Boundless Compassion 4-Day Retreat

OCTOBER 22 – 25, 2023

Sowing Seeds of Compassion: A Boundless Compassion 4-Day Program & Retreat

Offering quiet reflection time and small group dialogue, this four-day retreat serves as a catalyst for a renewed commitment to becoming a compassionate presence. Experience this opportunity to deepen and expand the capacity for compassion in your life and in your community.

Join us as we live in compassion together.

Compassion can change a heart, change a life, change a world. The Boundless Compassion Program seeks to inspire and encourage compassion in one’s lived experience. Together we will create a community of people committed to living and bringing compassion into personal life, community, and the world. With compassion at the center of our lived experiences, we approach one another with true respect, grow in an ability to lessen suffering, and are intentional about encouraging others to live compassionately.

What’s involved?

The retreat explores the depth of the many layered components of compassion, based on the teachings of Christianity and other religious traditions. You are invited to expand and deepen your understanding of compassion from both a personal and professional perspective. You will glean insights for many dimensions including theology, spirituality, science, sociology, and psychology. Experience this retreat as a catalyst for a renewed commitment in being a compassionate presence, both to yourself and to others who are amid pain and struggle.

During this retreat, participants will learn practical skills and grow in trust as they discern their unique path toward compassionate living.

The retreat includes presentations, media, resources, communal prayer, small group dialog, and extended quiet times for reflection. Suggestions for prayer and meditation are given each day.

Joyce Rupp, a well-known writer, spiritual midwife, and retreat speaker, created this program. In addition to being a former retreat leader at Spirit in the Desert, Joyce is a Servants of Mary community member and the author of Boundless Compassion: Creating a Way of Life.

This retreat is open to people from all faiths and traditions.

This Boundless Compassion Program & Retreat is sponsored by Boundless Compassion, Devine Coaching, and Spirit in the Desert Retreat Center.

Our rhythm together

We will gather each morning for a time of learning. Each afternoon from 1 -2 p.m. we will gather in Circles of Compassion. This will be an opportunity to connect, reflect and support each other.  Each afternoon you intentionally have time for your personal reflection, sabbath practice, digestion of the morning session. After dinner we will practice compassionate Community.

Advance preparation

• Suggested Reading. In preparation for our time together you are invited to read Boundless Compassion: Creating a Way of Life by Joyce Rupp.
• The Spirited Book Club is discussing Rupp’s Boundless Compassion book on September 7 & 21. Consider participating in the conversations about the book and in a mini Circle of Compassion in advance of the retreat. Learn more and register.
• Saboteur Assessment. On Day 2 we will take a look at what gets in our way to living a compassionate life. Prior to our time on Monday morning please take the assessment by following this link www.positiveintelligence.com/assessments to take the Saboteur Assessment.

SCHEDULE OF EVENTS

Day 1: Compassion as a Way of Life (4:00 – 6:00p, 7:00 – 8:00p)

• Forming a Compassionate Community
• Three Steps of Compassion
• A way of being
• Four Seeds of Compassion
• Tree of Compassion

Day 2: Self-Compassion (9:00a – 12:00p, 1:00 – 2:00p, 7:00 – 8:30p)

• What keeps us from loving ourselves?
• Self Assessment –  My Saboteurs
  • Small group (1:00 – 2:00)
• My Compassion Journey

Day 3: Compassion and Suffering (9:00a – 12:00p, 1:00 – 2:00p, 7:00 – 8:00p)

• Grief and Loss
• Transitions
• Empathy
• Radical acceptance is a prerequisite for change
  • Small group (1:00 – 2:00p)
• Compassion and Creation
  • “Turtle World”
  • “The Story of Stuff”

Day 4: Compassion and Marginalization / Becoming a Compassionate Presence (9:00a – 12:00p, 1:00 – 3:00p)

• Compassion and Marginalization
  • What does Social Justice mean to you?
  • Asking for help is not a weakness
• Becoming a Compassion Presence
  • Celebrate what’s right with the world
  • Hope

Day 5: Boundless Compassion Facilitator Training (see below) (9:00a – 3:00p)

The 4-day retreat (this retreat at Spirit, or elsewhere) is a prerequisite to becoming a Boundless Compassion Facilitator. Stay on for Day 5 to rest, renew, digest the week. Apply (below) to become a facilitator to share compassion.

BOUNDLESS COMPASSION FACILITATOR TRAINING

Participants of the training workshop (on Thursday) are required to attend a four-day Boundless Compassion retreat that precedes the training workshop or another 4-day Signature BC Retreat. This workshop involves practical application of the program and assists participants in how to use their individual talents and experiences to bring the Boundless Compassion core foundational teachings into their sphere of life. The workshop offers the opportunity to become a certified facilitator of the program. Along with the requirement of full attendance at the four-day retreat, each participant of the workshop must request an application form to be completed before being accepted into the training workshop. Facilitators must apply in advance (application link below). Review of your application takes 2-3 days.

When

Sunday – Wednesday, October 22-25, 2023 – add Thursday for Facilitator Training

Cost

4-Day Retreat, Price per person:

• One person, private room : $725 per person
• Two people, two in a room : $600 per person
• Three people, three in a room : $550 per person
• Four people, four in a room : $500 per person
• Commuter, program and meals w/o room : $450 per person
• Non-participating spouse/friend : $200 per person

Price includes: Four days of programming and all materials, three nights lodging and 9 meals (3 breakfasts, 3 lunches, 3 dinners).

Facilitator Training:

Add $200 per person for one additional day of programming and materials, one night additional lodging, and 3 additional meals. Training concludes Thursday at 3:00 p.m.

Guests may arrange with Spirit in the Desert to arrive early and depart late for an extra fee.

REGISTER

Click red button below, call 480.488.5218 or email info@spiritinthedesert.org to register.

All are welcome to this Boundless Compassion Retreat at Spirit in the Desert Retreat Center in Carefree, Arizona!

Retreat Leader

I became a Boundless Compassion Facilitator at Spirit in the Desert in 2017. As a Deacon in the ELCA, I am passionate about health, healing, and wholeness – I  believe compassion is key for us as we care for ourselves, one another, and our world.

Tammy Devine

Tammy Devine is a Professional Certified Coach (ICF Certified), retreat facilitator, and ELCA Deacon—passionate about health, healing, and wholeness. As Principal of Devine Coaching, Tammy is a strategic and systemic whole person promoter of well-being, through education and inspiration. She collaborates with thought leaders to facilitate and motivate whole person lifestyle choices and serves as an external wellness consultant and coach to integrate well-being. 

Tammy completed the 2-year program at the Grace Institute for Spiritual Formation. She received her coach training through Auburn Theological Seminary and serves as a spiritual coach (ICF certified).

She earned a Master’s in Leadership from Luther Seminary. Tammy is a registered nurse (BA, Augustana University, Sioux Falls, SD) and has served as a parish nurse/coordinator.

Tammy’s Retreat Facilitation background

Some of the spiritual retreats Tammy has created and facilitated include: Exploring Transitions, a series of four retreats exploring personal life callings, passion, meaning, and purpose amidst a life of transitions; That You May Be Well, an introductory conversation and invitation to whole person well-being; Reflect, Renew, Recommit, a five-day retreat for discernment, rest, and connection with self, God and one another; Healthy Leaders Serving Healthier Communities, a space to identify gifts, develop missional leaders, listen for God’s direction through spiritual disciplines; Journey of Renewal, a year-long wellness experience that focuses on strength, opportunity, abundance and personal growth in understanding personal call to live well as whole people of God.

Tammy is well known to the Spirit community as a facilitator and worship leader of the Leading Well retreats for church leaders, and as a former board member.

Read more about Tammy Devine and Devine Coaching.