The heart can break in one of two directions. It can break closed, hardening around the pain until our wounds become walls between us and the rest of the world. Or it can break free, tearing down those walls and making room for connection, compassion, and a life larger than the pain we have endured. This retreat is an invitation to let the heart break wide fucking open!

There’s an unknown value in a broken heart. We usually can’t see it while we’re still standing in the wreckage, but it becomes clearer when we look back and recognize that the experiences that caused us the most pain also set some of the best parts of our lives in motion. Pain can bring us to the place where our old ways of living can no longer carry us. From there, suffering can deepen into misery, or it can become the mud from which something new begins to grow. From there, suffering can deepen into misery, but it can also become the mud from which something new begins to grow. As Thich Nhat Hanh taught, no mud, no lotus.