How to Find Solid Ground during a Life Quake
Standing at a crossroads, struggling through a life transition, or stuck in the middle of a life crisis, have you realised that you need to take some time out to rest and relax, before your sky-high stress levels permanently damage your health?
My life’s work is to help others through life transitions. We go through the same life transitions again and again, until we learn the lessons each life transition offers us. I understand how challenging life transitions can be, both personally and professionally. I know what it feels like—the uncertainty, the insecurity, the anxiety, the overthinking. In the last 30 years, I have been through 45 life transitions, sometimes more than one at the same time. It hasn’t gotten any easier, but I got better at coping with it.
If you are going through a life transition, I want to help you.
What qualifies as a life transition? A career change, starting a new business, moving to a different country, a divorce, the loss of a loved one, an empty nest, a debilitating illness, redundancy, retirement – any substantial change -planned or unplanned – in your circumstances.
I have nearly more than a decade’s experience hosting retreats at my little farm here in the sun-soaked southwest of France, with the assistance of my small but smart herd of Friesian and Falabella horses, and pages full of testimonials to prove that we can transform your life. Before I started hosting retreats, I worked as a medical doctor for more than two decades. I have a special interest in stress management and I have picked up a number of letters after my name to reflect this: MBChB MRCGP MedHypDip NLP Master Pract Cert Prof Life Coach Cert Counseling Cert EAGALA Cert
If you are going through a life transition, I can help you.
I created the From Troubled to Triumphant: Find Solid Ground in a Life Quake Retreats with my horses to help you internalise how exceptional, powerful, gifted, beautiful, strong, generous, appreciated, valuable, talented, brilliant, admired, respected, courageous, special, caring and lovable you STILL are.
This seemingly endless Life Transition of yours? It’s temporary. You’ll get through it. My generous, intuitive, patient, powerful, warmhearted horses and I will help you. So will walking part of the magical miracle-working Camino de Santiago de Compostela in the sun-drenched southwest of France.
This Life Transition retreat will take you from
UNCERTAIN TO UNSTOPPABLE
POWERLESS TO PURPOSEFUL
DOUBTFUL TO DETERMINED
INSECURE TO INVINCIBLE
At the end of this transformational retreat, you will feel:
Physically: Vibrantly alive, bursting with energy, fully rested, profoundly relaxed, rejuvenated, refreshed with all your batteries fully recharged
Mentally: Grounded and centred, free from the uncertainty and insecurity a life transition generates, confident in your ability to manage stress during this life transition, motivated to embrace the changes you’re facing, and clear on how to tackle challenges and find solutions to your problems.
Spiritually: Calm, peaceful and serene, inspired and uplifted, with a renewed sense of purpose, a clear idea of who you are now and what matters most to you as you boldly move forward into your sensational next chapter.
If you feel overworked, overwhelmed, misunderstood, exhausted, and close to burnout because you are struggling to get through a divorce, start a new business, change careers, cope with an empty nest, move and start a new life elsewhere, accept a difficult diagnosis, get over the loss of a loved one, look after ageing parents or settle into retirement, you may be wondering how a 7-day retreat is going to help you develop effective coping strategies to use that can be incorporated seamlessly into your personal and professional life so that you can get through this life transition (and any future transitions) and live a long, happy, healthy and fulfilling life, full of purpose and meaning – in alignment with your unique talents, values and ideals.
I have a plan.
Highlights of the Troubled to Triumphant: Find Solid Ground in a Life Quake retreats
- Walk part of the often life-changing Camino de Santiago de Compostela to gain clarity about your future while practising walking meditation to help you focus your mind – no more than 10 easy km a day.
- Connect with my Friesian and Falabella horses, who are mindfulness masters, during equine-guided mindfulness and meditation sessions to benefit from their intuitive and authentic wisdom. If you have always been fascinated by horses, and longed to connect with them on a deeper level but have always been intimidated by their size, this will be an unforgettable experience. We work with the horses from the ground, the horses are not ridden during the retreat.
- Visit a French fresh food market, the best in the region, with its kaleidoscope of sights, sounds and smells awakening and seducing your senses while you do the 5 senses mindfulness exercise
- Enjoy the very best food that Gascony has to offer – mindfully: Paella with an African twist, Tagine à la Française, Ratatouille aux 7 Epices served al fresco…your taste buds will think they are in seventh heaven. Mindfully tasting some of the Gascony region’s exceptional wines, another feast for your senses.
- Stay in an authentic half-timbered 200-year-old French farmhouse, on the edge of an ancient forest, surrounded by the peaceful sounds of nature, in the heart of the Armagnac and Cotes de Gascogne wine region in the south-west of France. In your cool, light and airy room, you’ll be able to sleep deeply, undisturbed, for as long as you need to wake up feeling fully rested, refreshed and rearing to get going!
- Spend time in a nurturing “blue space” while wild swimming in a crystal clear lake in the middle of a centuries-old and decidedly magical oak wood. Or you can relax in a deck chair on the shore – same benefit.
- Experience forest bathing (also called shinrin-yoku or “taking in the forest atmosphere”) – an opportunity to immerse yourself in and reconnect with nature in an invigorating “green space.”
- Discover the laid-back French way of life: the French live happy and healthy lives well into their nineties because they cope with stress by focusing on être (being) instead of faire (doing) or avoir (having) as represented by the Slow Food and Slow and Sustainable Travel movements.
- End your days by stargazing and communing with the universe by doing Yoga Nidra last thing at night (there is barely any light pollution here) to remind you of the infinite possibilities and innumerable opportunities that await you.
- Indulg in a Champagne brunch on your last day – because you’ll have a lot to celebrate and celebrating victories – big or small – make your life meaningful!
Every activity has been carefully chosen to empower you not just to survive this life transition, but to thrive while you are going through it, and make the most of the resources naturally available in the exceptionally glorious and gorgeous Gascony region.
Enough free time is available for resting, relaxing and recharging your batteries. If you prefer to skip an activity, you are more than welcome, all arranged activities are optional. The program is not set in stone and might be adjusted according to the weather etc.
Where is this little farm and how do you get here?
Maison Meraki is about 2 hours drive south-east of Bordeaux, and 2 hours south-west of Toulouse, between two small towns: Eauze and Nogaro.
The easiest and most effortless way to get here is to rent a car at Bordeaux, Toulouse, Biarritz, Pau or Lourdes airport. It’s much cheaper now than it was pre-COVID. It is highway nearly all the way here, and the roadsigns are clear, even if you don’t speak a single word of French. If you prefer to use public transport, the best option is to fly to Toulouse, take the train to Auch, and visit the impressive cathedral with its exceptional hand-carved choir. When you have had a scrumptious lunch at one of the sidewalk bistros on the square in front of the cathedral, you take the bus to Nogaro, where you’ll be picked up and transferred to the retreat.
The most entertaining and cheapest way to get here is by getting a lift from the carpooling website, BlaBlaCar(dot)fr, which is available in English. Direct transfers by taxi are available either from the airport or from the train stations, but are expensive and need to be booked well in advance.
When can you come on a transformational From Troubled to Triumphant: Find Solid Ground in a Life Quake Retreat?
We’d love to welcome you to our little part of paradise here in the sun-blessed southwest of France on the first Saturday of every month from March to December. The retreat starts at 14h on Saturdays and ends at 12h on Fridays.
Fringe Benefits
- Pre-retreat chat with retreat host.
- an intense and insight-giving pre-retreat email course to prepare you for your retreat
- a 40-page e-guide “Make Your Next Retreat Your Best Retreat Ever” that you can use to enrich your retreat experience
- a copy of one of Dr Montagu’s 200-page e-books: Embracing Change in 10 Minutes a Day
- detailed instructions on how to keep a travel diary, so that you can benefit from what you learned for years after your retreat ended
- an online coaching session a week after the end of the retreat, to help you integrate what you have discovered during the retreat into everyday life, once you are back home.
- A Certificate of Completion that mentions the kilometres walked on the Camino
- Access to a private WhatsApp group for those who register for the retreat so that everyone can get to know each other and coordinate travel plans pre-arrival.
- a 10% discount on the advanced retreat (valid for 12 months) – this transformational retreat is only available to From Troubled to Triumphant retreat graduates
How much does a From Troubled to Triumphant: Find Solid Ground in a Life Quake cost?
At the end of this retreat, you’ll feel intensely alive, profoundly rested, serenely contented, positively radiant, irrepressibly energetic, bien dans votre peau… and at least ten years younger. The new you grabs every second of every minute of every hour of the day and squeeze every last ounce of meaning out of it.
Prepare to be a different person by the time you have to tear yourself away from this profoundly restful and peaceful haven to return home.
| The From Troubled to Triumphant: Find Solid Ground in a Life Quake retreat is a once-in-a-lifetime transformational retreat. This life-changing 7-day 6-night retreat includes accommodation, meals, transport, activities, coaching and coaching materials and costs 1799€ for a single bedroom and 3399€ for 2 people in a double bedroom. Similar accommodation for 6 nights in this region would cost 740€ already. To ensure participants get the attention they need, no more than four participants attend each retreat. Payment Plans are available. Please read the Terms and Conditions before booking. Full payment is due 30 days before the retreat starts |
| Think of asking your employer to pay for this transformational stress management retreat, you can motivate your application by mentioning that according to Forbes, approximately 70% of people experienced burnout in the last year. Work-related consequences include job dissatisfaction, decreased productivity, poor performance, professional mistakes, absenteeism, quiet quitting and resignations resulting in a high turnover rate. Although conditions at work may also need improvement, a retreat focused on stress management, led by a medical doctor; can contribute significantly to preventing burnout in employees. |
Are you ready for an unforgettable retreat that will leave you feeling vibrantly alive, full of joie de vivre, deliciously indulged and profoundly relaxed from the top of your head to the tips of your toes? There are only 10 of these transformational retreats per year and only 3-4 guests per retreat- Contact me at welcome2gascony@gmail.com to inquire about availability and to pay a 450€ deposit to secure your spot.
Imagine how different your life will be in a year’s time if you decide to change your life by attending this retreat.
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©MMontagu