What is a Shalom Retreat?
Working Through Grief, Loss and Other Difficult Feelings

By Jon Terrell, M.A.

Several years ago, while leading a Shalom Retreat, our group defined "What is a Shalom Retreat?" in different ways. It meant something different to each of us.

I no longer lead these retreats at Shalom Mountain because I wanted to focus on grief and loss, but their retreats are, like mine, rich and deep.

Here are some definitions that showed up:

A Shalom Retreat is a place to learn to love, to learn through direct experience what love is all about. Here we learn that our past understanding of love may have been clouded by experiences of unloving behaviors masquerading as love. We learn specific life skills--skills of loving--that can forever change our lives.

A Shalom Retreat is a place of hope. Hope is the feeling and knowing that positive change is possible. And many of us have lost our hope. Sometimes, we may feel stuck and hopeless. At a Shalom Retreat, we reclaim our place on life's journey and reclaim hope.

A Shalom Retreat is where all of us are welcome- and all our feelings honored. Our parents and others accepted only parts of us, so we disown them as well. We accept only the "good" parts, perhaps, and deny other parts. At these retreats we can reclaim all of us.

A Shalom retreat is a place of temenos. Temenos is a Greek word referring to a sacred space. Wherever a Shalom Retreat is held is truly holy ground. Heaven and earth meet here.

A Shalom retreat is a place beyond time and space. The Greeks have two words for time: chronos, chronological, by-the-clock time, and kairos, or "time out of mind", the in-between time. We get caught up thinking healing and change take a lot of time and effort. Yet at these events we enter this other time. We step out of our chronological lives to be deeply fed.

Shalom Retreats are an opportunity to go back into your past and change it. Amazing but true--I've seen it over and over again. The past has already happened, but its memory lives on in our bodies and minds. It keeps intruding on the present moment until we change it. We can re-enter the past by reconnecting with it in our bodies and minds and free ourselves.

A Shalom Retreat is a place to open to present-moment awareness once we've gathered ourselves back from the past. We can now allow each moment to arise, free from other influences. Once freed, the present moment becomes a safe, beautiful place to live from.

Personal growth is a lifelong process, but rapid, real change is possible at the right event. Lasting, deep healing and awakening can occur as we become more conscious and more fully alive.

My retreats and Shalom Retreats are extraordinary growth events. I offer 7-8 of these retreats each year. Visit our main retreat page to learn more and see when they are offered. I call these events Working Through Grief, Loss, and Difficult Emotions Retreats instead of Shalom Retreats, as many folks were confused by the old name, and I no longer lead retreats at Shalom Mountain, where I was on staff for many years. My retreats are smaller group events focusing primarily on grief and loss.

Shalom Mountain, in New York State's Catskill Mountains, is a wonderful place with numerous talented retreat leaders.

I primarily hold my retreats in western Massachusetts, with one retreat each year in Florida and California.

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