A 7-night retreat for those facing painful estrangement from an adult child or other family member.

In January 2024, I’ll be hosting a retreat at my home - Casa Paloma Retreat - on the shores of Lake Atitlan, Guatemala to explore tools for surviving the grief of estrangement from adult children. This is an experience I address in my novel, Count the Ways, and one that afflicts more and more women who join me in the memoir groups I lead. As I do with writers who’ve attended my Write by the Lake workshops for over twenty years, we’ll be looking at writing as a valuable means of coming to terms with our experience and making sense of grief and loss. But there’s more….

We’ll be joined by LeeAnn Heinbaugh, Coach and Healer. A native of Indiana, LeeAnn (Ili) Heinbaugh has made her home in the Maya town of Santiago for over thirty years, studying the ancient traditions and wisdom of local shamans and the Tzu’tujil language and sharing them with others both in Guatemala and abroad.

Ili is an ordained minister, counselor, leadership coach and storyteller with degrees in Spanish and Latin American Studies and a Masters in Counseling Psychology. She brings to the table decades of study and experience with Mayan elders, shamans, storytellers and leading spiritual guides, melding sacred ways with her diverse professional experience to provide practical tools for living. She is certified in Myers Briggs and Integrative Medicine among other disciplines, Ili brings a unique gift of healing integrating, for those who come from a western cultural backgound, an understanding of the Maya perspective . Ili works extensively with a healer in Santiago who has met with and inspired Joyce’s groups on numbers of past retreats.