Healing space: A weekend retreat where the focus is on emotional and mental wellbeing

There was an idea that wouldn’t go away after Rebecca Sheridan’s mother Gerri died in 2019. “I thought it was my grief trying to distract me, but it kept coming back,” she says. The idea was Gerri’s Place, somewhere where people suffering from anxiety or depression could get a break, connect with each other and learn some techniques that might help them to cope.

Sheridan had worked in the charity sector for two decades. After her mother’s death and the pandemic she left to study mental health in the community in UCC, a pivot driven by her life experience. Her mother had suffered with anxiety and depression. Sheridan wondered how different her life might have been if she had been able to access help early on. “There was more stigma then, but there’s still a real opportunity if you can catch people very early and empower people to support themselves.”

The idea of a place away from the busyness of life where people could come, share their experiences and try out a range of tools they could use when they left, drove Sheridan to set up the social enterprise. Her mission was to make the wellbeing weekend an affordable experience for people who needed it.

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Gerri’s Place is running their fourth weekend away this weekend in Co Wicklow. “The main focus is time and space out of life,” she explains. The crisis in young people’s mental health services is part of a picture of many gaps across the system, and the idea of community care at an early stage has enormous potential, she and her expert board believe. Participants can learn breath work, trauma-informed yoga, mindfulness techniques like tapping, and body scans. They run a workshop to help people connect to nature, which has been very popular.

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“We use it as an opportunity to expose them to a range of tools. One thing might speak to them,” Sheridan explains. The workshops are led by volunteer professionals, and Sheridan has been awed by the generosity of people who have helped her. “We are planning to have a ‘paid-for’ model on the website where you can pay for a place for someone else... A big part of the mission is to try to keep it low-cost and inclusive.”

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The feedback has been tremendous and they are just starting a formal research project to assess the impact. “Gerri’s Place is the perfect antidote, a sanctuary in a toxic society,” one participant said when they were asked for feedback. “We need one in every community, so that instead of spreading fear, as we have been doing for a long, long time, we can spread compassion. And in the process, we may even restore our natural warm-hearted culture. I am so so grateful for having been blessed with this opportunity. It has probably saved my life.”