OLIVE BRANCHES OF HOPE

A Healing Retreat for Women After Suicide Loss | Five nights in Puglia, Italy

Five nights that feel like a beautiful Italian vacation—yet may change the way you return to your life.

Come to rest, be cared for, and reconnect with yourself in the company of women who truly understand.

A Note About Privacy: Because of the sensitive and deeply personal nature of suicide loss, protecting our guests’ privacy is a priority. Retreat participants are not photographed, and no retreat photos are taken or shared. Images featured on this website have been provided by the retreat venues and do not depict Healing After Suicide retreat guests.

Ciao Bella!

As a fellow survivor of suicide loss, I am so glad you found your way here. Please accept my heartfelt condolences for the loss that brought you to this page—and know that you are not alone.

I understand how profoundly suicide loss can change your life. Whether your loss was recent or many years ago, grief does not follow a timetable, and healing does not mean forgetting, “moving on,” or leaving the person you love behind.

My retreats are rooted in post-traumatic growth—the understanding that even after devastating loss, it is possible to discover new strength, deeper meaning, renewed connection, and a greater appreciation for life. Post-traumatic growth does not mean the trauma was a gift or that the grief disappears. It means that grief and growth can exist together. Love and loss can exist together. And, in time, sorrow and joy can exist together, too.

My intention is to gently invite you beyond the familiar surroundings and routines that may have become intertwined with your grief. In a beautiful new setting, surrounded by women who truly understand, you will have opportunities to rest, breathe, reconnect with yourself, and experience moments of beauty, laughter, wonder, and joy—without guilt and without ever having to set your grief aside.

You do not have to be “healed” or ready to move on to join us. You only need to be willing to take one gentle step toward the life that is still yours.

It would be my honor to walk beside you.

With love and understanding,
Jayne

A Different Kind of Healing Experience

After my own losses, I discovered that travel could reach parts of me that words alone could not. Being somewhere new did not take away my grief, nor did it ask me to leave the people I loved behind. It gave me room to breathe. It gently interrupted the routines and surroundings that had become entwined with survival, awakened my senses, and reminded me that beauty, connection, curiosity, and even joy were still available to me.

That experience became part of the inspiration for Olive Branches of Hope.

This retreat is not about escaping grief or trying to fix it. It is an invitation to step outside the demands of everyday life and enter a compassionate, thoughtfully supported experience where love and loss are honored—and where you can begin reconnecting with the life that is still yours.

You Will Not Have to Carry This Alone

One of the most healing parts of Olive Branches of Hope is being surrounded by women who know the complexity of suicide loss from the inside. Here, you will not need to explain why grief can still arrive without warning, why unanswered questions linger, or why joy can sometimes feel complicated.

You will be with women who understand the love, guilt, anger, exhaustion, longing, and courage that can exist side by side. You can share when you want to share, be quiet when you need quiet, laugh without apology, and simply be held by a community that understands.

Connection matters. Grief often tells us we are alone; compassionate community reminds us that we are not. The relationships formed here may become one of the most meaningful things you carry home.

Five Nights to Be Restored and Cared For

Imagine five nights in Puglia that feel like a deeply nourishing vacation—and offer so much more. You will be welcomed into a slower rhythm, surrounded by sea air, ancient olive trees, open countryside, beautiful villages, and women who understand why this time away matters.

You will be pampered and cared for with nourishing meals, unhurried time near the sea, meaningful excursions, creative experiences, rest, laughter, and space to simply breathe. Puglia will engage every sense: the taste of food lovingly prepared by local nonnas, the warmth of the sun, the movement of pizzica music, the feel of clay in your hands, the scent of olive groves, and the beauty of historic towns.

You will also experience gentle somatic and holistic healing practices like those that have helped thousands of suicide loss survivors regulate their nervous systems, soften survival patterns, reconnect with themselves, and begin making room for life again. Nothing will be forced. Every practice is an invitation, offered with compassion and respect for your individual grief journey.

Why New Surroundings Can Support Healing

Grief and trauma can keep the nervous system on high alert, leaving us feeling overwhelmed, shut down, disconnected, or caught in familiar loops of thought and emotion. New, safe experiences invite the brain to pay attention differently. Novel surroundings engage the senses, create opportunities for new neural pathways, and help the mind form memories that are not centered only on loss.

When these new experiences are paired with safety, supportive relationships, gentle movement, rest, creativity, and practical nervous-system tools, the body may begin to soften out of survival mode. Travel alone does not heal grief. Olive Branches of Hope intentionally creates the conditions in which regulation, connection, meaning, and hope can begin to grow.

The Journey Begins Before Italy

We will not wait until we land in Puglia to begin.

Before the retreat, we will gather for one pre-retreat virtual group session via Zoom. This gathering will allow you to meet the women traveling beside you, begin sharing your story at your own pace.

Each attendee will also receive:
✔ Two private 60-minute virtual preparation sessions with Jayne
✔ Two private virtual 60- minute integration sessions after the retreat with Jayne

By the time we arrive in Italy, we will already have begun creating trust, connection, and a shared language for healing. Rather than spending the retreat only talking about what happened, we will put these tools into practice as we experience Puglia together—during healing circles, excursions, creative workshops, movement, shared meals, quiet reflection, and moments of genuine joy.

Why Olive Branches of Hope—and Why Now?

You have carried so much for so long.

You may have learned how to keep going—to work, care for others, meet your responsibilities, and appear “fine.” But surviving is not the same as feeling fully alive.

Perhaps part of you longs to experience beauty, laughter, connection, and adventure again. Yet another part wonders whether allowing joy into your life means you are moving away from the person you lost.

It doesn’t.

Your love is not measured by how much pain you continue to carry. You can deeply miss your loved one while also making room for experiences that feel meaningful, hopeful, and alive.

Olive Branches of Hope offers a compassionate place to begin.

This Retreat May Be for You If...

• ·You are tired of explaining a loss that others do not fully understand.

• ·You feel emotionally exhausted from trying to hold everything together.

• ·You long to be with women who understand the complexity of suicide loss.

• ·You are carrying guilt, anger, unanswered questions, or things left unsaid.

• ·You miss the woman you were before your loss—or are still discovering who you are now.

• ·You want to experience joy again without feeling guilty.

• ·You are ready to reconnect with life, even if you are unsure what that looks like.

• ·You want more than a traditional grief group or another conversation in a conference room.

• ·You feel drawn to healing through travel, beauty, culture, creativity, movement, and meaningful connection.

Why Puglia?

Puglia is more than a beautiful backdrop. Its ancient olive trees, open countryside, traditional villages, nourishing food, sea air, and slower rhythm of life invite you to become present to what is around you—and to what is awakening within you.

Here, healing will not be separated from living. It may happen while shaping clay with your hands, making pasta with local nonnas, learning the joyful rhythms of pizzica, wandering through historic towns, sharing a meal beneath the open sky, laughing with new friends, resting near the sea, or simply allowing beauty to reach you again.

Together, we will honor the love you carry while gently exploring what it means to continue living.

This is not about “getting over” your loved one. It is not about leaving your grief behind. It is about discovering that grief does not have to be the only part of your story.

How You May Feel When You Return Home

You may return home physically rested and emotionally lighter—not because your grief is gone, but because you have had space to exhale, be cared for, and remember that you do not have to carry everything alone.

You may feel more grounded in your body, more confident navigating grief waves, and more able to recognize what your nervous system needs. You may notice a renewed openness to beauty, pleasure, connection, creativity, and possibility. And when guilt or sorrow returns, you will have practical tools, meaningful memories, and a circle of women who understand.

Most of all, you may come home with a quiet but powerful knowing: you can carry your loved one with you and still keep living. You can miss them deeply and experience joy. You can honor what was while opening your heart to what may still be possible.

What You May Carry Home

• ·A calmer, more regulated nervous system and practical tools for difficult moments.

• ·A sense of being emotionally and physically restored after five nights of care, rest, beauty, and nourishment.

• ·Greater permission to experience joy without guilt.

• ·Meaningful connections with women who truly understand suicide loss.

• ·A renewed relationship with yourself and the life that remains.

• ·A personal pottery keepsake created during the retreat.

• ·Sensory-rich memories that remind you love, grief, beauty, and joy can exist together.

• ·Hope—not as pressure to “move on,” but as a gentle willingness to keep moving forward.

You Do Not Have to Be Finished Grieving to Come

You do not need to arrive feeling strong, hopeful, or certain. You do not need to know exactly what you need.

You only need to feel a quiet readiness for something more: more connection, more support, more beauty, more meaning—or perhaps simply one small step toward feeling alive again.

Come as you are, with your grief, your questions, your memories, and your love.

Your loved one will always be part of your story. Attending Olive Branches of Hope is an opportunity to begin writing what comes next

You are still here.

Your life still matters.

And there is still beauty waiting for you.