Joyful Loving Retreat

the beginnings of having a closer connection to (my wife) and also being a little bit more present with others including my work colleagues and family…time in the circle (individually) and as part of a wider connected group to experience what is happening…. a chance to be more real. It is inspiring to see how other people have insights and understanding about themselves ~ Chris H., Surrey Thank you so much for such a rich retreat, it feels extraordinary what you have created. What Joy creates means that transformation can happen in an instant when and if people are willing and step into the potential that is there. The circles are full of love, deep insights and potent learnings, laughter and humanity. ‘Me’ and my life have changed immeasurably since beginning work with Joy. For much of my life, I have doubted love existed, now I feel I want to dedicate my life to growing it ~ Hettie, Stroud Do you value conscious relating, sensual aliveness, depth, beingness, freedom? Are you ready to deeply live the truth that all that is real is the love that you are? Are you ready to resolve your inner & outer conflicts, face current challenges and create more pleasure as love, doing what love would do? Are you ready to create real & profound change by working deeply within your being with all that isn’t love and discover the awesome magic of compassion, tenderness & joy? Are you ready to get more real, simple & vulnerable in your communications so that you can receive less of what you don’t want & more of what you choose? Would you love to have an authentic spiritual community, supporting you in learning how you can be authentically, happily you and allow that to support you to live awakened intimacy? … then this retreat is for you! Join the men and women who choose to sit in the circles of awakening because you, like them, value heart over mind. Because you intuit that every human problem dissolves in the heart’s silence and that intelligent action, when needed, comes from that freedom and stillness. Come join us if you are ready for what lies beyond the personal, if you value freedom to be over defensiveness, if you are ready to drop your most precious trances and ideals for the sake of What Is. Come join us if you wish to enjoy sustained sensual aliveness and learn how to re-connect with it every day. (rich no-shared-touch options always available) Come join us if you wish to learn to choose heart, consciousness and care in your relating life. If you value conscious relating and being happy, whether you are single or in loose or committed connection, book your place now on this all – new exploration of what your relating and sensual life is urging you to wake up into now.

Deepen your intimate connections, empower your aliveness, soften into self-love.

Do you long to go deeper in your relating life ? Do you wonder how you can expand your capacity to give & receive more love every day? Do you wish for nourishment, holding and authenticity? Discover the mystery of reveal and receive Discover how energetic exchange with a partner becomes rejuvenating, healing , empowering. I saw this as more than experiential healing in ‘being my woman’ but also the opportunity to safely play with the contrast between Masculine and Feminine energy, which scares me. I gained clarity when I finally linked my lack of desire/passion with my wish to feel innocent in my body and its desire ~ Amy R., Stroud area I was blown away by the level of connection, intimacy, courage, honesty and presence that I experienced – not to mention openings and healings that happened. It was powerful, and truly special ~ Rachel Irvine-Fortescue, Minchinhampton Love is all there is. Love is what ‘we’ are. This is the direct experience of awakeness. Once glimpsed, there can be a yes to aligning every aspect of life with that unknowable. How can you embody empty, impersonal, unconditional wholeness, in awake relating and sexuality? Simple, yet not always easy for one who lives in a separate self. ‘Your’ relating life can be seen & explored as a clear mirror which reflects where you are living the falsehoods of personality, rather than living freedom and the natural joy of being and heart. Enquiry & exploration in this arena, in a held, safe, intentional space, is the quickest, surest way for you to align with unconditional wholeness. It’s easy to get lost in your everyday demands & challenges, but research repeatedly shows that loving, true relationships are the absolute key to a life well lived. If you know this & yet have found out that your good intentions & trying are not enough to create what you choose now, then Joyful Loving explorations are for you. Love is always a risk. It brings loss. So it can feel easier to avoid utter opening to ‘another’. Problems & conditioned patterns take hold in the fear-based, illusory separate self. Yet, through its challenges, and its joys, love’s deepest pull initiates us into largeness. Discover how to co-operate with this evolutionary opportunity built into relating and sexuality. You will open where you have been stuck, un-nourished or fearful & in embracing the one solution, (there is only one), find a joy that doesn’t depend on anything outside of you, yet magnetises what is right for you. • Are you ready to do the inner work to deepen your availability to love? • Are you looking for an intimate connection beyond deals, pacts and comfort zones? • Would you like your relating life, whatever your lifestyle, to be one of consciousness, tenderness, passion, pleasure, beauty & freedom? • What if you can discover how your relating life, whatever your lifestyle, can serve the highest potential of your humanity – embodied freedom? • Do you wonder how you can expand your capacity to give & receive more love every day? • Do you wish the healing power of truth, depth & presence to replace ambivalence, compromise & disappointment? • Do you long to learn how you can live awakened intimacy with your own being, with others, with existence? If so, this all-new Retreat is for you! Best Early booking til midnight on day of deadline, unless the very limited places have gone. Dismantle false veils of trance, apparent separation & old myths about love which limit intimacy. Depth, vulnerability, playfulness, transparency, powerful intentionality, clarity, self-love & naturalness grow in you, naturally as intimacy with What Is grows. Better relationships with others begin with a better relationship with your being &, crucially, with life, otherwise you are continually unconsciously projecting your own wounds outside & getting a clear reflection of our unsorted problems – in relating that does not fulfil your hearts’ desires! Avoid serious mistakes that can sabotage your life & which most men & women almost inevitably suffer from. Listening to life, with Joy’s expert guidance & safe holding, allows you to move beyond patterns into beingness, which brings you freshness, clarity & love. Joy’s approach is radical, this energetic transmission invites you directly to the root, to essential nature-the core beyond story, thought & feeling, over & over again. All problems & patterns dissolve then. What you can discover is that who ‘you’ are is What Is, already, beyond your story. The story of relating, what was or what might be, naturally changes as you let go into Only This This is for you if you are single, in a couple, or with a partner and choose to attend alone. It is for men & women who want more emotional & physical intimacy with themselves, with beingness, with future partners or their current partner. Ultimately, this is about the relationship to ‘your’ self, to being. Heart-opening vulnerable relating is the gateway to the Boundlessness beyond knowing. That is, always, anyway. This enquiry catalyses the natural evolutionary unfolding into wholeness, the potential for which is built into your physical & energetic body. Its ultimate expression is inner marriage – dissolution of all opposites into beingness, unity consciousness. To whatever degree it is realised, this deepens friendship & harmony between you & your lovers, partners, spouses, children, parents & friends, & all you meet. You will more deeply embody the love that is, in all existence and beyond it. Areas of exploration, via structured explorations, whole circle, small circles, pairs, dialogue, Q and A, and individual practice • Wounded masculine and wounded feminine – how to recognise and be free of these in your life & relating • Attachment patterns and dissolving them • The Essentials of Intimacy • How to embrace your partner’s perceived limitations • Know if it’s time to leave a relationship and be clear about what is ‘right’ for the future • Prioritising truth while parenting your children • Exploring unconscious, archetypal energies • Untangling co-dependency • Holding safe space for shadow energy • Recognising & opening beyond defence mechanisms and triggers • Dissolving judgement and emotion • Stillness & silence • Presence and increased sensitivity in physical touch • Making love wide open, without holdback • Opening into What Is, depth, authenticity, freedom, community, celebration • Men’s* and Women’s Circles (* Facilitated by Tim Langford) Cutting edge explorations, light-filled transmission of awakeness. & world class facilitation. Deepen intimacy Empower aliveness Soften into the unconditional love of Life Embody formless being.

Imagine what would happen if you renewed your passion for life, your love of being. What that might lead to…… Do you long to learn how you can live awakened intimacy with your own being, with others, with existence?… then join us at the Joyful Loving Retreat!  Limited places, book your place now

Use the code BEING at checkout for a discount of £30 if you book by midnight Thursday May 19th. 

Course Fees

Add your course place to your basket, below. The Retreat includes a delicious catered supper on Saturday and Sunday evening & also Sunday and Tuesday lunch . We work with a local, very experienced caterer who loves to produce gorgeous & nourishing food, using organic ingredients where possible. Please see details in ‘Description’ below. This is a non-residential course. If you wish to book very good value b & b (with hot tub & beautiful views!)  just select that option below. Please see details in ‘Description’ below.  Note the friend discount is applicable if you bring someone new to Secret Garden.

Course fee

£399

    Reset options

    £19 discount if you bring a friend

    Couple / friend discount?

    IMPORTANT: Both people must book separately - or if you wish to book on somebody's behalf, you must log in as them before making their booking

    *Name of attendee

    *Name of partner/friend

    *Catering per person

    • 69 £

    Special Diet Allergy Details (see note below)

    Newsletters - please confirm if you would like to be included

SKU: 209.0 Category:

Catered Meals Eating together is an enjoyable way to relax & meet in a different way than we do in the circle. It supports our explorations to have some meals prepared for us. Your catering payment is mandatory. It covers all refreshments during the day & evenings, plus Saturday and Sunday suppers and Sunday and Tuesday lunch . There is a meat/fish option, a vegetarian option or a special diet option which you need to choose from in the drop down box above.  The food is nourishing, tasty and plentiful, and organic to a large extent. The desserts are yummy.  Catered lunches consist of vegan soups and vegan or vegetarian salads. The caterer also provides cheeses, perhaps sometimes hummous, eggs, or beef slices, plus salads, ricecakes, oatcakes and bread, fruit and cake. Special diets If you have a special diet, you must select that option from the drop down box above AND detail a) What your allergy is, and b) Exactly what you cannot eat as a result. We will then be aware of your dietary needs & will pass these to the centre or non-residential event caterer. Please note your health is always your own responsibility. Non-catered meals We bring food to share on Saturday and Monday lunchtime and for Monday supper. Everyone contributes to clearing up etc Bed and breakfast Accommodation Informal accommodation for this non-residential course, is available, on a friendship basis, for Saturday, Sunday and Monday evening only,  at our beautiful, peaceful home 10 minutes drive from the daytime course venue in England’s largest designated area of outstanding beauty. The Saturday supper followed by evening circle is also held at this location. If you would like to stay overnight with us and many of the group participants, & enjoy self-serve breakfast, & the hot tub with its spectacular views, please select one of the options available in the drop down box above. Please note if you are a couple or 2 friends attending together (one of whom is new to Secret Garden), you must book your course places and your accommodation options separately and pay separately,  and you can both claim the couple discountWe have a dog and two cats so do make sure you are happy with that before booking. We need to know well in advance if you want this- first come, first served! You confirm your place (places strictly limited) with your payment. It’s an easy 90 minute drive from London, 40 minutes from Bristol, 20 minutes from Cheltenham. There is a regular train service to Stroud from London , Bristol, Bath and elsewhere and an easy taxi journey from Stroud. Full directions given after booking. The Valley has never been intensively farmed, sprayed or built on. It is rare limestone grassland habitat and its ancient beechwoods have rich flora & abundant wildlife. The hillsides and the woodlands you can walk are known for many different types of wild orchid and lots of badgers & deer. The Valley is a place of natural abundance & strong, healing energy and is acclaimed for it exceptional beauty. Each option – shared Dorm accommodation on soft mats, twin room on soft mats, single room with bed or single room with mats, camper van and camping (bring own gear) – is available until fully booked -please select your choice above as they go fast.  That option is fully booked if it isn’t displayed or says out of stock. Unless you have a bed option, you will need to bring your own bedding, sleeping bag or sheets. If travelling by train or bus, let us know and we can lend you a duvet and pillow but please bring sheets and pillow cases if possible. All options include use of hot tub, hot indoor and outdoor showers and all sitting rooms. The breakfast kitchen at Mayfaire is vegetarian. Your bed and breakfast fee includes a plentiful self-serve informal breakfast. We don’t provide special diet meals but we do provide in addition to the usual breakfast foods, rice and soya milk, soya yoghurt, cornflakes (gluten free), porridge (wheat free), organic baked beans, herb teas, oat & rice cakes. Do please bring any other special diet ‘extras’ you might need in a cool bag. if you need to supplement your diet with meat or tinned fish, please bring that with you. There is a fridge at Mayfaire & at the day venues we use, but cool bags are helpful to store some items. If you have an allergy, the responsibility for keeping yourself safe & well lies with you. DSC_03430023 DSC_00232013-08-02 19.10.320089 DSC_0050 A note about personal responsibility – it is an ongoing experiment for us holding a group & living communally at Mayfaire with those who value this way of being. . We ask for your trust and care and flexibility, no complaining is the deal! Take some time quietly to yourself when you need it, let go of personal preferences for the sake of community and all will flow smoothly. We are exploring consciousness together so please remember and live the Hawaiian principle of lokahi -harmony with one’s environment – at all times. Enjoy a peaceful, rural retreat & the benefits of being fully with the energy of the group. We get fabulous feedback from those who stay here. This is very much community living and guests find it enhances their overall experience to stay with us and many of the group. There is lots of laughter! and it is good and sweet in many ways to hang out in an informal way, enjoy the hot tub and beautiful countryside in free time. We ask you to be mindful that this is our home and to please take care of it as though it were your own. We cannot be held responsible for any loss, damage or injury whilst you are at Mayfaire. Please take care of your own well being & safety, you learn & stay here informally as friends, at your own risk. We are sorry but we cannot refund b and b payment if you change your mind, or your own childcare arrangements etc go askew as it takes an extraordinary amount of time to organize and set up and once we are full we have to turn others away. In sudden, extreme change of circumstances such as serious family illness only we will set your payment against a future booking with pleasure at our discretion. You are very welcome to stay with us in this idyllic valley if you can respect & understand the requests & guidelines provided on your arrival, which are similar to those of a retreat centre and designed for the enjoyment of all of us. Assistants are available to clarify any questions. We love to share our home and the blessings of living here, in this beautiful area, with you all and welcome you! Wishing you a safe and pleasant journey to the beautiful countryside of Gloucestershire and a peaceful, happy time til then. Aloha, Joy, Tim, Goldie, Tiger and Beauty Preliminary details about the Retreat Here is an example of a non-residential rough plan which shows you how the days behind the scenes of your course will unfold. You will receive a detailed confirmation with start time before your Retreat . You do not need to know any other specifics before that. *For the asterisked meals (Saturday lunch and Sunday breakfast if you stay at Mayfaire) you need to bring your own plate, bowl, mug, knife, fork, & spoon

Saturday No B&B on Fri pm/Sat am  Day Circle opens at Stroud venue Arrival times in your course confirmation sent a few weeks before Coffee break mid morning Tea break mid afternoon Bring food to share for Lunch * approx 1pm-2 15pm  at Stroud venue which has a kitchen & urn  Afternoon break approx 3 45pm Day circle closes approx. 5pm At Mayfaire Dinner 7pm- 8.30pm – Outside Caterer *8 30pm Evening Circle at Mayfaire for all participants Close 9 30pm Mayfaire B&B*/camp  if you have booked to stay at Mayfaire 
Sunday Breakfast at Mayfaire * 7 45am-9.00am if b & b booked   Day Circle opens at Stroud venue Arrival times in your course confirmation sent a few weeks before Coffee break mid morning Tea break  Catered Lunch * approx 1pm-2 15pm  at Stroud venue which has a kitchen & urn  Afternoon break approx 3 45pm Day circle closes approx. 5pm At Mayfaire Dinner 7pm- 8.30pm – Outside Caterer *8 30pm Evening Circle at Mayfaire for all participants Close 9 30pm Mayfaire B&B*/camp  if you have booked to stay at Mayfaire 
Monday Breakfast at Mayfaire * 7 45am-9.00am if b & b booked   Day Circle opens at Stroud venue Arrival times in your course confirmation sent a few weeks before mid afternoon Coffee break mid morning Tea break  Bring food to share for Lunch * or eat at local cafe approx 1pm-2 15pm  at venue which has a kitchen  Afternoon break approx 4pm Day circle closes approx. 5pm Shared Baked Potatos etc Supper 7pm- 8.pm – Non-res participants go home at 8pm Mayfaire B&B*/camp  if you have booked to stay at Mayfaire 
 Tuesday Breakfast at Mayfaire * 7 45am-9.00am if b & b booked   Day Circle starts approx 10 00am  mid morning Coffee break  Tea break   Catered Lunch* Circle closes  3 15 pm on Tuesday.   Circle  closes    No supper or  b & b 

Additional information

Accomodation per person Mayfaire 3 nights

£0 No Accomodation, £66 Your Tent Camping, £66 Your Campervan, £81 Twin with Mats (Couple only), £99 Single with Mats, £120 Single Bed Attic, £126 Dble w Bed