Page
Legal Documents for those who want to attend our retreats: Go Here
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Comments From Past Participants
"Having tried individual and group therapy for the recent loss of my family members, it became clear to me that I was stuck. I didn't realize how my grief had transferred into depression until I participated in the grief retreat at Star Dance. I'm finally moving forward after months of paralysis. I feel lighter and happier than I have in months."
Joy Benson, Dallas, TX
I entered the retreat carrying unbearable grief. The weight of my pain was too much to bear. I longed for my deceased loved one. I exited the retreat free, light, and felt connected with them. Star Dance is magical. Jon Terrell is a guru in the skills of love, compassion, grief, empathy, and spiritual freedom. His leadership of the retreat is one of a kind. I traveled across the country to attend. It was one of the best decisions of my life. I’m so grateful I found this miracle of a retreat and that I had the privilege of participating in it."
Leticia Araujo-Perez, San Francisco, CA
"Thank you for an unbelievably powerful weekend! I am feel so truly blessed to have been in such a loving and accepting environment at your retreat. I also want to thank you for the continued support through email. Who would of thought being away for 2 days would be such an extreme adjustment.
I guess to sum up my experience to other people interested in the retreat or looking through the website would be that it was unexpectedly and extremely powerful.
It is as if the feelings I have been unconsciously carrying have left my body an thus have made room for me to feel my light within and see my world from more loving eyes without doing any intellectual or mental work.
I thank you Jon from the bottom of my heart. Your work is a gift. You are a gift
Love always,"
Courtney Sullivan, Woburn, MA
"Jon created the most safe, sacred and powerful container which certainly enriched the weekend for me, along with the incredible encouragement from Jon and everyone. It made for a mind-altering and energy-moving experience, far exceeding my expectations! Under the grass there is GROUND and I will hold onto this how ever fast the earth spins! I am so grateful."
Scott Barber, VT