Everyone has an opinion about your divorce.
Leave them. Fight for the marriage. Think of the children. Protect your assets.
The advice comes from everywhere, and most of it says more about them than about you.
Meanwhile, you’re lying awake at 3 am trying to figure out who you are without this marriage, or whether you even want to find out.
Divorce doesn’t have to be a catastrophe. It can be a conscious uncoupling, a reclaiming, even a relief. But our culture has only one script for it, the tragic one. This script keeps women stuck in shame, guilt, and chaos longer than they need to be.
This retreat is for women who want a different way through.
Maybe you’re already divorced and struggling to find your footing. Maybe you’re still deciding and need space to think without everyone else’s voice in your head.
Either way, you’ll spend four days in Oregon wine country with two experienced coaches who won’t treat your divorce like a failure. You’ll grieve what needs grieving, get clear on what you actually want, and begin to imagine a life that might be smaller in some ways but truer in others.
Divorce is an ending. It can also be a door, and you get to decide what’s on the other side.
What’s included:
What’s not included:
There’s a version of your life where divorce is the worst thing that ever happened to you.
You’ve probably been living inside that story, or fighting against it, for months. The shame. The guilt. The sense of failure. The fear of what people will think, what the kids will feel, who you’ll be without the structure of this marriage holding you in place.
But there’s another version. One where divorce is simply a transition, painful and necessary, like surgery or childbirth or any other passage that hurts on the way through, but leads somewhere you needed to go. Susan and Sandy have walked alongside enough women to know that divorce can be done with intention, clarity, and even grace. Not because it isn’t hard, but because hard doesn’t have to mean “destroyed.”
McMinnville sits in Oregon’s Willamette Valley, surrounded by vineyards and hills that don’t care about your marital status. You’ll arrive carrying the weight of decisions made or unmade, conversations replayed, futures imagined and feared. The first afternoon is about setting that weight down, just for a moment, and remembering what it feels like to breathe.
The coaching begins where you are. If you’ve already filed the papers, we’ll work with what’s emerging: the identity questions, the practical overwhelm, the grief that surprises you at odd moments. If you’re still deciding, we’ll create space for you to hear your own knowing underneath all the noise. Susan and Sandy won’t push you in either direction. They have no investment in whether you stay married or leave. Their only investment is in you finding your own ground.
The work is interactive and often surprising. You might have a dialogue between the woman you were when you got married and the woman you are now. You might map out all the roles you’ve played: wife, mother, professional, daughter, and explore which ones still fit and which ones are ready to retire. You might write the story of your marriage as if it were a book, giving it a beginning, middle, and end that makes sense, rather than the chaotic jumble it feels like from the inside.
There will be tears. There will be moments of anger, maybe at your partner, maybe at yourself, maybe at the whole institution of marriage and everything it promised. There will also be unexpected lightness. Laughter that catches you off guard. Glimpses of a future that doesn’t look like punishment.
Between sessions, the valley holds you. Good vibes, long walks, quiet dinners. Time to think or time to stop thinking entirely. The pace is yours. The conclusions are yours. The only agenda is helping you find your way back to yourself, whoever that turns out to be now.
By the last morning, you’ll notice that the path forward might not be perfectly clear, but it will feel possible. You’ll leave knowing that divorce isn’t something that happened to you. It’s something you’re moving through, consciously and with your eyes open.
A different story about divorce. Most support for divorcing women treats it as a tragedy or war. This retreat holds a different possibility: that divorce can be a conscious, even empowering transition. Susan and Sandy won’t pity you or armor you. They’ll help you write a story that’s actually yours.
Wherever you are in the process. Whether you’ve been divorced for a year and can’t find your footing, or you’re still agonizing over whether to leave, this retreat meets you where you are. The work isn’t about pushing you toward any particular outcome. It’s about clarity and self-trust.
Two coaches working as a team. Susan brings decades of experience in transitions and a Master’s degree in counseling. Sandy brings systemic coaching training and a cross-cultural lens. Together, they offer two perspectives, two sources of support, and the ability to hold complexity without rushing to resolution.
Interactive exercises, not just talk. You won’t spend four days rehashing the same conversations you’ve had in your head. The coaching uses movement, writing, dialogue, and creative exercises that access what you already know but can’t quite reach through thinking alone.
Space for the whole truth. The relief you’re afraid to admit. The guilt about the relief. The part of you that still loves them. The part that’s been gone for years. Nothing is too contradictory to bring into the room. Susan and Sandy have heard it all, and they know that humans are complicated.
Wine country as medicine. McMinnville is charming, quiet, and unhurried. Good restaurants, tasting rooms, rolling hills. The setting matters. Your nervous system needs beauty and space to process what your mind has been churning on for months.
This is a private retreat designed around your needs. The following represents a typical rhythm, but sessions adjust based on what emerges.
Pricing:
Day 1 – Arrival
Evening Rest. Walk the streets if you’d like. Let the quiet do its work.
Day 2 – Telling the True Story
Evening Optional journaling. Integrate, rest.
Day 3 – The Contradictions
Evening Rest.
Day 4 – What Comes Next
We invite you to our table as friends & family. Water, tea, and coffee, as well as healthy snacks like fruit and nuts, are included in your booking.
We know and love the best health food places in town and during your retreat days we invite you to explore fresh, regional, mostly organic food.
We will adapt to your dietary wants and needs, whether you are vegetarian, vegan, GF or you have other wishes.
As a lifelong counselor and life coach, Susan embodies her craft.
Being a Professional Certified Retirement Coach and someone who is in the last chapters of her life, she understands the urgency for folks to take inventory of what’s still important to be lived.
“This is the time you have to make sure there are no regrets in order to feel fulfilled by caring for your unfinished dreams.”
She is always looking for openings where she can support others to believe in themselves.
She has always had a natural and passionate interest in what makes people “tick”– what makes each person uniquely who they are.
In her role as coach, Susan hears and senses patterns in people that both support and obstruct their self-development.
She sees her work as guiding people into their essence and authenticity; the most effective place from which to live and make decisions.
From her training with a Master’s degree in counseling and through numerous years of experience both in education and business settings, Susan can easily relate to people from a wide variety of backgrounds.
She helps her clients chip away at their own interior sculpture waiting to be revealed and shaped. Susan is a passionate “life teacher!”
Sandrina Weller offers a unique global perspective informed by her experiences living and working across cultures.
As a bi-national citizen, Sandy brings a unique perspective to her coaching work with women.
Sandy, although a fluent English speaker, is always translating through the lens of language, culture, and meaning.
She can see that the same language speakers constantly assume meaning through what is being said, yet often miss what is being said.
Sandy uses this asset to slow down communication with her clients in profound ways so that deeper inquiry and reflection can occur.
As a Systemic Integrative Coach and Breath Work Coach, she helps participants break free from limiting patterns and uncover profound new perspectives on life.
These special coaching tools and processes help her to focus on supporting her clients to “jump the system” of their chronic thinking and behavior patterns and open a wide perspective on the bigger picture of the various systems they belong to.
Sandy’s playful, curious approach and wide-ranging life experiences make her a compassionate and inspiring guide for women navigating change. She is curious, fun, and deeply committed to the challenges and dilemmas facing women today.
Benefits
Making special memories in McMinnville!
Nestled in the heart of Willamette Valley, McMinnville was just nominated as the friendliest small town in Oregon!
With an inviting climate that’s temperate year-round, McMinnville is a great place to visit in any season. Hospitable, welcoming, and very friendly, the town is an ideal destination for a weekend getaway or a longer break to unwind, explore, and choose your own adventure.
Whether you’re in the mood to sip local wines, enjoy the Pacific Northwest scenery, or simply stroll the cozy streets of this historic Oregon college town where you can browse galleries, family-owned businesses, and unique boutiques, McMinnville offers a variety of experiences to make your visit unforgettable.
With art, culture, history, and some visiting UFOs, McMinnville is truly an out-of-this-world destination, and our Coaching to Connection workspace is right downtown on 3rd Street!
Airport transfer:
For an additional fee ($100/one way) we can pick you up at Portland International Airport. The travel time by car is between one and two hours, depending on traffic.
Accommodation:
We have countless cozy Hotels or Airbnb’s here in McMinnville. If you would like our recommendations or support please reach out- we’re here to help.
Other venues:
If you prefer to meet at a different venue (i.e. at the coast) feel free to reach out to us and we’ll do our best to accommodate your preferences.
A non-refundable trip deposit of $500 USD is needed to hold your spot in the retreat.
Your final payment of is due 2 weeks before the start date of your retreat. Payments can made by Visa, Mastercard, Discover, American Express, or PayPal and include an additional 3% convenience fee. These payments are made online directly through our website.
Other payment options are “cash” payments by money order, cashier’s check, or Zelle. If you choose a cash payment option, we will provide you with our mailing address or Zelle contact information.
If you wish us to provide you with a payment plan, contact us at info@coachingtoconnection.com
All payments must be paid in full and received by our office no later than 2 weeks prior to the retreat event. We cannot make exceptions to this policy.
If cancellation occurs 120 or more days before departure, there will be no loss of your trip deposit.
Any cancellation made between 90-119 days will result in a total loss of your $500 USD trip deposit. Any cancellation received in writing from 60-89 days will result in in a loss of 50% of the trip price. Any cancellation between 59 days and the trip departure will result in a total loss of funds. We reserve the right to cancel the trip if it does not meet the trip minimum (if we do so, your trip deposit is refunded).
Trip cancellation insurance is strongly recommended if there is a possibility that you might have to cancel your trip. All cancellations and/or any refund requests must be made in writing (no calls) to info@coachingtoconnection.com before the start date of our retreat. Keep in mind that once your retreat payments become non-refundable as delineated in our cancellation policy above, there will be NO refunds, and you will need to report your cancellation to your trip cancellation insurance provider for reimbursement.
Coaching to Connection reserves the right to cancel any retreat prior to departure for any reason whatsoever, including an insufficient number of participants or logistical problems (e.g. acts of God, war, strikes, etc.), which may impede trip operations. The refund of all payments as described in the paragraph below shall release Coaching to Connection from any further liability. A trip cancellation due to insufficient numbers would normally occur at least a month prior to departure, unless acts of God, war, strikes or other events impede our departure causing large numbers of participants opt to cancel participation on the journey in the last days before departure.
Coaching to Connection must make substantial payments to suppliers (including providers of land travel) far in advance of the scheduled date on which we embark. If a trip is cancelled due to forces beyond our control (acts of God, war, labor strikes, earthquake, flooding, etc.), Coaching to Connection will promptly refund the portion of the trip cost not advanced to suppliers. Coaching to Connection will use its best efforts to recover advance payments as promptly as possible, and will refund to you the amount recovered, if any. However, Coaching to Connection does not guarantee recovery of any or all of the advance payments made, and our use of best efforts to recover these payments will not include the institution of any legal proceeding in foreign lands. This policy applies to a trip cancellation by client choice following any necessary increase in trip costs.