GROUPS / EVENTS

Sacred Presence Groups

You are invited to an exceptionally unique experience of connection, community and care. Here you are welcome and encouraged to bring all facets of who you are and what you hold personally, relationally and spiritually. Our greatest commitment to one another will be as honoring witnesses, providing a caring, grace-filled, sacred presence to one another’s unique life and relationship stories. The hopes you hold, the hurts you bear and the goals you wish to work toward in your time with the group will be attended to with utmost honor and support.

Sacred Presence: Soul Care

Facilitating a deeply caring, gracious, relationally transforming environment, Sacred Presence can provide profound care and healing touching every aspect of a person’s life and well-being. This group for individuals or existing small groups is our seminal Sacred Presence experience.

What you may decide to bring to a Sacred Presence group (a few ideas, but not limited to…)

A new or old dream or calling you are aiming toward.
Challenges you are aiming to overcome.
A personal, relational or professional hardship you are bearing that impacts other areas of your life.
A spiritual longing, hurt or healing you want to explore.
Themes of identity, life transition, grief, the multifaceted parts of who you are and what you want to manifest.
Simply processing life as it comes amongst sacred sojourners, from stuck places to hopeful spaces.

Sacred Presence: Soul Community

Once an individual has completed the Soul Care Group they will have an opportunity to apply to join a Soul Care Community of ongoing relational support that expands on the foundational care of Sacred Presence

Sacred Presence: For Couples

Partners come together to deepen their connection, heal from past wounds, and enhance their intimacy. The focus is on building deeply present relational bonds, overcoming negative communication patterns, expressing and understanding emotions, fostering safety and vulnerability. Through Sacred Presence conversations, partners are invited to open up, share their most personal desires, hurts, longings and truths, to be truly seen and heard in an exquisitely supportive environment. This group offers a space for healing, growth, and connection, where couples can build stronger bonds and rediscover their relationship’s potential.

Key Elements of a Sacred Presence Group for Couples:

Identify Negative Patterns & Improve Communication: Address recurring communication issues and develop healthier ways to express needs and actively listen.
Explore & Express Emotions: Recognize deeper emotions, foster vulnerability, and enhance foundational emotional connection that strengthens relational and physical connection.
Access Vulnerability & Heal Past Hurts: Share your truest feelings, process past wounds, and practice reconciling forgiveness to rebuild trust.
Build Intimacy & Understand Attachment: Deepen your bonds of connection, sexuality and closeness, and explore how attachment styles impact your relationship.
Vulnerability & Being Seen: Share deeply personal stories, feeling truly understood and accepted by your partner and others.
Engaged Listening & Safety: Learn the key components of empathetic, fully engaged listening, fostering understanding and care in a safe and trusting environment that lends to profound change.
Healing & Growth: Reflect, gain new perspectives, and support for your individual and relational healing and growth.
Community Connection: Build meaningful connections with others, sharing and supporting each other’s journeys, normalizing concerns and feel exponentially less alone in community.
Sacred Presence Connection: Intentional, engaged, intimate conversations to strengthen emotional closeness, interdependence and overall relational strength and resilience.

Sacred Presence: Couple Community

Upon completion of a Couples Group, you will have an opportunity to apply to join a Couple Community of ongoing relational support that expands on the foundational learning, care and presence of the foundational group.

Sacred Presence: Care for Caretakers

Specifically designed for mental health clinicians, spiritual directors, business and ministry leaders. More information can be found here on our For Providers page HERE

For All Sacred Presence Groups:

Sacred Presence Groups will be cultivated as a reliable presence woven into the rhythms of everyday life. We will meet with regularity three to four sessions per month with a beginning and often an ending retreat. The heart of our work and worlds will unfold in these sacred moments of regular commitment to be with and care for one another. Space will be limited to a small group of curated sojourners to maximize depth, trust and connection. Specific dates and schedules are in the application.

How we will begin…

Foundations Retreat

For our beginning, we will bring our stories to an initial full day gathering at a beautiful retreat location. We will meet together in person to go over the structure and format for creating an intentional experience together, get to know one another and lay a solid foundation of trust, care and knowing for our time ahead. We will establish safety, community and the beginning elements of colleague care. Our gathering will include refreshments honoring all dietary needs. Lunch will be on your own.

Togetherness Gatherings

We will meet online to build upon the stories we shared in our Foundations Retreat. These sessions will utilize the Sacred Presence process covering questions unique to individuals, couples and caretakers, such as Relational Health, Identity, Purpose, Culture, Community, Spirituality, Life Transitions, Challenges, Relationships, Griefs, Hopes and Dreams.

Commitment

All gatherings are purposefully and intentionally curated, with retreats and online gatherings. Thorough time, effort, care and planning will go into each and every gathering. Therefore each person is registering for the full experience, regardless of ability to attend. Sessions will not be recorded nor any recording devices allowed. Retreats are carefully planned out for your deep presence and connection with the group so please be sure to plan ahead and prioritize the time away to be unplugged and away from all work and responsibilities. You will not regret the care you will experience and the replenishment you will receive.

Application Process

Please complete the application form and registration fee. You will then be contacted to schedule a 15 to 20 minute intake session. If you have previously participated in any groups, training, or supervision with Heather Sund, your registration fee will be reduced. Spots will be granted first come, first served and cannot be guaranteed. Upon approval you will be notified of further details for this unique group experience.

Click Here to Apply to a Sacred Presence Group

Sacred Presence groups are an integration of:

The relationally attuned safety, structure and proven outcomes of Emotionally Focused Therapy (see outcome research here), the deep listening, grace and care of Confessional Communities™, the spiritual presence, guidance and rhythms of Transforming Community® along with several decades of developing, leading, forming and teaching relational groups, leadership teams, learning cohorts and ministry communities.

“There is no greater gift of humanity than the loving presence of others—those who hold our pain, share our joys, and walk with us through everything we face in life. Research in psychology and neuroscience consistently highlights the transformative power of human connection. Studies by Dr. Brené Brown emphasize the role of vulnerability and empathy in fostering meaningful relationships, while research from the Harvard Study of Adult Development, one of the longest studies of its kind, reveals that close relationships are the strongest predictors of happiness and health across a lifetime. Additionally, findings in social neuroscience, such as those by Dr. Naomi Eisenberger, show that social support mitigates physical and emotional pain by activating brain regions associated with comfort and safety. These studies collectively underscore how the presence of loving, supportive others is not only a gift but a cornerstone of our resilience and well-being.” Heather Sund, Founder of Sacred Presence Group