Anxiety Retreat Birmingham, AL
Understanding Anxiety:
Why We Keep Living in Tomorrow
October 30, 2026 · Alabama 4-H Center, Columbiana · 9:00 am – 4:30 pm
YOU ARE NOT ALONE
Anxiety Has Become One of the Defining Experiences of Our Time
We carry it into our work, our relationships, our parenting, our faith—and even into the quiet moments when nothing appears to be wrong.
Most conversations about anxiety focus on how to make it disappear. This retreat begins with a different question.
What if anxiety is not your enemy, but your invitation?
What If Anxiety Is Trying to Tell Us Something?
Rather than asking only, “How do I stop being anxious?” we will consider more spacious questions:
What is your anxiety trying to protect?
What future are you already living in?
What do your worries reveal about what you deeply care about?
What would become possible if you no longer lived as though your greatest fear had already happened?
What deeper feeling might anxiety be keeping you from encountering?
Where has vigilance replaced presence?
Honest About Uncertainty
Anxiety Is Not Resolved by Positive Thinking Alone
This retreat does not pretend that difficult things cannot happen. Life includes uncertainty. Love always involves risk. Every meaningful relationship carries the possibility of disappointment, loss, and heartbreak.
The goal is not to convince ourselves that nothing painful will happen. It is to recognize when wise preparation has become gripping anxiety, when our minds and bodies are living inside a future that has not yet arrived.
When anxiety becomes our constant companion, it can slowly narrow our world. It keeps us scanning for danger instead of remaining available to wonder. It convinces us that vigilance is the price of safety, even when that vigilance keeps us from fully inhabiting the life already here.
What is asking for your attention beneath the anxiety?
Four Movements We Will Explore Together
Drawing on the work of poet David Whyte, we will explore anxiety not simply as something to eliminate, but as an experience that may reveal what we fear, what we value, and what we are trying to protect.
The Arc of the Day
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Movement One
Naming What We Carry
Recognizing when ordinary worry has shifted into gripping anxiety, and what that shift reveals about what we love.
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Movement Two
Living in an Imagined Future
Noticing when our minds and bodies have already moved into a future that has not yet arrived, and learning to return.
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Movement 3
Returning to the Present
Practicing simple, accessible skills that cultivate steadiness, presence, and awareness, not by denying difficulty, but by learning to come home.
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Movement 4
What Anxiety Is Protecting
Following anxiety to its deeper source, and discovering the tender care, longing, or love that has been there all along.
What if peace is not found by controlling the future, but by returning to the only place life can actually be lived—the present?
Practical and Lasting
Tools You Can Begin Using Immediately
This retreat offers more than insight. Participants will leave with practical anxiety skills they can begin using immediately.
During the day, you will learn how to:
recognize the early signs that worry is becoming gripping anxiety;
notice when your mind is treating a possible future as a present reality;
use grounding and body-awareness practices to return to the moment;
distinguish wise preparation from catastrophic anticipation;
respond to anxiety with greater curiosity and compassion;
identify what may need attention beneath the anxious thoughts.
These practices do not depend upon pretending that everything will be fine. They offer a steadier way to meet uncertainty without surrendering the present to it.
Our hope is that you leave with both a deeper understanding of anxiety and practices you can return to long after the retreat has ended.
What to expect at the Anxiety Retreat
Wild Grace gatherings are intentionally small and relational. This will not feel like a conference or a day of back-to-back lectures.
There will be time to listen, walk, reflect, write, speak, and be quiet. No one will be pressured to disclose personal experiences.
Teaching and Guided Reflection
Thoughtful exploration of anxiety through poetry, insight, and story—drawing on the work of David Whyte and the wisdom of contemplative practice.
Time in Nature
Solitude and walking in the natural world, where stillness and spaciousness often say what words cannot.
Journaling and Personal Reflection
Quiet space for your own inner work, at your own pace, in your own way.
A Shared Meal
Lunch together, because community and nourishment belong in the same space.
Small Group Conversation
Thoughtful dialogue in a small, safe group- an invitation to speak honestly and be genuinely heard. But no pressure to share.
This retreat is not about becoming fearless.
It is about becoming more fully present.
Who is this retreat for
You do not need to be in crisis to attend. Many participants simply carry a quiet sense that anxiety has become too familiar—that it is narrowing their world in ways they are only beginning to notice.
Individuals who feel caught in patterns of worry or chronic unease
Those who sense they are living more in tomorrow's fears than in today
People navigating seasons of uncertainty, transition, or loss
Anyone longing to feel more grounded, present, and free
Therapists and helping professionals seeking personal reflection alongside practical insight
Anyone drawn to exploring anxiety with curiosity rather than shame
No prior experience with retreats is necessary. This is not a therapy group or a clinical workshop. It is a day set aside for honest exploration—and each person is free to engage at their own pace.
About Your Facilitators
David Murphree, LPC-S & Sara Hadgraft, LMFT, LPC
David and Sara are the founders of Wild Grace Encounters. Together, they bring decades of clinical experience alongside a deep love for poetry, contemplative practice, and the art of creating spaces where genuine inner work can happen.
Their retreats combine clinical wisdom, reflective conversation, nature, and shared ritual to guide participants into more honest and spacious relationships with their own lives.
They believe that the most important conversations rarely happen in ordinary time—and that slowing down together is often the first step toward the freedom we are looking for.
Reserve Your Place at the Retreat
To preserve a reflective and spacious setting, seating is intentionally limited. We encourage you to register early.
Date- October 30, 2026
Location- Alabama 4-H Center, Columbiana, Alabama
Time- 9:00 am – 4:30 pm
Overnight Option- Arrive the evening of October 29th and spend the night at the 4-H Center before the retreat begins (call 4H for pricing)
Includes- Full day experience + lunch
Registration- Early Bird: $195 (through September 14) Regular: $225
Space Limited enrollment to preserve intimacy
Voices from Past Retreats
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"If you sense a desire to let go of the need to perform and grow as an individual, attend a Wild Grace Encounter. You will not regret it."
— Retreat Attendee
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"The gathering is undergirded in kindness and gentleness. Presenters are humble and transparent. No judgment. Anyone can benefit."
— Retreat Attendee
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"Wild Grace is nothing you can create yourself. It is a combination of an escape and a forced growth opportunity if you allow it to happen. Be brave!".
— Retreat Attendee
Frequently Asked Questions
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No. While the retreat is facilitated by licensed counselors, it is not a therapy group or clinical program. The day is designed as a reflective retreat—a space for honest personal exploration at your own pace. Nothing will be forced.
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Not at all. This retreat is for anyone who recognizes worry or anxiety as a familiar presence in their life—whether mild and occasional or persistent and exhausting. You do not need a clinical diagnosis. You simply need to be curious.
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The retreat will be held at the Alabama 4-H Center in Columbiana, Alabama—a quiet, natural setting approximately 40 minutes south of Birmingham. The surroundings offer space for walking, reflection, and time in the natural world throughout the day. For those who would like a slower start, there is an option to arrive the evening of October 29th and spend the night on-site before the retreat begins on October 30th.
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Registration includes the full day retreat experience—teaching, guided reflection, small group conversation, contemplative practice, and time in nature—facilitated by two seasoned clinicians. Lunch is also included. Seating is limited to preserve a reflective and spacious setting.
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Yes. Each Wild Grace retreat is a standalone experience exploring a distinct theme. At the same time, this retreat continues the series' pattern of following emotions to their deeper source. If you have attended a previous Wild Grace retreat, you will find familiar rhythms alongside entirely new terrain.
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You can contact us directly at wildgraceencounters@gmail.com or use the contact form on our website. Registration details will be shared once payment is confirmed.
Sometimes the First Step Is Simply Creating Space to Listen Again
If you are longing to feel more grounded, more present, and more awake to what matters most—we invite you to join us.