Professional Development Retreat · 28–31 May 2025
From Practice to Presence
Imagine you could switch off your thinking brain, meet your client heart to heart and still have energy to spare
An immersive four-day retreat for experienced therapists working at the mind-body level with ME/CFS · Great Hallingbury Manor · Essex · Near Stansted Airport
That is what this retreat teaches. Not what to do. But how to be.
Imagine sitting with your next client, one who has been ill for years, unheard, invisible to medicine, and feeling no fear of what they bring.
Imagine not needing to know what comes next. Trusting that your presence itself is enough. That the witnessing is the work.
More than a technique, this is a way of being.
And it can be learned.
You are skilled. And yet something in you knows there is still more to learn.
The Honest Truth
This is neither training nor more technique-ing. It’s something altogether more fundamental, even soulful — a deeper quality of being present with another human.
With conditions such as ME/CFS, where the mind and body have become dissociated, THIS witnessing quality is not optional. These clients have been through the medical system and been left with dead ends and more questions than answers. They have been misunderstood, disbelieved, reduced to a set of symptoms. When they finally arrive in your room, ready to explore the psycho-spiritual, what they need is someone who can truly see them. They need your stillness and your clarity.
That is what this retreat teaches. Not what to do. But how to be.
The witnessing itself, when it comes from someone who has done their own deep work, is the healing.
Do Any of These Feel Familiar?
- — With ME/CFS clients, you sense something is beyond your current reach
- — You second-guess yourself in sessions, exhausting yourself
- — You’ve done specialist trainings you can’t seem to call on in the moment
- — You over-identify with your client as you feel too close to their wound
- — You experience ‘imposter syndrome’ — how can I treat this person when I’m still not clear with myself?
- — You spend days after certain sessions wondering what to try next
- — You want to help more deeply but feel inadequate
- — Occasionally something extraordinary happens in a session — but what were the magic ingredients to make it happen again?
Healed people, heal people.
— Richard Rohr
There is a level of therapeutic presence that cannot be reduced to protocol.
It asks you to go in with your client.
Not to stand at the edge and call down instructions — but to descend with them into the not-knowing.
To trust that you can walk you both back home together.
This is ancient work.
And it requires that you know how to do it yourself first.
WHAT THIS RETREAT OFFERS
A transformation in how you think, feel, and work
This is not a typical training. It is a four-day immersive experience built around one central understanding: your effectiveness as a therapist is not only in what you do — it is in who you have become. You will work in the safety of a closed group of professional therapists who are all open to doing the same work. You are with us precisely to deepen your practice, and your self knowledge, and return more whole and centred. As your centre of gravity is lower, you can be more grounded and secure in your practice. And have more energy to support more clients.
I want to show you how to develop the following attributes that will serve you, not only with complex clients, but in so many areas of your life
A living framework
Understand how mind, body, and the deeper drivers of ME/CFS interact — not as theory, but as something you feel and recognise in the therapy room.
Confidence in uncertainty
Learn to remain grounded when sessions go off track — to find the positive in all interventions, and trust the process.
The spiritual dimension
Many ME/CFS clients are already exploring questions of meaning and identity. Learn to meet them there — with understanding, alignment and peace.
Responsive tools, not scripts
Develop techniques in the moment, reading the inner landscape of your client with clarity and without panic, removing performative pressure.
Presence as practice
Develop the quality of attention that comes from deep inner work — the kind that allows you to sit with suffering without needing to escape it or project it.
Freedom from burnout
Develop a centredness, accompanying your clients without carrying their weight as your own. You can be the witness without burning out. This will lead to greater capacity to see more clients with ease.
How You Will Learn
Experiential before theoretical
You cannot teach presence from a lectern. This retreat is structured so that you experience your own shifts over the 4 days — because understanding what is required in your clients begins with understanding it in yourself first. Looking for the Buddha in your clients requires working from the heart, unblocked and unshadowed by your own fears.
Nichiren
Live demonstrations
A range of approaches shown in real time by Jenny — innovation and flexibility being key.
Practice in threes
Therapist, client and observer — safe, supervised, and genuinely revelatory.
Pair exercises
Designed to surface deeper layers of consciousness in yourself and your work.
Group exercises
Movement, encounter work, psychodrama — a time to meet yourself and your shadow.
Expert supervision
Three therapists who work this way — including Jenny — present throughout.
Mind-body education
Nutrition, physiology, and the science of mind-body interaction — grounded in practice.
The setting
Great Hallingbury Manor
The setting for this peaceful reflection is the beautiful Great Hallingbury Manor, set in the Essex countryside near the ancient Hatfield Forest. A classically beautiful old building with its roots in the 13th Century, Great Hallingbury Manor is set in leafy grounds with a tranquil lake, gardens and scenic outdoor space that feels quintessentially rural English. This is the perfect place, and time of year, for you to be enjoying the open spaces, gentle pathways, water views and green spaces. You can take leisurely walks outside in your own time, or simply soak in the quiet beauty of the landscape. Inside, you’ll find lounges and dining spaces, a restaurant and bar with views over the grounds, and an option to stay in a comfortable guest room or in one of their glamping pods.
Minutes from Stansted Airport — easily reached from across the UK and internationally. We warmly welcome participants travelling from abroad.
Refreshments and lunch are included throughout the retreat. Accommodation is not included — participants may stay at the Manor or locally. We are happy to connect those who wish to share accommodation nearby.
About Jenny Lynn
I know where you ‘hang out’. I’ve been there.
I have spent over twenty-five years developing a depth-oriented therapeutic perspective that integrates psychological, somatic, and spiritual understanding. But the foundation of that work is not academic. It is something I have lived.
After a schizophrenic episode at the age of twenty-three and 40 years of Buddhist practice, I have learned how to sit with myself, dispassionately, and at once, compassionately. The long, patient work of facing my own shadows until they no longer control me has enabled me to stay centred. As such, I have not studied this territory from a distance. I have found my way through comparable darkness, and that very journey became the map I developed of the human mind.
I teach from the inside of this work. I believe that means you get to know yourself too. Deeply, kindly and compassionately. I am quoted as having said:
Energy healing with
Jackie Byrd
During the retreat there will be an opportunity to receive individual or group sound and energy treatments. These will be a grounding counterpoint to the deeper emotional work, bringing you back to your own centre. Our practitioner during the weekend is Jackie, a heart-led, intuitive healer with over 30 years experience in energy work – sound, Reiki, acupuncture and reflexology.
You are in safe hands.
Is this for you?
Strictly limited to 18 participants
Prepare yourself to meet a new and welcome perspective.
You can relax and enjoy an intimate journey with space for you to grow and unfold. Small numbers allow for genuine supervision, real-time guidance, and the depth of experience this retreat asks for. Please read carefully then book yourself in for a chat.
This retreat is for you if…
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You are an experienced hypnotherapist, psychotherapist or counsellor
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You feel confident in general practice but uncertain with complex mind-body conditions
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You are open to depth, reflection, and a spiritual dimension to your work
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✓
You are ready to move beyond technique into a different quality of being present
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You want to work with ME/CFS clients and do it well
This retreat is not for you if…
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You are at the beginning of your training
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You are seeking scripts or protocols
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You are uncomfortable with self-reflection or uncertainty
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You are not yet ready to examine your own shadows
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You have less than two years’ experience as a therapist
After the retreat
Integration doesn’t stop at the end of day four
It is a matter of deep commitment to my colleagues whose practice I wish to support, that you leave knowing you can continue to talk to me after the end of this retreat. So many retreats can leave you without advice and support. This one is different — because I understand that this work needs careful guidance and supervision for weeks after the experience itself.
3 group sessions online
90–120 minutes each. Ongoing reflection and support as you bring this work into your practice.
Real case support
Bring your actual clients. Receive guidance from myself and the group on what you are encountering.
Continued supervision — optional
Optional ongoing supervision to fully bed in your new learnings and insights over time.
Only 18 places available · 28–31 May 2025
“What if you arrived in the room already whole?”
Because this retreat is immersive and carefully limited, I offer a complimentary 30-minute conversation before you apply — to answer your questions, understand your practice, and make sure this is the right next step for you both.
This is not a sales call. It is a conversation between professionals.
