Two times per year, I teach a four-day, intensive training program approved for 30 continuing education hours in Sedona, Arizona that also includes a visit to the Selah Carefarm . 

This training is based on an empirically tested mindfulness-based intervention for those suffering traumatic deaths through:

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1) attunement skills, 2) building trust and safety in trauma, 3) therapeutic and culturally appropriate touch, 4) egalitarian and client-trauma centered practice, 5) nuanced intervention that focuses on trauma and culture, and 6) traumatic death education which includes neurophysiological changes in clients enduring traumatic stress.

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"The most life-altering education I've ever had...both professionally and personally."  

-Mary Atwood, PhD

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"It was the most wonderful and life transforming four days!" -Jane Jedwabny, RN

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To find out dates and learn more visit here

Based on the bestselling book 

Bearing the Unbearable: Love, Loss, and the Heartbreaking Path of Grief

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When we love deeply, we mourn deeply.

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Grief expert and Zen priest Dr. Joanne Cacciatore knows first hand that when a loved one dies, the pain of loss can feel unbearable—especially in the case of a traumatizing death that leaves us shouting, “NO!”with every fiber of our body. She understands that the process of grieving can feel wild and nonlinear—and often lasts for much longer than other people, the nonbereaved, tell us it should.

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In this amazing course for both bereaved and providers who want to learn more about traumatic grief counseling, Dr. Jo expands on her bestselling book—Bearing the Unbearable—revealing how grief can open our hearts to connection, compassion, and the very essence of our shared humanity.

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Through this course you’ll learn what grief is and how you can identify its effects within yourself, as well as:

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– The Selah grief model, which mindfully guides those who are grieving through three phases: being with grief, surrendering to grief, and doing with grief

– Self-care practices and tools to help you in your grief journey

– Meditation practices and movement exercises for being with your grief

– How to identify grief and its effects cognitively, socially, and somatically

– How to find meaning through doing with your grief: transforming it into compassionate action in the world

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Dr. Jo opens a space to process, integrate, and deeply honor our grief, with her lessons augmented by guided meditations and yoga exercises by co-teacher and fellow counselor Karla Helbert. Through this course, you’ll learn not only how to care for yourself as you grieve but also how, by staying with the pain, you can transfigure it into fierce compassion, making the world a better place on behalf of the ones we have loved and lost.

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Start learning today with Dr. Jo and Karla, as they help you navigate your path through grief, showing you a model that allows you to be with your grief and, over time, transform it into compassionate action in the world.

Click here to start this course today!

Once a year, we offer a four-day contemplative retreat toward fully inhabited grief for bereaved parents whose children have died at any age and from any cause with Dr. Joanne Cacciatore. Connect with other parents and learn how to cope with the rise and fall of grief as we miss, remember, and honor our precious children. 

Come, rest, breathe, just be…

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Our beloved dead remain a part of us always. That means grief remains a part of us, and so does love.  – Joanne Cacciatore

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Because of both the rurality and distance from medical services and the emotional intensity of the experience, this retreat is not recommend for pregnant mothers.

Sedona, Arizona

Offered one time a year, the CBC-Y® program combines the above approach with the science and philosophy of yoga. The training is based the novel, empirically tested mindfulness-based intervention of the ATTEND model—combining attunement, trust and touch, egalitarianism, nuance and death education—merged with Patanjali’s Eight Limbs of Yoga as well as teachings of the multiple branches of yoga including Jnana, Bhakti, Tantra, Karma, Raja, Hatha, and Japa. We will explore how yoga philosophy and science is reflected in the ATTEND model as well as how yogic science, philosophy and the teachings from various branches of yoga provide tools for both practitioner, provider and the bereaved to be with, surrender to, do with, and integrate grief. You will also learn and experience how the teachings and practices of yoga can ideally support clients enduring traumatic stress.