Midlife Crisis Retreat
Navigate Your Midlife Passage
Midlife Retreats are suitable for:
Making sense of the malaise, frustration and despondency that surface during midlife
Understanding the collapse of the false or acquired self and confronting addictions, mental health and inadequate coping mechanisms
Grieving loss and letting go of an outworn existence to discovering one’s essential self and find a new direction
Reevaluating what is important and finding renewal in relationships, career and connection with self
Conducting a mid-life review and making the right course correction
People wanting to dig deep and let go of emotional pain, resentment, grief or stuckness
Those who enjoy a holistic approach to wellness and wish to experience a variety of modalities
Mid Life Crisis Retreat
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The Surrounds
Work inside or take time outside in the elements to soak in birdsong and nature
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The Space
A tranquil, restful space with bushland views and access to starry skies
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Local Walks
Chase waterfalls after dark on a local spectacular floodlit night walk in Katoomba
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Local Waterfalls
Our retreat centre is within walking distance of healing Mini Ha Ha waterfall
Mental Health Wellness Retreat
Testimonials
Wow, what a special, unique, and transformative experience. The retreat is such a nurturing and peaceful place for introspection, exploration and contemplation. The program and services delivered by Marcus and Ginny gave me exactly what I was seeking; validation of what I was going through, and clarity as to how to move forward.
Marcus and Ginny are kind, compassionate, and incredibly insightful and wise. I've come away feeling as though I've had a lovely big warm hug and I have a renewed optimism and excitement for the future. I highly recommend spending time here, it is very good value for money and if you go in with an open mind and heart, you will leave with many gifts.
- Liv
I will be forever thankful for my time here. I was in a deep and inconsolable grief over my dad passed. They spent the whole day with me performing different techniques. Their empathy and work relieved me a lot. Whenever grief stops me from continuing, I think of this therapy. I have already returned to see them and am planning a new visit.
❤ - Carol W
I recently had the pleasure of attending a back to back retreat and am endlessly grateful for the experience. Marcus and Ginny provide the ultimate sanctuary for anyone looking for answers to their big questions.
Both created such a supportive and nurturing environment making me feel completely safe and cared for from beginning to end. Their warm hearts and genuine care for their guests are truly unmatched. The programs were also really well-designed, offering the perfect blend of information, inspiration, and coaching.
Ive returned home with a completely different perspective and newfound clarity. To say I've had a software upgrade is an understatement. This retreat has been transformative and I cannot recommend it highly enough.
- Lisa I
Midlife Reboot
Program Outline
Day One
Morning Sessions 9:30am - 12:30pm
We begin by looking at what the midlife passage involves. This includes a range of themes accompanying life stages from 35-55 such as relationship shifts, physiological and psychological changes including menopause.
Mid Morning Session
The second session looks the impact of grief and loss during middle age. Wrestling between trust or feelings of betrayal is a central focus during midlife cycles. You’ll learn how the stripping away of supports and security helps us step into a rebirth leading us into our harvest years of eldership.
Lunch 12:30pm
Afternoon Sessions 1:00pm - 4:00pm
Many models of looking at the world include the archetype known as the Destroyer. This session looks at the role it plays in helping us discover our deep identity and doing away with the masks we have adopted. In looking at its counterpart, the Creator archetype we can choose to focus on possibility and our next chapter.
Mid Afternoon Session
If our early years are our most active and energetic then the afternoon of life (midlife) sees us becoming more introspective and contemplative. Our shedding, or letting go, may involve the early nest syndrome, embracing career change or processing the falling away of friendships and relationships. This session looks at the gestation period of our metamorphous and how we can embrace uncertainty.
Waterfall Walk (Optional) 4:00 - 6:00pm
Should the weather and your energy levels be accomodating, you can use this time to take in a nearby bushwalk to our local waterfall.
Alternatively, you might indulge in some art activities or enjoy one of the more physical activities we host (mountain biking / stand up paddleboarding).
Dinner 6:30 - 7:30pm
Enjoy a home cooked, organic meal or travel out to try one of Katoomba’s local dining facilities.
Evening (Optional) 7:30pm onwards
There are a range of optional evening activities for you to enjoy, such as listening to or reading poetry, life stories, or enjoying a thought-provoking film or inspiring documentary. Other options include self-guided meditation and yoga.
Day Two
Breakfast 8:30am
Enjoy a homemade breakfast, tea or coffee on the verandah whilst the kookaburras and other local birds sing.
Morning Sessions 9:30am - 12:30pm
You’ll explore Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs model as a way to see middle age as the time we focus on developing our growth needs as opposed to the deficiency needs we work on during our younger years. Synchronicity, serendipity and other forces can guide us into what may be our golden years should we open to receive them.
Mid Morning Session
Self-actualisation is what all life stages work towards. This session involves discovering your uniqueness and looking at ways the Creator archetype wants to express itself in your life. You’ll explore examples of people finding their vocation or calling and the role creativity plays in our individuation.
Lunch 12:30pm
Afternoon Sessions 1:30pm - 4:00pm
Transcendence, or giving back, is the highest level of development we can attain according to Abraham Maslow. This session involves integrating all of your values, beliefs and passions in order to focus on your legacy, or life’s work. It will also explore what happens when people resist this natural phase and choose stagnation.
Mid Afternoon Session
In the final session you have the option to explore esoteric insights into your life purpose and the midlife changes you’re navigating.
Alternatively, you can use the time to undertake some life writing and work through some of the resources outlined in previous sessions.
Cost: $590 for a 2 day midlife renewal retreat. $850 for a 3 day program. $50 off for a weekday program.
Inclusions: Our retreats include accommodation, meals, workbooks, counselling and activities.
Optional session of bibliotherapy. Learn more about our bibliotherapy service.
Location: Katoomba, Blue Mountains NSW.
Your Facilitators
Click on the + sign below to learn more about the backgrounds of the counsellors you’ll be working with
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Ginny’s training in guiding and supporting others began with her hairdressing career where she informally coached, listened and offered support to the thousands of clients she came to know both in Australia and abroad.
After navigating a crisis period where she had to take control of her life and steer it in a healthier direction she found her calling to work with people who were also ready to reclaim their life.
In addition to following Buddhist practices and doing extensive studies in self-development, she complemented her self-education with formal studies in Youth Work, Community Services and a Bachelor of Social Work.
Finding Breathwork to be a transformative form of healing she has done much training in it and continues to deepen her practice. Ginny is also trained in Theta healing.
Taking an intuitive approach, Ginny found a gift for interpreting the messages offered by tarot cards, working as a spiritual healer and being a clear vessel for the collective unconscious to work through.
Counselling is something that Ginny both enjoys and has a natural affinity for. She has extensive experience helping people with deep shadow work and offering menopause retreats.After you undertake our therapy retreats, Ginny is available to offer ongoing counselling if you’d like to build upon the work completed during the retreat.
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Marcus studied social work and education at university, grounding that knowledge by working in a diverse range of roles as an adult educator and caseworker.
Through his time at Rudolf Steiner College, he realised the importance of holistic education and the need to focus on the whole person in contrast to the compartmentalised approach of institutions.
Deepening his knowledge by studying humanistic psychologists such as Abraham Maslow and Carl Jung and spending time in the Jungian community, he gained further insights into the value of depth psychology.
After running a variety of workshops in Australia and overseas he launched his initiative known as Writes of Passage Retreats, in the belief that contemplation, nature, carefully curated ideas and guidance is the ideal means for people to look at life with greater possibility and unearth their own dormant potentiality.
Through his retreat programs and individual counselling work, he has worked with a large number of individuals to help them find greater purpose, healing and enthusiasm for their future.
Making sense of midlife to
make it the prime of life
At midlife it is assumed that we have truly entered adulthood and left aside the follies of youth.
Depth psychologist Bill Plotkin suggests that very few of us have navigated life stages to reach a state of psychological health by the time we are middle aged:
True adulthood, or psychological maturity, has become an uncommon achievement in Western and Westernized societies, and genuine elder hood nearly nonexistent. Interwoven with arrested personal development, and perhaps inseparable from it, our everyday lives have drifted vast distances from our species' original intimacy with the natural world and from our own uniquely individual natures, our souls.
Unlike traditional cultures that had rites of passage and a deep understanding of life stages and what they ask of us, modern culture adopts the view of the rugged individualist and sees midlife crisis as just enough thing to tough out.
Through working with numerous people navigating middle age, Carl Jung noticed the lack of support and wisdom people find. He went on to write:
“Wholly unprepared, [we] embark upon the second half of life. Or are there perhaps colleges for forty-year-olds which prepare them for their coming life and its demands as the ordinary colleges introduce our young people to a knowledge of the world and of life? No, there are none…. But we cannot live the afternoon of life according to the programme of life’s morning – for what was great in the morning will be little at evening, and what in the morning was true will at evening have become a lie.”
The time a person spends in each of the midlife crisis stages is unique but many people remark on take a journey into emptying out before experiencing a rebirth.
Bill Plotkin captures the impact of failing to recognise or embrace our midlife passage:
“In current Western and Westernised societies, in addition to the scarcity of true maturity, many people of adult age suffer from a variety of adolescent psychopathologies incapacitating social insecurity, identity confusion, extremely low self-esteem, few or no social skills, narcissism, relentless greed, arrested moral development, recurrent physical violence, materialistic obsessions, little or no capacity for intimacy or empathy, substance addictions, and emotional numbness.”
Having traversed our own midlife crisis’ we’ve come to deeply understand the opportunity it presents us to change outdated patterns and modes of behaviour that keeps us from living our best life.
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