WORKSHOPS

LIFE AFTER GRIEF RETREAT

Grief is not something to "get over." It is a natural part of being human—an expression of love, loss, change, and the many transitions we experience throughout life. The Life After Grief Retreat offers a compassionate, immersive space where participants can explore their grief through a variety of scientific, somatic, cultural, and integrative practices.

This retreat is designed to help people feel witnessed in their grief without requiring them to share their personal stories. Through guided experiences, participants will gain a deeper understanding of how grief lives within the body, how it shapes our thoughts and behaviors, and how we can develop new ways to anchor ourselves amid pain, uncertainty, and change.

Together, we will explore the relationship between grief, meaning-making, and healing while learning practical tools for regulation, self-awareness, and resilience. Participants will discover that grief is not something to fear or avoid, but something we can learn to carry with greater compassion and understanding.

Perhaps most importantly, the retreat offers the healing power of community. Grief often leads us toward isolation, yet healing frequently occurs in connection with others. By gathering in a supportive environment, participants are reminded that they are not alone, that their experience has a place, and that there is strength in walking this path together.

Whether your loss is recent or long ago, this retreat invites you to honor your grief, reconnect with yourself, and explore what it means to continue living fully while carrying what matters most.

    • Nourishing Lunch (Vegan & Vegetarian options available)

    • Guided wellness treatments & meditations

    • Supplies for all activities

    • Opportunities to speak directly with licensed professionals

    • Ample time for rest & reflection

    • Free Parking

  • 10:30 AM-11:30 AM

    Understanding how Grief Lives in Us

    Tameka Ruffin, LCSW, Sound Healing / Reiki Practitioner,

    We begin together in a spirit of gentle curiosity. Drawing from neuroscience, polyvagal theory, and somatic wisdom, this grounding opening session offers a compassionate map of how loss moves through us — not just emotionally, but physically, in the nervous system, the breath, and the body's deepest tissues. Understanding the biology and psychology of grief can itself be deeply relieving - a signal to the system that what you are experiencing makes complete sense. We also explore how loss reshapes identity, and how within that disorientation there is often a quiet invitation toward a more honest knowing of ourselves.

    11:45 AM - 1:15 PM

    Integrated Somatic Release Experience

    Mona Yoga, RYT, M.S.

    Grief lives in the body long before it finds words. In this immersive healing experience, we bring together four complementary modalities trauma- informed yoga, intentional breath-work, Reiki energy healing, and a restorative sound bath - into a single, flowing journey designed to meet you exactly where you are and gently guide your nervous system toward release, regulation, and rest. We begin with grounded education on how the nervous system stores grief and trauma - why the body braces, why breath becomes shallow, why certain memories live in the hips or the chest or the throat. Understanding this is itself a form of relief. When we know why the body responds the way it does, we can begin to work with it rather than against it. From there, we move. Gentle, trauma-informed yoga opens the pathways where grief has gathered, inviting the tissues to soften and the breath to deepen. Intentional breath-work then guides the nervous system into greater regulation.


    1:15 PM - 2:00 PM

    Lunch - Nourishing meal provided to include Vegetarian and Vegan options.

    2:00 PM - 3:00 PM

    Honoring Loss While Regaining Your Power

    Aisha M.Bowie, LCSW, LPN

    We will be empowered as we learn how grief is not a weakness, it is love with nowhere to go. This segment uses guided visualization and meditation, talk therapies, journal prompts, and community sharing to help honor and rise with your grief.

    2:00 PM - 3:00 PM

    What Awaits Beyond: Journey Through Science, Spirit & the Mystery of Passing

    Melanie Cantua, Dream Analyst, Reiki /EFT

    What happens when we leave this human form? It is perhaps the most profound question we carry - and one that grief brings achingly close. Across centuries and disciplines, seekers have approached this threshold from every direction. Scripture and sacred text. Medical research into near-death experiences. Quantum physics and the nature of consciousness. Dream wisdom and the ancient art of soul guidance. What is remarkable is not how different these perspectives are - but how quietly they converge. Again and again, across culture and tradition and scientific inquiry, we find the same luminous thread: that love does not end, that consciousness continues, and that something vast and tender is woven into the fabric of what we are and where we are going. Join Melanie Cantua dream analyst and psychopomp - for an integrative exploration of what the fields of science, spirituality, medicine, and dream wisdom reveal about life beyond this physical realm.

    3:15 PM - 4:30 PM

    The Power of Ritual: Building a Sacred Container for your Grief

    Charis Caldwell, M.S., Reiki Master

    Long before modern medicine, humans instinctively reached for ritual in loss - gathering, building altars, marking thresholds. Neuroscience now confirms what ancient traditions always knew: intentional symbolic action tells the nervous system this is held, this matters - measurably reducing anxiety and restoring a sense of agency. From Mexico's Día de los Muertos to Japan's Obon Festival to the Yoruba tradition, cultures worldwide share the same luminous understanding - that love does not end at death, and that honoring those we've lost heals the living as much as it honors the departed. In this guided session you will explore the symbolism of color, stones, and flowers, and learn the devotional wisdom woven into altar creation. Using a provided wooden framework, paints, stones, and silk flowers, you will build your own altar - and optionally craft a grief intention jar to carry home as a living, evolving practice. Please bring small photos or mementos of someone you wish to honor.

    4:00 PM - 5:30 PM

    Community Witnessing: Closing in the Garden

    The garden becomes our final healing space, chosen because the natural world has always been one of grief's most patient and eloquent witnesses. Led by the gentle current of live music, we gather in soft, organic movement - not structured or instructed, simply invited. Research in somatic psychology confirms what contemplative traditions have embodied for centuries: that the body, when given permission to move freely in community, accesses states of integration that stillness alone cannot reach. Let the music guide what words no longer need to carry. Let movement become the final language of this day. From there, we settle into a closing ritual — a collective, intentional act of release and remembrance that honors the fullness of what this day has held and everyone who has held it together with such courage. No words are required of you. No sharing, no performance. Only your presence among others who have walked this terrain alongside you.

  • Book Your Spot
    Click “Register Here” to     sign up via our Eventbrite Link. Early bird discounts are offered prior and pay all required fees to reserve your spot. If plans change, you can cancel up to 7 days before the event to receive a full refund. We also offer community pricing during the last week leading up to the event.

    Review the Welcome Email
    After booking, we'll send you a Welcome Email with everything you need to know - detailed schedules, and what to bring.

    Join Us!
    We are so excited to meet you!

REGISTER HERE