A STAR Retreat allows you to make smart life transitions as a result of positive or negative events. STAR provides a safe container where you may deeply explore all the feelings and thoughts that arise in the face of life transitions. You are provided the setting in which you develop tools to discover your true heart’s desire. Knowing your truth about what the next step in your life looks like is the first step to creating a plan and moving toward manifesting it.
To be alive means to live with change. There are recognizable milestones—being born, birthdays, puberty, school(s), graduations, leaving home, marriage, divorce, the death of parents and friends, losing jobs, establishing homes, keeping or changing careers, adding or losing family members, moving, and aging. Other transitions are beyond our control such as natural disasters, deaths and illnesses in those close to us, and economic down turns.
How we manage these events depends to a large part on what we learned as children. In a healthy family, children learn to adapt to change with ease. This helps them to move through their adult lives with flexible skills allowing them to adjust to change. However, if a child's family was filled with uncertainty, trauma, or chaos, as adults they instinctively may fear change. Even minor change may cause them to become upset and experience unexpected emotional reactions.
Emotional responses are normal, but debilitating feelings of being stuck that bring on depression or reactions such as panic attacks, substance abuse, rage, or violence must be looked at and healed.
The STAR process focuses on helping you discover the roots of your problems. It is designed to help you dig out the long forgotten messages that may be holding you back from current transitions in your life. STAR is designed to provide you with real world tools to allow you to make smart life transitions in the present and in the future.
Working on smart life transitions at a STAR retreat is also appropriate for those who are facing change as a healthy and normal part of life. It could be someone who has just retired and has real questions as to what comes next. Similarly, a parent facing an “empty” nest, a young adult just finishing school, relationship endings, geographical moves, birthday milestones (30, 50, 60 etc. )—all these and more can be challenging transitions. Sometimes joyful events such as a marriage, the birth of a baby, getting one’s dream job, or any significant personal achievement creates stress—the blessing comes along with significant life changes.
Also see:
Personal Crisis
The STAR Process
What Graduates Say about STAR Retreats
The Value of a Personal Growth Retreat
Frequently Asked Questions