Depression Retreats
Healing Stuck Feelings
Jon Terrell, M.A.

Working With Depression And Suppressed Feelings

We offer retreats for people with depression, grief, and other challenging emotions. Our depression retreats help people who experience ongoing depression that is due to suppressed feelings, including grief and anger.

Depression can be caused by long-suppressed feelings that keep you feeling stuck and powerless to change your life. Our depression retreats help you access these old stuck emotions, and transform them. At the retreat, you free up energy and awareness trapped in the past and reclaim your life.

This release can bring in a boost of energy, a feeling of increased awareness, and an emotional lift. Joy and hope become more available and sustainable.

Many people feel trapped in uncomfortable and destructive feelings that have plagued them for a long time, in some cases, for a lifetime. For others, depression gets triggered by a traumatic event such as the death of a spouse. Our depression retreats may be able to help.

About Depression and Depression Retreats

Depression dampens down your life and drains your life force. Emotions such as  depression, sadness and grief often don’t respond to talk therapy, because talking about feelings does little to change them. To change our feelings, to transform them, we need to move beyond ideas and story,

At our retreats, we do just that.

Suppressed anger can also cause depression. It is a giant, powerful emotion. It takes a lot of energy to push it out of awareness. Many of us grew up in a family where anger was not acceptable, so we learned to hide it.

When we squash our anger, our life energy is also squashed. For more information on this, go to our Anger and Depression Page.

Retreats That Free Stuck Feelings

When emotions get stuck, they can cause us to feel numb and out of touch with ourselves. Healing depression can give you back your life.

The retreats for depression (and other stuck emotions) have been a turning point for hundreds of people. They can bring relief to people struggling to heal emotional pain, including those who feel caught in a cycle of negativity and negative attitudes.

I am continually inspired by how our depression retreats have helped people be free from these stuck places. The unique format of our events gently guides participants into their stuck places and through their pain. With the support of a loving community, we lift out of pain into deep healing and gratitude.

Once people uncover some of the repressed energy, they quickly improve their EQ (emotional intelligence). The key to growth is not new insights or new perspectives but transforming stuck feelings.

In our depression retreats, we don’t focus on the thought level. However, we do present new ideas to help everyone understand the process. The real work is working through the stuck feelings.

It is less about repeating what has happened to us and more about direct emotional healing. That is why people attend our retreats, and that is what we offer.

Emotions connect us to our life force. Free stuck emotions, and your life becomes freer, more joyful, more alive.

Even if people are used to avoiding depressed feelings – the process we use guides them to experience those feelings and reclaim their power.

The work is not about indulging emotions, but instead allowing them to transform. When you breathe into the pure energy of the emotion, you shine a light on it. You help it change and evolve into a healthier form.

The sadness, anger, and perhaps fear trapped in depression evolve into joy, passion, and excitement. For more on this, go to my Emotions Page.

Emotional healing occurs because  stuck energy, when freed, moves  to its more natural, free-flowing state. We feel more relaxed, energized, freer!

In our depression retreats, some people are aware of where they are stuck, while others find out through the emotional healing process.

We need help with stuck emotions because when you are deeply depressed, it feels that that is the way it is and that there isn't much hope of change. There can be a pervasive sadness, dullness, and lack of life energy. It can feel overwhelming. The group process of the retreat helps to break down what can feel like a massive wall. As we see other people transform, we become more hopeful, readying us for our turn.

Examples Of Healing At Our Depression Retreats

"Marissa" came to a retreat and said “I don’t want to live like this. I just don’t know how to change.” She felt numb most of the time. She had cut off most of her feelings, and experienced no pleasure in her body. She was going through the motions of her life.

Marissa complained that even the things that used to bring her pleasure felt flat now. She said “I can’t get out of this deep well I fell into.”

During the retreat she slowly came back to life. Her work at the depression retreat was to find her life force hidden away in pain, in grief. She cried, not the small tears of day to day sadness, but deep tears of healing.

Towards the end of the retreat she said that she was getting her whole life back. “Wow, I always wondered what life would feel like if I was happy!”

"Chris" came to our Grief and Loss Retreat after giving up on numerous attempts at medications for his deep depression and despair. He had no energy for anything. In the retreat, we discovered that it was a considerable effort to push away uncomfortable feelings from childhood. It takes a lot of energy to suppress emotions. He wasn’t getting up in the morning with any sense of vigor or appreciation for life.

At his first retreat he discovered a lot of anger...at others and at himself! He gained a lot of energy back, but he knew he needed to do more work. In a couple of months, he came back to do more work.

After his second retreat, he was able to see that his depression was just stuck energy. It had been robbing him of  joy in his life. He looked and felt stronger, healthier, more alive.

"Luanne" came to our Breaking Free Of The Old Story retreat five years after losing her husband in a car accident. They were coming home from a theater event one night when a drunk driver struck their car. Her husband passed away four days later.

Luanne was despondent. She felt a terrible grief, and very soon lost pretty much the desire to do anything. She was able to take care of herself and eat and work, but she lost interest in seeing friends. She had been a very social person before her husband died, but she had stopped going out. She spent a lot of time at home, and pretty quickly her active life in the community came to a halt. Friends stopped asking her to go to events because she always declined.

Luanne found me on my website, looking for a depression retreat. She contacted me out of a sense of despair and pain.

After the depression retreat, Luanne felt she got her life back. She worked through the pain of loss and the anger. She felt safe enough at the retreat to face painful and uncomfortable feelings associated with the accident. She let go of her feelings of abandonment and was able to re-experience her love for her husband. Finally, she was also able to forgive.

Most precious to her was her new sense of calm and clarity that she regained. It was like her future had been stripped away when her husband died. But now she was ready for a new beginning and started making plans for the next phase of her life.

Learn About Our Upcoming Retreats

All of the retreats I lead help people free themselves from depression. Folks attend for a variety of issues, including depression. I find the mix helps everyone.

We lead most retreats in New England, but I do travel to Florida in the winter to lead one or two events.

I require a phone interview with each potential participant to determine if one of our depression retreats is appropriate. These are short 1-20 minute calls. Use the contact form below to reach me to set up a time. There is no charge for the call.

Stuck emotions get all knotted together. While sadness and depression may be on top, other emotions are below the surface, including anger and fear. 

Either of the following two retreats would be appropriate for depression:

Go To Grief and Loss Retreat

Go to Breaking Free Of The Old Story Retreat

I've seen life-long patterns turn around at these events, over and over again. They are not for everyone, but can benefit  people who feel stuck.

As you  reclaim your life-energy,  you can make significant changes in your life. You can create a new story for yourself.

I am always inspired when I see people participants discover whole new possibilities for their lives.

Go from Depression Retreats to Healing Emotions

Go to How To Deal With Anger Page

Read Testimonials

About Jon Terrell, MA

Go To Awakenment Wellness Home Page

For more information about transforming stuck feelings and depression retreats, you can reach Jon Terrell through the form below or call him. He leads retreats in western Massachusetts