What You’ll Learn at The Art & Science of Happiness Retreat

If happiness feels like something you are supposed to already know how to do, you are in very good company. 

Most of us were taught how to work hard, show up, keep going, care for others, manage the calendar, answer the email, remember the thing, do the other thing, and somehow also drink enough water. But few of us were taught how to shape our days toward what genuinely sustains us. 

That is where Maria Sirois comes in. 

During The Art & Science of Happiness retreat at Ocean Edge, guests will explore research-backed ideas from positive psychology alongside practical tools for everyday resilience, grounded optimism, and meaningful joy. Internal retreat materials identify the retreat as taking place October 2–4.  

This is not happiness as glitter. This is happiness as footing. 

Here is what guests will learn. 

1. Why positivity matters — especially now

The retreat begins with a thoughtful look at why positivity is not frivolous, naïve, or reserved for people with unusually calm inboxes. 

In Maria’s Friday evening session, guests will explore research showing the benefits of moving our minds and hearts toward a slightly more positive place. The key word here is slightly. This is not about pretending difficulty does not exist. It is about learning how to make room for what is hard while also noticing what helps. 

Maria introduces the first tool: The Gentle and Oh-So-Helpful AND. 

It is a beautiful little word with a big job. Life can be difficult and meaningful. We can feel uncertain and still take one grounded step. We can be tired and notice beauty. The “and” helps us hold more of the truth — not just the painful parts. 

2. How appreciation changes the way we move through the world

On Saturday morning, guests will explore the power of appreciation and connection. 

The older Ocean Edge listing for The Generous Exchange | The Mansion at Ocean Edge describes Maria Sirois’s work as focused on beauty, goodness, excellence, gratitude, grounded optimism, and the ways appreciation can restore wellbeing and inspire positive action.  

In this retreat, appreciation becomes more than a pleasant feeling. It becomes a practice. 

Guests will learn how to notice what is beautiful, good, inspiring, excellent, or quietly meaningful — and how that attention can help restore a sense of steadiness. Maria’s tools here include Elevating Appreciation and Prioritizing Positive Connections. 

In plain English: look toward what lifts you, and spend more time with what helps you feel human again. 

Simple? Yes. Easy? Not always. Worth practicing? Absolutely. 

3. Why connection is the main character

Maria’s work highlights social connection as a powerful driver of happiness. During the retreat, guests will explore how to build more positive moments of connection — and, just as importantly, what to do with relationships or dynamics that drain rather than sustain. 

Enter: healthy boundaries, wearing their sensible shoes and carrying a very elegant clipboard. 

This portion of the retreat is not about becoming endlessly available to everyone. It is about understanding which connections nourish us, how to cultivate them, and how to make thoughtful choices around the relationships that do not. 

Because happiness is not just an inside job. It is also shaped by who and what we allow close. 

MEET MARIA

4. How to remember who you are at your best

Saturday afternoon brings guests into the territory of character strengths. 

We all have strengths, and we have all had moments when we used them well — with courage, kindness, humor, wisdom, perseverance, creativity, love, fairness, or perspective. But in hard moments, we forget. Stress can make us temporarily misplace our own brilliance. 

This session helps guests revisit who they have been at their best and consider how to use their strengths more wisely in the present. 

The tools here are Leveraging Character Strengths and The Mindful Pause. 

The mindful pause may be one of the most deceptively powerful practices of the weekend. It creates enough space to ask: What would actually help here? Which strength is needed? What response would make me proud tomorrow? 

A pause is not doing nothing. Sometimes, it is the smartest thing in the room. 

5. How meaning helps us build better moments

Sunday morning is dedicated to integration and meaning. 

Guests will explore the pathways of meaning and consider how to elevate one or more of those pathways in everyday life. This is where the weekend begins to become portable — something guests can carry home, practice at work, return to in relationships, and weave into ordinary days. 

Maria’s sixth tool is Pathways of Meaning, helping participants identify what gives their life a sense of direction, purpose, and depth. 

The retreat concludes with a playful revisiting of what has been learned, along with time to commit to one or two practical next steps. 

Because joy loves a plan. A soft plan, perhaps. But a plan. 

What you’ll take home 

Guests can expect to leave with science-based perspectives on happiness and a stronger sense of inner “true north” . You'll gain renewed understanding of what is possible, even in hard moments. You'll leave with daily tools for shaping life toward what is good, useful, meaningful, and strengthening. And finally, you'll find a deeper appreciation for rest, connection, reflection, and the beauty around us 

And because this is Ocean Edge, guests also receive the gift of setting: coastal quiet, gracious hospitality, room to breathe, and the scent of the ocean doing what the scent of the ocean does best. 

Who should join? 

This retreat is for adults who want to stand steadier in their lives. It is for those seeking hope that is grounded, not glossy. It is for anyone ready to enjoy more of their days, envision better futures, and learn how to shape moments toward what lifts them. 

If you are carrying worry, anxiety, overwhelm, uncertainty, or simply the feeling that life has become a little too much lately, this weekend is for you.

Happiness may not be something we chase. 

Perhaps it is something we practice — one better moment at a time. 

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