Joyful Sorrow
A 7-Week Group Coaching Journey Through the Paradoxes of
Lent and Life
About Joyful Sorrow
The capacity to tolerate paradox—to hold tension, complexity, and apparent contradiction without rushing to resolve it—is closely tied to both spiritual well-being and psychological resilience. Yet many faithful Christians—especially those shaped by past wounds, spiritual burnout, or legalistic formation—find themselves approaching Lent through rigidity, over-effort, or resigned withdrawal. Traditional practices meant to bring about transformation can instead feel destabilizing, discouraging, or exhausting.
Joyful Sorrow is a trauma-informed group coaching journey designed for thoughtful Christians of both Eastern and Western traditions who want to engage Lent as a season of life-enhancing formation rather than white-knuckled over-functioning. Bringing together ancient Christian wisdom with contemporary principles of trauma-informed group coaching facilitation, this program offers a gently challenging space to explore some of Lent’s central paradoxes—paradoxes which also help us inhabit our broader areas of our lives with greater depth and intention—so that the ascetical aspects of Lent can become sources of life and growth rather than death and burnout.
Walk the Lenten path with others who are also learning to hold sorrow and joy together.
“[The group program I participated in] is one of the most helpful things I’ve experienced in terms of opening up a freer and more spacious view of practicing my faith that takes into account my own limitations and the potential human flaws of the Church, without disregarding the goodness and truth at its core. It came at a time I really needed it.”
Anonymous
Group Coaching Participant, 2025
Program Details
- When: Weekly group sessions on Thursday evenings, 7:30–9 PM ET (please note the time zone)
- Dates: February 26 – April 2, 2026 + April 16 (7 sessions)
- Format: Weekly live group coaching sessions (via private Zoom) + optional guided reflections/exercises between sessions + option to add on 2 private coaching calls
- Orientation: Trauma-informed, group-oriented; open to both women and men; holistic (engages mind, soul, and body); rooted in the Orthodox/Eastern Christian theological imagination
What This Program Offers
Over seven weeks, participants are invited into a carefully held group space that supports:
- A holistic engagement with Lenten practices to help you deepen your participation in this liturgical season
- Skill-based learning to expand your capacity to hold ambiguity, tension, and mystery
- Healing-oriented reflection on the wounds we carry and the sources of growth available to us
- Integration between theological insights and lived experience
- A renewed sense of meaning, agency, and hope within the Christian life
Rather than prescribing a single, “right” way to practice Lent, Joyful Sorrow offers participants the opportunity to cultivate discernment, embodied wisdom, and spiritual freedom—honouring both the wisdom of Christian tradition as well as our unique stories and human needs.
“What I valued most [about this program] was everything. It is difficult to say only one thing. Helping people to understand that being honest with ourselves is very important as we pray. You gave so many helpful examples and direction in regard to this. Thank you.”
Anonymous
Coaching Participant
Healing happens in safe, supportive spaces. If you would value a thoughtful companion space alongside your traditional Lenten practices, this program is here to serve you.
Weekly Themes
Each week centres on a core paradox that runs through the Lenten journey and the growth-oriented Christian life as a whole. These paradoxes are explored not as problems to be solved, but rather as tensions to sit with and stories to locate ourselves within. Each paradox offers a meaningful container to help us hold the harder edges of our experiences in tension with the mysterious gift of Life in Christ, without flattening either into inflexible rules or black-and-white thinking.
1
Week 1: The Paradox of Freedom through Limitation
Lent begins with boundaries—fasting rules, liturgical rhythms, constraints. This week explores how wise limits—both within ourselves and beyond—can become sites of freedom and play rather than control or deprivation.
2
Week 2: The Paradox of Strength through Vulnerability
The wilderness of Lent awakens us to the reality of our human weakness and fragility. We explore how honesty, gentleness, and consent—rather than brute willpower alone—can become sources of spiritual fortitude.
3
Week 3: The Paradox of Fullness through Emptiness
As comforts fall away through traditions like fasting and almsgiving, emptiness can feel agitating or shame-laden. This week invites participants to consider emptiness as a space of peaceful receptivity rather than lack, failure, or barrenness.
4
Week 4: The Paradox of Nobility through Humility
Humility is often misunderstood as self-erasure or self-condemnation. This week reframes humility as a form of self-knowledge that makes dignity and love possible.
5
Week 5: The Paradox of Receiving through Relinquishing
Letting go is rarely simple. We examine what it means to release what no longer serves the life God has given us, and how grace is often encountered only after loosening our white-knuckled grip.
6
Week 6: The Paradox of Life through Death
At the heart of Lent is the movement toward life through death, resurrection through the crucifixion. We reflect on endings, losses, and forms of dying that precede real growth and transformation.
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Week 7: The Paradox of Joyful Sorrow
As the Lenten journey draws us toward Holy Week and Pascha/Easter, we explore how grief and joy coexist—how sorrow itself can become luminous when held within the promise of resurrection.
“Nicole takes an active role in talking through our experiences and comes with a lot of helpful tidbits that come from her informed experience.”
Anonymous
Past Group Coaching Participant
Is This Program Right for Me?
✔ This is likely a good fit if you…
- Observe Lent in some form, but often end up feeling discouraged, overwhelmed, or sucked into people- (or God-) pleasing tendencies
- Are Eastern or Oriental Orthodox Christian, or a spiritual pilgrim with a soft spot for ancient Christian tradition, particularly from the Christian East
- Are pursuing growth again after experiencing spiritual, relational, or developmental trauma that continues to affect your experience of religious practice
- Are able to make at least a few of the group sessions in real-time (it’s fine to miss a few–they will be available to view as recordings after–but to get the most out of this program, it’s beneficial to be able to participate in real-time group learning at least a few times)
- Are a member of clergy, a clergy spouse, or otherwise involved in ministry and would like a gently structured space to tend to your own spiritual nourishment while serving others in this demanding liturgical season
- Are moving away from legalistic or perfectionistic approaches to faith and seeking something more life-giving
- Appreciate theological depth, metaphor, and symbolic language
- Want personal growth that is anchored in the Christian story, not detached from it
❌ This may not be the right fit if you…
- Are looking for a prescriptive or rule-based Lenten program
- Aren’t able to make any of the group sessions in real-time
- Experience symptoms of trauma or an unmanaged mental health condition to a degree that makes day-to-day functioning difficult, and need a higher level of clinical support than group coaching can provide
- Prefer purely academic theological/spiritual study without personal reflection
“Nicole’s coaching was a turning point for me. I worked with her several years ago and it changed my life. I’ve been to many counselors but Nicole (not even being a counselor) is the first professional who really understood me. I still use many exercises and insights I learned from her when I get overwhelmed.”
Anonymous
Private Coaching Client
My Trauma-Informed Coaching Philosophy
This program is grounded in trauma-informed principles. This does not mean participants must identify as having experienced trauma—trauma-informed approaches to personal growth are holistic, human, and beneficial to everyone. Trauma-informed coaching prioritizes psychological safety, consent, pacing, and respect for the body’s needs and knowledge. It begins from the assumption that everyone is carrying unseen wounds—invisible stress, loss, limitation, and vulnerability—and everyone is likewise the bearer of agency, wisdom, and insight into their struggles. The role of a trauma-informed coach is not to prescribe or advise, but rather to help clients and group participants identify, reconnect with, and carry out the strength, freedom, and wisdom they already possess.
A trauma-informed approach does not lower the bar or soften the spiritual tradition. Instead, it creates the condition of safety and learning in which depth, honesty, and real transformation become possible—especially within demanding seasons like Lent. Participants are never required to disclose personal details and are supported in engaging practices in ways that honor both spiritual aspiration and human limits. More on my trauma-informed coaching philosophy here.
“The group coaching program I was in helped me appreciate that with more knowledge and self awareness, I am able to do hard things and the hard work that is needed to be a better person and live more in the present moment.”
NK,
Past Group Coaching Participant
Disclaimer: All testimonials on this page obtained from real private and group coaching clients. Due to the trauma-informed aspect of my work, clients choose whether to disclose their initials or remain anonymous, and I never feature real photographs of clients.
Not a Substitute for Church, Sacramental Life, and Fellowship, BUT…
Joyful Sorrow is not intended to replace the lived practice of Lent within the sacramental life of one’s Church or parish community. Rather, it exists alongside those practices as a space for personal reflection, processing, community, and integration—helping participants make sense of what the Lenten journey brings up for them so they can, as they choose, participate more deeply and freely in the life of the Church.
This program is also designed with compassion for those whose circumstances make full participation in parish life difficult at this time. It may serve people who live far from a church community, who are temporarily unable to engage fully due to illness or caregiving, or who are gently rebuilding trust after experiences of spiritual harm.
Finally, Joyful Sorrow seeks to be a source of support for clergy, clergy spouses, and those in roles of spiritual service during this season. The program provides a place to tend one’s own interior life during Lent to better ensure that their care for others comes from a place of inner support and nourishment.
Enrollment and Investment
Joyful Sorrow offers a unique kind of support: a theologically rich, trauma-informed space to process the Lenten journey as it is actually lived—integrating ancient Christian wisdom with the realities of personal history and embodied growth. It is not a substitute for the Church’s sacramental life, but a carefully held companion space that helps Lent’s practices become sources of freedom and life rather than strain.
Added offer: Use coupon code Lent2026 at checkout for 20% off either package below when registering on or before Feb 18, 2026 (11:59 PM ET).
Standard Program
— 7-week group coaching program
Includes: Access to live sessions + recordings until May 17, 2026 + group reflection prompts
$249*
Or two monthly payments of $125
Premium Package
— with added 1:1 support
Includes: everything in the Standard Program, with the addition of two 30-minute (or 1 60-minute) private coaching call during duration of the program
$349*
Or two monthly payments of $175
*All prices in USD
Your Coach
Nicole M. Roccas, PhD is a certified trauma-informed coach, writer, and teacher whose work sits at the intersection of Christian spirituality, personal growth, and psychological integration. She works with writers, creatives, and spiritually minded adults who want to heal old wounds without abandoning theological seriousness or embodied faith. In addition to her private coaching, Nicole has been designing and facilitating trauma-informed group coaching programs on a variety of topics since 2021.
Drawing on trauma-informed coaching principles, somatic practices, polyvagal theory, and the wisdom of the Eastern Christian tradition, Nicole creates spaces that are warm, boundaried, and intellectually alive. Her facilitation style is reflective, gently challenging, and deeply respectful of individual autonomy. She is especially attuned to the ways spiritual practices can both heal and harm—and to how they can be reclaimed as sources of life even after the darkest experiences.
FAQs
What if I’m not sure I’m ready for a group program?
That’s completely understandable! I never want people to feel pressured to sign up for a program if they sense it’s not right for them. In case it’s of interest to you, however: I also coach individuals privately around issues of post-traumatic growth and spiritual recovery after wounding experiencdes. Check out my coaching page or book a free consultation to learn more.
Does this program replace traditional Lenten practices like fasting, almsgiving, or liturgical participation?
No. Joyful Sorrow is not a substitute for the Church’s communal and sacramental life, nor does it seek to redefine the meaning of Lent. Fasting, almsgiving, prayer, reconciliation, and participation in the liturgy remain central to the Christian journey.
This program exists alongside those practices as a reflective companion space—helping participants attend to how Lent is being lived and received, especially when struggle, resistance, or past wounds arise. Its aim is not self-improvement, but deeper, freer participation in the life of the Church, according to each person’s circumstances.
Tell me about your cancellation policy.
While I put great care into designing and delivering a high-quality group coaching experiences, I also understand that unexpected circumstances can arise.
Before the program starts: Refunds are available if requested at least 7 days before the program begins. After that, due to limited enrollment spots and immediate access to program materials, no full refunds will be issued.
After the first session: If you attend the first session and realize the program isn’t a good fit, you may request a 50% refund within 24 hours of the first session. After this period, no refunds will be given.
Do I need to share personal details about my spiritual struggles?
No. While group learning and discussion is a helpful part of this program, individuals are never pressured to participate. Sharing personal details in particular is never required. In the first session, we will also discuss how to share wisely to protect both yourself and others.
What if I can’t make all the live sessions?
Sessions will be recorded and shared via private, view-only links for the duration of the program. However, live participation is encouraged to foster community—if you already know you can’t make it to most of the sessions in real-time, I don’t recommend signing up this time around.
How do I know if this program is right for me?
Good question! I recommend checking out the “Is this Program Right for Me?” section of this page (above) to help you discern. If you have further questions, feel free to reach out to me directly.
We’d love to have you!
Join a Lenten journey shaped by paradox, integration, and whole-person connection.