The Art of Sacred Listening: A Professional Training Retreat
April 29 - May 06, 2023
Wendy Black Stern
Contact:
wendy@centerforsomaticgrieving.com
About the Retreat
Join Wendy Black Stern for a mindfulness-based, grief focused certification program for healthcare practitioners, therapists / coaches, healers, grief counselors, caregivers, parents or anyone seeking to improve their ability to truly listen to the people in their life. Listening deeply to another person’s experience is a gift, privilege and responsibility. Using yoga, meditation, small group discussions and facilitation training in this luxurious retreat environment, we will practice the skills of deep listening, while also bringing greater awareness to our unconscious biases so that we can learn how to hold a fully accepting space for others. This is a foundational training for anyone who supports others personally or professionally through the journey of grief, loss and life.
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Schedule
To begin each day, an optional guided meditation will be offered on the beach from 8 – 8:30am. After a nourishing breakfast, we will take our seats in our sacred circle for our morning practice, to learn how to be a witness for ourselves and each other, cultivating compassion, self-awareness and connection within the group. Through this process, trust is created, which invites greater vulnerability and authentic sharing. Morning practice is from 9:30 – 1 / 1:30p each day. After our morning circle, we will break for an abundant lunch and an afternoon of free time to lay on the beaches, adventure, receive a spa treatment, paddle board, explore Chacala or anything else that you desire. On the last evening of our retreat, an evening ritual will be offered on the beach to support you releasing what you no longer need and to call in and bring home with you what you have received from your retreat experience.
Each of our classes offer a consistent format including a dharma talk, four body meditation, journaling, sharing circle, gentle yoga practice and integration meditation. Each class will have a theme to guide us in our self inquiry. Some of themes we will be exploring include: Grieving in Community, Presence and Body Awareness, Unconditional Love and Acceptance, Grief as a Teacher, The Evolution of Identity through Loss and Embracing Change.
Payment & Cancellation Policy
$2700 – $4100 (depending on room selection). This includes the program, all meals, accommodation, training, yoga and meditation classes and shuttle to and from the airport. It does not include airfare, spa treatments or additional activities.
About the Teachers
Wendy Black Stern, C-IAYT
Wendy Black Stern, C-IAYT
Founder, Host + Lead Facilitator
Wendy Stern is the owner of the Center for Somatic Grieving, founder of the Grief Support Network and certified yoga therapist residing in Boulder, CO with her husband and two daughters. She has a passion for travel, nature, deep human connection and live music, which have offered a container for her to be present with herself through life’s joys and hardships. Wendy believes that grief can serve as a powerful catalyst for personal growth and change if we are willing. Her work helps people to know their resilience – to feel their emotions in their bodies – to learn to trust in their inner knowing and receive the guidance that can only come from within. Wendy has been a student and teacher of yoga for over 25 years, but it wasn’t until she went through a life shattering event that she came to know the importance of her practice. She lost her son, Noah, when he was 9 months old. This tragedy led her on a journey of self discovery and sparked a fire within her to create a movement that would bring people together to grieve in community creating greater connection, authenticity and support. Thus began the birth of the Grief Support Network and the Center for Somatic Grieving. Before Wendy lost Noah , she had spent years helping others to explore, express and integrate experiences through the practices of yoga and body/mind exploration. In her private practice as a yoga therapist and Phoenix Rising Yoga Therapy faculty member, she witnessed the ways that thoughts, emotions and life traumas manifest through our bodies. With a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology, certification in Phoenix Rising Yoga Therapy, 500 + hours of yoga teacher training, reiki levels one and two and training to facilitate yoga therapy groups for grief support and self-empowerment, she had gathered the tools that would later support her to move through her grief and support others to do the same. Wendy’s work has been informed and inspired by the teachings of Ram Dass, Shiva Rea, Twee Merrigan, Shannon Paige and Phoenix Rising Yoga Therapy, interweaving personal reflection and group sharing into a grief focused, somatic curriculum. In 2007, when Noah passed away, Wendy’s grief propelled her into a process of profound transformation, which has taught her to live with more joy and gratitude in her life.