Grieving: Endings, Losses and Change

Grieving is a powerful capacity that is largely undeveloped, overlooked and undervalued in our culture.  In this program you learn to grieve fully and responsively.

Ongoing life experiences of attachment and separation, situations of helplessness and disappointment naturally arouse grief that we tend to suppress. We experience separations, losses and endings through deaths, relationship breakups, aging, career changes, geographical moves, children growing up and leaving home, discrimination, failed dreams, interruptions in life through illness, injury or trauma.  Our personal grief is further fueled by grieving consciously or unconsciously, for our planet, our environment or the state of our world.

Whether transitions are planned or unpredicted, whether changes are chosen or beyond our control, these endings demand that we leave people, things, places, or a way of life behind.

This program is for people who are grieving, suppressing grief, or who are stuck in grieving and will benefit from learning the skill of grieving separations, endings and losses such as:

• Relationships – separation, divorce, death, disappointment, abuse, discrimination
• Body and Life Transitions – illness, surgery, abortion, aging
• Change – career change, relocation, financial status
• Global Concern – planet, creatures, environmental destruction, poverty, wars

Through a range of experiential forms, including the creative use of ceremony, you will learn about the grieving process and have the opportunity to release the grip that the impact of your losses has on your heart, your mind, your body, your feelings, your life. Together we will grieve fully. You will create a map toward strengthening your core and renewing your wholeness as you step forward to embrace the rest of your life.

Grieving within a group gathering cultivates the sense of belonging which is one of the most powerful healing medicines in existence.  It is the experience of being held in the embrace of a village.  Linda Graham, psychotherapist and neuroscience expert, in her book Bouncing Back, speaks of how “bonding and belonging nourish resilience” and strengthens our capacity to regulate our internal states during crisis and stress.

We don’t often make time to grieve. Sometimes we don’t give ourselves the permission and space — we keep a ‘brave face’ or ‘stay strong’ thinking that’s what’s best for us and those around us. Other times the endings, losses, or changes are not one acute event or episode, but a gradual shift with no clear time to mourn. In such cases, we may not know how to actually process our grief.

When we don’t grieve fully and responsively, we carry the experience(s) with us and hold them in our bodies. This can have difficult implications for our physical, mental and emotional health and wellbeing in the short and long terms. If you want to learn this essential life skill and embrace the rest of your life, join us for Grieving: Endings, Losses & Change.

Investment:

Our Earlybird tuition price of $775 is available up to one month prior to the program start.  Regular tuition is $835.  Full payment is due one month before the program start date regardless of tuition price.

We are offering private and shared room options.

You can find our cancellation policy here

Schedule:

Your program begins with dinner at 6pm and your first session at 7:30pm

Daily schedule:

• Breakfast 8:00 – 9:00am
• Morning session 9:15am to noon
• Lunch noon to 1:00pm
• Afternoon session 3:00 – 6:00pm
• Dinner 6:00 – 7:00pm
• Evening session 7:30 – 9:00pm approximately

Your program finishes with lunch on the last day.

Transportation:

If you are travelling to Gabriola as a foot passenger on the Gabriola Ferry a shuttle to The Haven can be requested.  Information on this option will be included in your pre-arrival email.

Admission requirements: The student must have the desire and ability to learn.  Must demonstrate a capacity for responsible self care, responsible self organization and sound mental health.  The student must understand and speak English.

This program does not require approval by the registrar of the Private Training Institutions Branch (PTIB) of the Ministry of Advanced Education, Skills and Training.  As such, the registrar did not review this program. What does this mean? Click here to learn more.