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

By Jon Terrell, M.A.

At our last Shalom Retreat, I heard us define "What is a Shalom Retreat" in many different ways. These retreats are rich and deep and each person has a unique experience. Here are some definitions that are showing up:

A Shalom Retreat is where we can learn to love --a place where we can 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. We may be stuck at times in our lives and feel hopeless. At a Shalom Retreat, we reclaim our place on life's journey, reclaiming hope.

A Shalom Retreat is where all of us is 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 others parts. At these retreat we can reclaim all of us.

A Shalom retreat is 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 in this place.

A Shalom retreat is a place beyond time and space. The Greeks have two words for time...chronos which refers to chronological, by the clock time, and kairos...or "time out of mind" the in-between time. We get caught up thinking that healing and change has to take a lot of time and effort. Yet at at these events we enter this other time. We take time out of our chronological life 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 the memory of it lives on in our bodies and mind. It keeps intruding on the present moment until we change it. We can re-enter the past by reconnecting with it in our body and minds and free ourselves.

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

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.

Our retreats are extraordinary growth events. I offer 7-8 of these retreats each year. Go to our main retreat page to learn more about them and when they are offered. I now 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 held primarily in western Massachusetts and once a year in Florida.

Jon Terrell, M.A., offers psychotherapy, energy healing, and meditation training.

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