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A three-day retreat for thoughtful, capable adults, whether partnered or single, ready to discover the hidden answer to one painful question, Why do my relationships cause me so much anxiety, pain, and loneliness? 

Learn to recognize your Hidden Survival Pattern before anger, fear, or shame takes over

Protect the relationships that matter most before another conflict pulls you apart.

 

Bring a dream and one recurring quarrel. We help you uncover what it is protecting and the answer it carries for creating a more meaningful relationship. If you don’t want to do this alone anymore, WATCH THIS…

When Love Becomes Survival

 

If you are here, the problem is not that you need more self-improvement. You need a more precise map of the Hidden Survival Pattern behind your feelings of fear and loneliness.

Stone Hearth Retreat, hosted by The Counter Complex and Jaguar Marigold ISA, is for high-functioning adults who have gained years of insight through therapy and self-help, yet still find themselves pulled into the same cycles of conflict, blame, control, and withdrawal. Guided by a multidisciplinary team with decades of experience integrating dreamwork, relational practice, depth psychology, affective neuroscience, trauma, myth, and spirituality, Stone Hearth goes beneath intellectual understanding to the emotional level where lasting change begins. Through shared work in the forest, participants learn to recognize hidden survival patterns as they arise and replace automatic conflict with curiosity, choice, and genuine connection. We are building communities where relationships are organized around vitality, instinct, and compassion rather than neurosis. 

 

 

This retreat is for singles and couples who keep meeting the same painful relationship patterns and want to understand what is really happening beneath the surface:

  • Conflict that drains the life out of the relationship

  • Longing, loneliness, and unfulfilled desire

  • Resentment, rage, and passive aggression

  • Emotional shutdown, withdrawal, and unavailability

  • Over-responsibility, overgiving, and carrying too much

 

Through dreams, signals from the body, emotional reactions, and repeated relationship difficulties, you will begin to see the deeper wisdom hidden inside what has been hurting you.

The goal is not to blame anyone or force a relationship outcome.

The goal is to understand the Hidden Survival Pattern affecting your closest relationships, so connection has a chance to grow where protection has slowly been taking over.

 

​​✅ Stop Treating Each Problem as Separate: The fight, exhaustion, body reaction, troubling dream, and fear-driven decision may be different expressions of the same hidden pattern.

Discover What Keeps Taking Over: Map the survival response beneath recurring conflict, defensiveness, shame, control, emotional overwhelm, and withdrawal.

Understand What the Pattern Is Protecting: Your defenses are not treated as enemies. DreamCompass reveals why they developed, what they are trying to prevent, and what part of your life has been pushed aside.

Catch the Pattern Before It Costs You More: Learn its early warning signs so you have a better chance of pausing before silencing a real need, abandoning yourself, or damaging an important relationship.

Use What Your Life Is Already Showing You: Dreams, emotions, body signals, and relationship conflicts become connected clues rather than isolated problems to suppress.

Move From Fate Toward Choice: What once felt automatic can become recognizable, giving you more freedom to respond with honesty, clarity, and connection.

Before You Apply to Stone Hearth

 

Thank you for watching the Stone Hearth video.

We keep this retreat small because the quality and safety of the group matter. The application helps us determine whether Stone Hearth is the right experience, setting, and level of support for you right now.

Please apply only if each statement below is true:

 

  • You are seeking growth and can participate without crisis intervention, medical care, or one-to-one mental health support.

  • You are willing to examine your own patterns, rather than coming to fix, blame, or diagnose someone else.

  • You can attend the entire retreat, from Friday, [DATE], at 2:00 p.m. through Sunday, [DATE], at approximately 2:00 p.m.

  • You can safely manage two nights of rustic camping, uneven ground, outhouses, an outdoor shower, and your own essential health and personal-care needs.

  • You can remain sober throughout the weekend without withdrawal or medical risk.

  • You understand that the investment is $297 for one person or $497 for a couple, and you are prepared to pay in full within 48 hours if accepted.

  • If applying as a couple, both of you independently want to attend. Neither person is coming because of pressure, an ultimatum, or the hope that we will decide who is right.

 

The application takes about 10 minutes. We personally review every application and speak with every applicant before offering a place.

Submitting an application does not reserve a spot. Your place is confirmed only after acceptance and payment.

If one of the statements above is not true, that does not mean this work is not for you. It may simply mean that this is not the right weekend or setting for what you need right now.

Are you applying solo or as a couple? *

Multi choice

Which statement best describes where you are right now? *

Multi choice

This work can bring up strong feelings. Can you care for yourself, respect other people’s boundaries, ask for a pause when needed, and participate without individual crisis care? *

Multi choice

Can you safely manage the following, with any accommodation agreed upon in advance? *

  • Walking over uneven outdoor ground

  • Sleeping two nights in your own tent or camper

  • Using an outhouse and outdoor shower

  • Bringing and managing your own drinking water

  • Managing your medication, mobility, and personal care without onsite medical assistance

  • Participating in workshops and basic shared meal cleanup

Multi choice

Can you attend the entire weekend without alcohol, cannabis, psychedelics, non-prescribed drugs, or other intoxicating substances, and without risk of withdrawal? *

Multi choice

In three to five sentences, describe one recurring quarrel or relationship pattern you want to understand.

Even if someone else has also hurt you, what part of your own response are you willing to examine?

Why does this matter enough to work on now? *

What have you already tried, and what has remained unchanged? *

Choose the Ones that Apply

What support will you have after the retreat if the work continues to stir strong feelings? *

Have you worked with dreams before? *

Multi choice

Are you currently in therapy? *

Multi choice

If comfortable, is there a recurring theme or dream image you’re curious about?

Final Note

Susan Berg Amira,
Californien, USA

"I was fortunate to have the opportunity to work personally with Michael. He used his extensive knowledge and understanding across many different disciplines to guide me through the process. He was kind and patient, but also sharp and focused. This work has changed my perspective on everything. Michael taught me to read and understand my own inner map so that I could navigate my way out of past trauma and psychological pain, while avoiding being triggered and trapped in present trauma again. It feels like having a superpower..."

Renae Brooks,
Californien, USA

"My experience with Michael has been nothing short of transformative. While I have always believed in our inherent ability to heal and flourish, I lacked the knowledge of how to access it. Working with Michael has not only shown me how to connect with my inherent wisdom, but has also revealed the great potential I hold beyond my trauma. Through his unique approach, I continue to better understand the language of my instinctual consciousness, which both accelerates the healing of my trauma complexes and helps me unfold my genomic potential."

Isaac Hirsch,
Californien, USA

"Michael is a natural healer. He works with the soul at its own level and gently coaxes it forward and nurtures it so it can return to its natural homeostasis. He is highly intuitive and has extensive experience and knowledge of how the psyche and soul merge and express in the body and mind, and how this manifests in a variety of behavior patterns all related to deep core wounds. He knows the essence of the soul and can create a safe and sacred space for it to step into. I have worked with many healers and none have come as close to a holistic integration of mind, body and soul as Michael has. I would highly recommend working with Michael."

Peter Pommerencke, 
Svenborg, Danmark

"A super exciting experience to meet and work with Michael. His approach to dreams and trauma, and the connection between them, is both exciting and very helpful. Personally, it has given me the help I have been looking for for many years."

Joel Wren,
Texas, USA

"Michael is a visionary thinker in the field of alternative psychology. His unique ability to translate the complex language of seemingly unreadable dreams is astonishing. His work is nuanced, precise, and has helped me find a path to understanding my inner burdens. Michael was able to immediately identify my areas of need and uncover pathways to healing. Use what Michael can teach you to understand the instinctive wisdom of dreams, create healthier relationships, and build the confidence to integrate overwhelming emotions."

Emmanuel N,
Illinois, USA

"Michael is an exceptional support and healer. He has a keen eye and quickly understands your challenges on all levels. After understanding my issues, he helped me see the bigger picture of what was happening in my life, which led to many realizations and a deeper understanding of who I am and what I am capable of. Michael is honest, intelligent, empathetic and caring, and he has shown that from the beginning. I have been working with Michael for several years now, and every time we talk, I always learn more and feel better about myself. His words are powerful, and he has helped me strengthen myself over the years. I would not be anywhere near where I am today without the foundation Michael has helped me build."

Ashley Gann,
Californien, USA

"Michael's DreamCompass Sessions have been one of the most important methods I have experienced in my quest to get to know myself better. They have been crucial in allowing me to begin to recognize what my soul has presented to me as my purpose and calling. His sessions have helped me identify the wounds that have shaped my behavior my entire life, so that the light of my own consciousness could finally begin to heal them."

Seanette Holler,
Montana, USA

"To say that working with Michael has been life-changing is an understatement. It has been completely liberating. I went from understanding that I suffered from C-PTSD, and being told that it was untreatable and not even recognized by professionals, to experiencing freedom from the grip my trauma had on my entire life. "My relationship with everything, including myself, was transformed as I realized and experienced a whole new way of relating. My instinctual drives were fully activated and working for me instead of operating from a place of survival that inhibited my ability to live a full life in accordance with my genetic potential. "Michael was compassionate and clear in his understanding of biopsychosocial structures, and he always explained things that seemed overly complex in a way that I could understand and relate to from where I was. He has a deep knowledge of the mysterious dream world that holds the keys to our unique experience. It was as if he could see into your soul and guide you home. I am honored that his work has transformed my life, and by his ability to be a mentor and ally throughout the process. He navigates the underworld with you until you finally come up for air for the first time."

Edgar R,
Californien, USA

"Michael, you're a hybrid dream machine. The Dream Mapping and DreamCraft Screenplay prompt knocked my legs out from under me and helped me see my dreams like never before. The prompt was fine-tuned like a European sports car. Me likey. Seriously next-level stuff, man."

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DreamCompass Sessions™ at the Stone Hearth Retreat

 

I have spent more than 20 years helping people understand the deeper patterns that shape their gifts, relationships, emotional reactions, dreams, and life direction. 

I am the creator of Integrative Self-Analysis™ and the DreamCompass Method™, a structured bottom-up approach that helps motivated adults identify the Hidden Survival Patterns behind broken relationships, ineffective self-improvement, emotional exhaustion, and the shame of wasted potential.

 

What I have found is that some of the biggest breakthroughs in relationships do not happen through more advice, more talking, or more pressure.

They often happen when a small group of thoughtful people steps away from everyday life long enough to see the hidden patterns shaping their relationships.

So, for the first time, in a partnership with Tyler & Ashley Friesen from the Counter Complex, we are bringing a small group of singles and couples to a private forest-and-lake setting to get straight to the work of understanding the Hidden Survival Patterns affecting their closest relationships.

We will look at the patterns behind conflict, distance, shutdown, longing, guardedness, resentment, emotional over-responsibility, and the desire to reconnect without pretending everything is fine.

This is not couples therapy.
It is not a festival.
It is not a place where anyone is sent to be fixed.

It is a focused camping retreat for people who care about relationships and are ready to see what has been difficult to see inside the stress of day-to-day life.

It would be wonderful to share the weekend experience with you.

DISCLAIMER: The content on the blog and on this website is not intended to constitute or replace professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. You should never disregard professional medical advice, and you should never delay seeking it because of something you have heard on the podcast or on my website.

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