The Portal is for adults confronting or considering a significant change in their lives.

That threshold may be professional: leaving or beginning a role, exiting a company, questioning a long-held career identity, or realizing that past definitions of success no longer fully fit.

It may be personal: grieving a loss, navigating a relationship change, or sensing that a chapter organized around responsibility, achievement, or identity is coming to an end.

Each cohort is intentionally small and carefully picked, allowing for real conversation, engaged facilitation, and meaningful peer reflection.

The right participant is not defined by title, industry, or life stage. They are defined by readiness. This is for people willing to tell the truth about themselves, listen generously to others, be challenged with care, and treat confidentiality as a form of respect. 

The Portal’s program runs Thursdays and Fridays, with participants typically arriving on site Wednesday night. The program is designed to create a quiet, carefully held environment to step back from ordinary pace, examine the patterns shaping the decision in front of them, and reconnect with the values and responsibilities that should guide the next chapter. Participants leave with greater clarity, a more conscious relationship to the choice they are facing, and a practical path for moving forward.

Wednesday Evening: Soft Landing

Participants are invited to arrive Wednesday evening for a casual dinner and informal time together. This optional evening creates space to settle into the property, meet the group, and begin the shift out of ordinary pace before the formal program begins.

Thursday: Seeing the Pattern

Thursday is designed to help participants orient to the transition they are carrying and begin to see the patterns, obligations, fears, and old strategies that may be shaping it. The day combines guided reflection, small-circle conversation, time in nature, and embodied practice. The purpose is not to force a decision too quickly, but to understand more clearly what is being asked — and what may be getting in the way.

Friday: Choosing Forward

Friday moves from insight into conscious choice. Participants revisit the transition in front of them through the lenses of values, fear, desire, tradeoffs, and responsibility. The day is practical without becoming mechanical: participants leave with a clearer forward path, including next conversations, support structures, commitments, and 30–90 day actions.

The Portal’s programming is grounded on the premise that meaningful life transitions are rarely only practical decisions. They are also thresholds of psychological development.

Our core psychological frame draws from Jungian thought — especially the idea of individuation: the lifelong movement toward greater wholeness, integration, and conscious relationship with the parts of the self that have been overused, neglected, hidden, or left behind. In this sense, a transition is not simply a problem to solve. It is often an invitation to examine which parts of the psyche carried a person through the last chapter, which patterns may no longer serve, and which less-developed or shadow elements may now be asking for a more conscious place in the life ahead.

This frame is complemented by contemporary research on motivation and behavior change. Self-Determination Theory suggests that durable growth is supported when people experience autonomy, competence, and relatedness: a sense that the path is genuinely their own, that they are capable of acting, and that they are not moving alone. The Transtheoretical Model of change similarly reminds us that transformation unfolds through stages. People do not move from uncertainty to action simply because they are told what to do. They need space to recognize what is changing, clarify readiness, weigh tradeoffs, strengthen confidence, and prepare for action in a way that fits the truth of their own lives.

For that reason, The Portal combines reflective psychological work with carefully held somatic and environmental practices. We use guided inquiry, small-circle conversation, time outdoors, breathwork, and, where appropriate, other embodied practices to help participants step out of ordinary momentum and listen below the level of habitual analysis. These practices are not treated as spectacle or as clinical treatment. They are used selectively and intentionally, out of recognition that the mind and body are deeply interconnected, and that shifts in attention, nervous-system state, and felt experience can make new forms of insight more available.

The work does not end with insight. Drawing on practical tools from executive coaching, strategy, and organizational leadership, The Portal helps participants translate what they see into commitments, conversations, and next moves. The final movement of the retreat is therefore deliberately practical: participants clarify what they are choosing, what support they need, where old patterns are likely to reappear, and what concrete actions they will take over the next 30–90 days. The aim is not to manufacture certainty. It is to help each person move forward with greater consciousness, integrity, and the capacity to act.

The Portal is held at The Thyme, an 85-acre retreat center in Salisbury, CT, set in the Berkshire Mountains. It is designed for wellness, nature, creativity, human connection, and private group experiences. The Thyme is 2.5 hours from NYC yet a world away, with a landscape and atmosphere meant to help guests step out of ordinary time and into a more spacious, grounded environment.

Address:

564 Under Mountain Rd, Salisbury, CT 06068

Travel:

Approximately 2.5 hours from NYC or Boston. The closest train station from Grand Central is Wassaic Station, followed by an approximately 30-minute cab ride (must be pre-booked; very little ride-share available).

Accommodation: Every participant is provided with one of The Thyme’s 26 comfortable guest rooms, across four guest houses, all within easy walking distance of each other. Several options and room variants exist, some carrying marginal additional cost. We will provide full detail on accommodations and options upon request.

Founding Cohorts (September & October 2026)

We are running two founding cohort sessions, with thoughtful and aligned groups both participating in the experience and helping to shape what The Portal becomes going forward. Our founding cohorts will take place:

• September 16 - 18, 2026

• October 14-16, 2026

Future cohorts of The Portal are expected to be priced between $3,200-$4,200.

For these first two sessions, we are offering a Founding Cohort rate of $2,200.

This reduced rate reflects the collaborative nature of the first gathering. As we refine The Portal into its optimal form, we will ask participants for thoughtful feedback before, during, and after the experience. 

The fee includes lodging, all meals, and all group experiences during the retreat.

Transportation to and from The Thyme is not included.

Our sessions are run primarily by our founders, Marissa Dent and Lee Hudson Teslik, with occasional participation from other facilitators for specific elements of the agenda.

For a bit more background on us:

Marissa Dent served 19 years as a Management Consultant at Bain & Company, most recently as a Senior Partner. She has supported very large organizations through complex, charged transformations. Marissa is a breathwork facilitator, sound meditation facilitator, dedicated yogi, and experienced group workshop facilitator. 

Lee is an exited startup CEO / Founder, a former executive at Google, and a former McKinsey consultant. He also previously served as a speechwriter – and is currently a researcher and essayist on questions of purpose, humanity, spiritual formation, and professional meaning. He lives between Brooklyn and Westchester with his wife and three kids.