THE solo intensive
Accelerate your restorying journey through experiential processes. Just you and your coach.
what is a solo intensive?
(Yes, this can absolutely work for couples! See FAQ below.)
Think of it like a solo retreat—but you are accompanied by Michael McRay, the founder of Becoming Restoried. In our group retreats, you join an already-set process alongside a small group of other people. In a solo intensive, however, the entire experience is about you and only you. Michael will create a fully personalized process designed to help you achieve your unique goals and explore your life stories with depth, clarity, and support.
Ranging anywhere from one to three full days in person, a solo intensive is without question one of the most effective investments you can make in your personal growth.
Here’s a short video to give a sense of what an experiential solo intensive can look like.
You gave me my life back. I have told so many people how wonderful it is to have someone who knows your story—your triumph & despair. I have noticed I walk now with my shoulders pulled back and my head up. You gave me that release. Thank you again from the bottom of my heart!
- Email from Andra, two-day intensive client (used with permission)
What’s the focus of a solo intensive?
Typically, any or all of these three things:
Excavation of and engagement with your life stories so that you can discover truth, understanding, and wisdom for your life.
Tending to the fires of conflict within or around you so that you can find resolution and peace.
Finding clarity and contentment in the midst of uncertainty so that you can move forward with purpose and possibility.
Michael will offer you his expertise in narrative, conflict resolution, and experiential coaching. Together, you’ll be able to navigate depths of your experience that you didn’t know you could reach.
You’ll get clear on the true nature of the conflicts within yourself so that you can trace their roots and examine their fruits.
You’ll muscle your way to a richer understanding of yourself, a clearer vision of what comes next, and a feeling of increased reconciliation in your life.
a solo intensive is for you if you want to…
explore your life stories deeply and thoughtfully
set aside unhurried time for self-exploration and growth
feel a sense of urgency or passion around understanding yourself
do the hard work of resolving inner conflicts
show up with curiosity to explore your life’s stories in their fullness
transform your experiences of pain into stories of purpose
find clarity in the midst of confusion
stop avoiding the truth of your experiences
work to change ongoing patterns, habits, and beliefs that are no longer serving you
Testimonials from clients
How others used intensives
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Glenn booked a one-day intensive to find clarity on which choice to make at a major decision-point in their life. They felt stuck, lost in the swirling chatter in their head about what to do. Using experiential methods, Michael guided them through a series of clearing processes so that they could move forward with confidence and peace.
Glenn’s intensive: Finding the path to clarity
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Callie spent two days with Michael looking exhaustively at pain points in her life so she could get clear about their continued impact. She and Michael worked together to survey her current life for resources that feel safe and life-giving.
Callie’s intensive: Understanding the impact of pain
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Pat used a two-day intensive to explore the most important, impactful moments of her life. She wanted to revisit her life's stories so that she could discern which stories she wanted to capture in a memoir and pass down to her family. She hired Michael as her story-guide.
Pat’s intensive: Exploring her life’s stories for creating a memoir
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Derek spent three days with Michael getting clear on the inner conflicts he feels, tracing their origins, and narrating their current manifestations in his life. Michael walked Derek through a self-reconciliation process to facilitate forgiveness, compassion, and transformation.
Derek’s intensive: Transforming inner conflicts
LEVERAGE 10+ YEARS OF STORY EXPERTISE.
MICHAEL IS WIDELY SOUGHT-AFTER FOR HIS creative, experiential, story-based approach to coaching.
Michael McRay is a highly-regarded facilitator and certified experiential coach (level 2 of 3). He’s the author of multiple books, including the award-winning I Am Not Your Enemy. His storytelling has received praise from internationally acclaimed authors, like Ishmael Beah, Pádraig Ó Tuama, Raja Shehadeh, and National Book Award winner Colum McCann.
Michael’s story experience and expertise are sought after by all types of organizations—from VMware and Cigna to Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library and even NASA.
During his graduate studies in Conflict Resolution and Reconciliation, he lived in Belfast and fell in love with the transformative power of telling our personal stories. Since 2013, he has produced and hosted Tenx9 Nashville, a monthly community storytelling event that has elevated nearly 1,000 local stories on stage.
His list of credentials is long—with certifications and training in mediation, public narrative, integrated somatic trauma healing, conflict coaching, and more. And yet, beyond all these lines on a resumé, Michael’s greatest credential is his own human experience of turning his pain into purpose. Out of a story of self-loathing, self-harm, and attempted suicide, Michael has spent a decade healing, digging deeply into what’s buried in his own past so that he can live with radiant contentment.
Don’t miss this opportunity to engage with Michael on the process of restorying your pain into something purposeful.
Michael's skills as an Storytelling Coach have earned him a spot on the Coach Foundation, one of the biggest names in the coaching industry.
What does it cost?
What’s the value of getting unstuck and rapidly accelerating your personal growth?
(Hopefully, you said “quite a bit!”)
Many people invest $3,000-$5,000 or more for highly-curated retreats.
Organizations regularly hire Michael to come work with their teams and pay over $10,000 per day.
For $2,000/day, you'll get access to Michael’s expert facilitation, story knowledge, and wealth of wisdom.
(Limited financial support available upon request and need.)
what does your investment get you?
A fully customized coaching experience from storytelling and reconciliation expert Michael McRay.
You get exclusive, close-up, intimate interactions with Michael for as many days as you schedule. Michael is an award-winning author, certified experiential coach, and the founder of Becoming Restoried. Michael is regularly paid 4-5 figures for his facilitation and coaching. You get an even greater level of personal engagement for much less. You can read more about Michael below.
($5,000 minimum value)Rapidly accelerated growth through experiential processes.
In general, you can reasonably expect to gain as much from an intensive as you do from 2-3 months of hour-long sessions. How? Through what’s called experiential processes. An experiential coaching process is an immersive, hands-on approach that uses expressive tools and modalities. You’ll have access to props, art supplies, nature, walk and talks, notecards and poster paper, and much more. Most coaching and therapy is sitting still and talking. In experiential, you will often be up and moving, tapping into the power of a variety of creative expressions to explore what you’re there to explore. And because you can stay down in the heat of a process longer, more gets done.
($1800 value)A welcome box of delightful goodies.
A Becoming Restoried t-shirt, journal, and even a stunning, custom-made candle. The candle is a mix of Old Study, Dark Amber, and Oceanside. Yeah, it smells amazing.
($70 value)
A meaningful, effective investment in learning to live in peace with yourself.
(Priceless)
That's a total value of $6,870 for $2,000/day.
(Limited financial assistance available upon need and request.)
ready to chat about whether an intensive is right for you?
FAQs
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No, not in any clinical sense. There are certainly similarities, of course. The processes we use in Becoming Restoried often feel therapeutic to those that engage them. We focus on understanding the richness of the stories of our lives in order to hold ourselves with more compassion and affection. And while Michael is a well-trained and highly-experienced facilitator, he is not a licensed psychologist or counselor.
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We are not able to treat your trauma in any clinical sense. We cannot medically diagnose anything or do therapeutic interventions to heal trauma. That being said, you are actually the one that can heal your trauma. Our process is able to support you in clearing away barriers your pain has set up to block your healing and growth. We will guide you toward clarity, the release of old stories that no longer serve you, and the power of learning how to reconcile yourself to yourself.
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Time and location are up to you and Michael. If you’re able to travel, you’ll come to the Nashville area where Michael is. If this isn’t possible, you can pay the expenses for Michael to come to you. Then you will coordinate calendars and schedule a time that works for you both. Either way, the lovely task of booking the location of your solo intensive falls to you. Once you commit to the intensive, we will send you a link to a list of recommended locations in the Nashville area in case you’re needing some support finding a place!
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It can be all of it. In any intense process, there is a warm-up, a deep dive, and then a cool-down. Recovery is crucial to these kinds of processes. We will need to take breaks. And we can have fun during those breaks! We can also do walking sessions or be outdoors at times. Remember - laughter can be just as cathartic a release as tears. It’s called an intensive because the amount of time we engage your work can feel intense, but the process itself is unhurried and full of warmth.
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Yes. That being said, it’s not quite the same. Since being on Zoom for 8 straight hours is some kind of hellish nightmare, we don’t do full-day virtual intensives. Half-days are the preferred method virtually. And therefore we can’t cover the same amount of ground. However, there’s a tremendous amount of good work to be done in a virtual intensive. So if this is what’s best for you, let’s do it.
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Yes, absolutely. All the experiential processes Michael uses work for couples too. Michael is also a trained mediator with a master’s in conflict resolution and reconciliation. If you have work you want to do on your relationship, Michael can absolutely guide you through it.