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2025 Grief Retreat overview
This year’s theme is grief.
We all carry grief energy, and this one-day event offers five unique workshops focused on healing through it. Because of the deeply personal nature of healing, we’ve designed a flexible schedule that honors each participant’s process.
The retreat focuses on grief healing offering a variety of workshops designed to support healing through creative and spiritual approaches. The retreat includes activities like art making, writing to heal, using bilateral beats to connect with a higher self or others, and explore how to embody grief and nurturing capacity endure the current of grief with courage and curiosity. All workshops are aimed at creating a welcoming space for participants to explore new healing practices with practical tools to transform your grief.
Our focus is on spiritual healing and community support, guided by local spiritual healers. Inspired by The Belly Monster Book, Jenny, Amy, and their team aim to validate trauma without labeling or diagnosing, offering tools and perspectives for finding healing in everyday moments.
Let me know if you'd like a version for a flyer, social media post, or something more formal!
2024 Belly Monster
2024 Belly Monster
2023 Belly Monster
2024 Belly Monster
Testimonials
The Belly Monster Retreat has been a powerful space
for transformation and healing.
Participants describe it as warm, welcoming, and deeply supportive—a place to reflect, explore discomfort, and embrace creativity. Many found strength in community, connection, and the freedom to tune into healing energies. Whether it took time to open up or came naturally, attendees felt aligned, empowered, and inspired by the journey—and yes, they friggin’ loved the agenda.
Location
Site: The Aux Evanston, IL
Accommodations: Airbnb's in or around the Evanston area of Chicago, IL are highly encouraged
if you are traveling from afar.
Please email jenny@approachablehealer.com
for any questions about the area
Retreat Overview
Jenny's workshop
Guided Healing: Bilateral Meditation for Grief
In this workshop, we will use bilateral beats to guide our journey toward healing grief through connection with a higher self or others. Before we begin the meditation, there will be a brief discussion to help you set the deal intention for your personal healing journey.
Many therapists who are open to spiritual healing have discovered that clients can connect with experiences beyond the present moment using EMDR and bilateral beats.
This workshop welcomes participants of all beliefs, and even if you don’t believe in the afterlife, you can still benefit. If you prefer to meditate and connect with your wisest self, that is just as powerful as reaching out to loved ones who are no longer with us.
During this hour-long workshop, we will explore ways to communicate with your loved ones in their healed forms or to
tap into the most healed version of yourself. We will provide tissues, masks, bilateral beats, journals, pens, oil pastels, and art paper.
Just bring yourself and be ready to discover which intention you need to set before embarking on this journey.bilateral beats,
journal, pen, oil pastels, and art paper provided.
Bring yourself and learn which intention is the one you need to set before diving into the journey.
Amy's Workshop
Grief Reimagined: Moving Through Loss
Participants will move beyond the simple act of missing people; unraveling the narratives we’ve built around loss and discovering new ways to process our grief.
Imagining what can you do differently to move the grief through you.
Workshop Highlights
-Learn to focus on the reasons behind your grief rather than just the act of missing someone.
-Explore the complexities of grieving past ex-partners by focusing on the emotions tied to the loss rather than romanticizing the past
Becky's Workshop
Courageous Embodied Grief
Elements of grief weave their way through our lives and our bodies as we navigate different experiences of loss.
Whether anticipated, sudden, cultural, ancestral, societal, or existential, each loss takes shape within us as we move through the cycle of life force energy and the countervortex of death and grief.
In this experiential session, participants will explore how they embody grief while recognizing and nurturing capacity within self to endure the current of grief with courage and curiosity.
Mike's workshop
Grief to Grace: A Writing Journeyl
Elements of grief weave their way through our lives and our bodies as we navigate different experiences of loss.
Whether anticipated, sudden, cultural, ancestral, societal, or existential, each loss takes shape within us as we move through the cycle of life force energy and the countervortex of death and grief.
In this experiential session, participants will explore how they embody grief while recognizing and nurturing capacity within self to endure the current of grief with courage and curiosity.
Ruth and Steve's Workshop
Breathwork for Grief:
A Healing Workshop
Grief is a profound and personal journey, often held in the body as unspoken emotions and tension.
This Breathwork for Grief workshop offers a safe, supportive space to explore and release the pain of loss through conscious breathing techniques.
Through guided breathwork, meditation, and gentle somatic practices, participants will be invited to connect with their emotions, process grief at their own pace, and find moments of relief and renewal.
This practice helps to soften the weight of sorrow, allowing for clarity, acceptance, and a deeper sense of inner peace.
Led by an experienced facilitator, the workshop will include:
• A grounding meditation to create a safe container for healing
• Instruction on breathwork techniques designed to move stagnant emotions
• A guided breathwork session with curated music to support emotional release
• Time for reflection, journaling, and optional sharing in a compassionate group setting.
No prior breathwork experience is necessary—just an open heart and a willingness to explore. Whether you are navigating recent loss or carrying grief from the past, this workshop offers a space to honor your journey and find a sense of connection and comfort.
Join us as we breathe, release, and heal—one breath at a time.
Peter's workshop
A Sound Healing Workshop for
Grief Integration
Heart Healing: Grief lives not only in the mind and heart but within the body and energetic field. In this closing workshop, participants will be guided through a transformative sound healing journey designed to support the release of held emotion, invite heart-centered renewal, and integrate the day’s deep personal work through vibration, breath, and visualization.
We’ll begin by setting personal intentions, followed by a brief introduction to how specific frequencies—like 417 Hz for releasing pain, 528 Hz for cellular healing, and 174 Hz for grounding—work with the body’s natural energy centers. Using crystal bowls tuned to 432 Hz, ocean drum, Zen singing bowls, Solfeggio tuning forks, gong, rainstick, and shamanic drum, Peter creates an immersive vibrational field that helps soothe the nervous system, restore energetic flow, and open space for gentle emotional release.
Throughout the session, you'll be invited to connect with your inner self, visualize light and healing moving through your heart and body, and rest in deep stillness. Whether you're navigating fresh loss or carrying long-held sorrow, this sound bath workshop offers a powerful way to close the retreat day with peace, grace, and vibrational support. Journals, tissues, and integration prompts will be provided. Just bring your full self—and let the sound help you carry the rest.Grief lives not only in the mind and heart but within the body and energetic field. In this closing workshop, participants will be guided through a transformative sound healing journey designed to support the release of held emotion, invite heart-centered renewal, and integrate the day’s deep personal work through vibration, breath, and visualization.
We’ll begin by setting personal intentions, followed by a brief introduction to how specific frequencies—like 417 Hz for releasing pain, 528 Hz for cellular healing, and 174 Hz for grounding—work with the body’s natural energy centers. Using crystal bowls tuned to 432 Hz, ocean drum, Zen singing bowls, Solfeggio tuning forks, gong, rainstick, and shamanic drum, Peter creates an immersive vibrational field that helps soothe the nervous system, restore energetic flow, and open space for gentle emotional release.
Throughout the session, you'll be invited to connect with your inner self, visualize light and healing moving through your heart and body, and rest in deep stillness. Whether you're navigating fresh loss or carrying long-held sorrow, this sound bath workshop offers a powerful way to close the retreat day with peace, grace, and vibrational support. Journals, tissues, and integration prompts will be provided. Just bring your full self—and let the sound help you carry the rest.
Paul's workshop
Soul Sounds workshop led by
Musical Mindset.
Soul Sounds workshop led by Musical Mindset. This intimate session features an intuitive acoustic sound healing set that celebrates the beauty of feeling what is alive within us.
Through the vibrant tones of the didgeridoo, melodies of the native flute, and soothing ukulele songs, accompanied by his overtone vocals, this sound journey will create a rich tapestry of sound that invites deep emotional connection and exploration. These instruments, steeped in ancestral traditions, serve as powerful catalysts for expression and awakening, connecting us to the wisdom of those who came before us.
This workshop is a sacred space where you can fully experience the depth of your emotions and connect to the essence of what it means to be alive.
Your healing team
Together, Jenny and Amy create a nurturing space for self-exploration and
healing, ensuring that your experience at the Healing Retreat is both enriching
and transformative. Embrace this opportunity to heal through art, collaboration,
and the wisdom of experienced therapists.
Secure your spot and be part of a journey that promises laughter,
learning, and lasting change. 🌱
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