The Wonderful Gay Men's Retreat for Love Introspection and Courage

Welcome home, buddy! 
Are you looking for a chance to go deeper into the experience of being human with a group of your gay brothers?

THEN READ ON...

February 2-4, 2018
Rowe Camp and Conference Center, Rowe, Mass.

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About the Wonderful Gay Men's Retreat

Winter is a time for looking within. Make this your season to harness the power of brotherhood as you discover and bring forward a deeper self. Ben Seaman, a seasoned men’s-work facilitator, brings his creativity, community building skills, and experience with group process to create a weekend with a happy mix of caring and kindness, fun and renewal, sharing and self-nurturing, love and laughter, creative exercises and conversations (and a few surprises, too!). Ben was a long-time facilitator of Rowe’s renowned Labor Day Retreat for Gay, Bisexual, and Questioning Men, now in its 32nd year. If you’ve been to our Labor Day Retreats, then you know the sanctuary of comfort and community that can be experienced here, and if you’re a newbie, don’t be shy — this is your opening to a new experience of yourself and a chance to forge a deeper connection to the gay community and to make lifelong friends.
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What Goes on at this Retreat?

From the moment you arrive, we work to create cohesion between all participants. We believe we are experts in creating connection and working with the obstacles all people encounter in connecting with others. Our goal for this weekend is to experiment with the ways we can overcome social conditioning gay men  receive about their place in the world to create new ways of bonding, new ways of playing, and new ways of imagining the path of your life. 

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Creating a Container

We start the weekend by developing, as a group, a set of ground rules for how we connect and how we handle disconnections. Men begin to share about the ways they play it safe in their real lives, and we support them in trying things differently. We all have ways we protect ourselves from the realities of human interaction. From subtle maneouvers such as changing the subject, deflecting compliments, underestimating ourselves, to other defenses that sabotage real connection such as sarcasm, substance use, or self-sabotage. We take care to reflect the processes taking place in our group to raise awareness and offer new ways to stay safe while engaging more. 

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Unpacking Emotion

We believe emotions are at the core of all we do. And yet few people receive any instruction in managing emotion other than trying to suppress the ones that appear to get in our way. While this often means confronting difficult emotions, this also means  that we start to practice creating space, capacity and tolerance for joy, connection, and vitality! 

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Working Through Blocks

One of the greatest threats to our sense of aliveness is the blocks we create to protect ourselves against past injuries. And to say ask anyone to set aside those blocks is tantamount to asking them to walk off a cliff. Yet sometimes just retelling the story of a block allows people to realize certain defense mechanism are no longer necessary.  Other times we can help a person process blocked emotion that allows them to put the past in the past.  We dedicate a portion of the weekend to something we call the Open Seat in which men can choose to do some deeper work in a supportive circle to soften or resolve an emotional block.

Play, Wonder, and Creativity

We are great believers that healing occurs through our ability to use play to change the meaning of our lives. Instead of denying the existence of our difficulties, play and creativity allow us to change our relationship to life's challenges.  Through numerous exercises and discussions we teach men that play is always available to us.

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Here's what people have said about attending Andrew and Ben's retreats:

To be in the midst of other gay, bi and questioning men allows me freedom to be the authentic man I truly am. We have all grown to love and to respect one another. Each year, I look forward to sharing and learning from new men as well as from the close friends I have made in past years. We are all on a similar journey of improving ourselves in body, mind and spirit. To a deeper extent each year, I have experienced brotherhood, joy, enlightenment, shared sadness, love, compassion and awe. ”
- J.N.

”Rowe Camp was an experience I will never forget. I learned so much about myself—my REAL self. I realized that the person I was at camp was the person I aspired to be in my everyday life—someone who lived honestly and kindly with others and the earth. I made some lasting bonds with people.”
- W.A.

Meet the Facilitator

I look forward to meeting you.

Benjamin Seaman

Benjamin Seaman is a psychotherapist in private practice in New York City specializing in men in same-sex and mixed-sex couples. Co-founder of the New York Center for Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT), he is a Certified Emotionally Focused Therapist and supervises other EFT therapists. He is also an adjunct lecturer at NYU, teaching social work practice and diversity. Ben recently created Relational Minds, a practice of therapists focusing on teaching and practicing relational and emotion-focused therapy. ​

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Rowe Center, Rowe, Massachusetts