Blending soulful insight, dry wit, and hard-earned real-world wisdom, these articles offer more than just feel-good inspiration — they’re field guides for anyone who’s found themselves standing at a crossroads or stuck in a life crisis. Whether you’re navigating an empty nest, a career change, a major loss, or just a nagging sense that your life needs a rewrite, you’ll find thoughtful guidance, gentle provocation, and the occasional laugh — all aimed at helping you rediscover clarity, reclaim your purpose, and set off in a new, more aligned direction.
- I was Surprised to Discover that my Co-Host Doesn’t Want a Salary
. For years, I planned reflection exercises the way I imagine a nervous conference organiser plans icebreakers — carefully, a little anxiously, with a backup in case the first one fell flat. A guided journaling prompt after brunch. A short silent walk with a question to chew on. A candle, occasionally, if I’m honest, which …Continue reading “I was Surprised to Discover that my Co-Host Doesn’t Want a Salary”
- What Years of Farmhouse Hospitality Taught Me About What Actually Matters to Guests
. For the first year or two of hosting Camino de Santiago walking retreats, I worried about the wrong things. I fretted over the towels. I agonised slightly over whether the guest rooms felt “smart” enough, whether the breakfast presentation looked sufficiently considered, whether I measured up to the polished retreat centres with their infinity … - It’s Easier to Talk, Facing Forward, Walking Side by Side
. I used to believe the most meaningful conversations happened at dinner. Good food, candlelight, everyone finally relaxed after a day’s walking — surely that was where people opened up. Sometimes, it is. But not always. Sometimes, the real conversations, the ones guests still mention to me months later, don’t happen at the table. They …Continue reading “It’s Easier to Talk, Facing Forward, Walking Side by Side”
- Difficult Conversation Coming Up? Talk While Walking Together
. What years of hosting Camino de Santiago walking retreats in France taught me about connection on the trail I’ve watched a lot of icebreakers fail in my time. Name games, “two truths and a lie,” the earnest go-round where everyone shares what they’re hoping to get from the retreat — I’ve tried most of …Continue reading “Difficult Conversation Coming Up? Talk While Walking Together”
- Why Guests Come Back Again and Again: The Real Reason People Rebook a Retreat
. I used to think I was in the walking business. . After enough Camino de Santiago walking retreats along the Voie du Puy, I’ve had to quietly revise that. I’m not in the walking business. I’m in the business of letting people be someone slightly different for a week — and the walking, as …Continue reading “Why Guests Come Back Again and Again: The Real Reason People Rebook a Retreat”
- What Horses Can Teach Us About Effective Stress Management
A strange thing happens when you lean your forehead against a horse’s shoulder. I didn’t fully appreciate the stress management effect until a guest, a cardiologist, of all people, told me she could feel her own heart rate drop within about ninety seconds of standing next to Valentino. She wasn’t being poetic. She was, quite …Continue reading “What Horses Can Teach Us About Effective Stress Management”
- The Importance of Knowing the Difference Between Being Alone and Feeling Lonely
. One of the questions I’m asked most often is whether my guests feel lonely walking the Camino on their own. The answer surprises many people. Almost never. People often assume that solitude and loneliness are the same thing. They aren’t. In fact, after hosting dozens of Camino de Santiago walking retreats over the years, …Continue reading “The Importance of Knowing the Difference Between Being Alone and Feeling Lonely”
- Small Group Retreats: Four Is a Group. Five Is a Committee.
. . There’s a number I’ve become slightly obsessive about, and it isn’t a step count. It’s four. After years of hosting small group Camino retreats from my farmhouse in Gascony, I’ve come to believe that somewhere between three guests and four, something magical happens. And somewhere between four and five, that same magical something …Continue reading “Small Group Retreats: Four Is a Group. Five Is a Committee.”
- Walking Together Quotes – Why Some Are Meaningful and Others Less So
I love collecting meaningful quotes because I’m a hoarder at heart. Just collecting quotes for the sake of collecting them is no longer as satisfying as it used to be. These days, I tend to ponder the meaning of each quote before I add it to my collection. Must be something to do with getting …Continue reading “Walking Together Quotes – Why Some Are Meaningful and Others Less So”
- How to Know When NOT to Take Decisive Action
Sometimes Standing Still Is the Most Courageous Step You Can Take . We tend to admire people who take decisive action. The person who quits the corporate job to sail around the world. The couple who sell everything and move to Tuscany. The entrepreneur who launches a new business at sixty-five. These are the stories …Continue reading “How to Know When NOT to Take Decisive Action”
- What Horses Can Teach Us About Authentic Leadership
For years, whenever someone asked me about leadership, I gave the answer I thought I was supposed to give. I talked about vision. I talked about decisiveness. I talked about the importance of being the one in the room who makes the call. It was a perfectly serviceable answer, and it was also, I now …Continue reading “What Horses Can Teach Us About Authentic Leadership”
- What If I Don’t Want to Be Transformed on a Walking Retreat?
What if you don’t want to discover your life purpose, reinvent yourself, release your limiting beliefs, become your best self or emerge from the Gascon countryside at dawn knowing exactly what you’re going to do with the next thirty years? What if you would simply like to walk somewhere beautiful, eat something delicious, sleep properly …Continue reading “What If I Don’t Want to Be Transformed on a Walking Retreat?”
- Is it Possible To Rebuild Trust After Betrayal?
Rebuilding Trust After Betrayal in Friendships – more indepth article I was in the middle of one of the hardest weeks of my life when a friend of over a decade simply stopped being there for me. Not dramatically — there was no argument, no angry text, no falling out I could point to. She …Continue reading “Is it Possible To Rebuild Trust After Betrayal?”
- What Horses Can Teach Us About Setting Healthy Boundaries
I used to think setting healthy boundaries had to be dramatic to count. That you needed a raised voice, or a slammed door, or at the very least a strongly worded text, for a boundary to register. Turns out I only believed this because I’d never before watched Loki work a paddock. Loki is the …Continue reading “What Horses Can Teach Us About Setting Healthy Boundaries”
- How Tired Are You, Really? Signs of Burnout You’ve Learned to Ignore
. A Camino de Santiago walking retreat host on the quiet exhaustion so many high-achievers mistake for normality One of the questions I ask every guest when they arrive is, “How are you?” Almost everyone gives roughly the same answer. “Oh, I’m fine.” Or perhaps, “A bit tired,” usually accompanied by a smile that suggests …Continue reading “How Tired Are You, Really? Signs of Burnout You’ve Learned to Ignore”
- What Horses Can Teach Us About Patience
I have never once managed to hurry a horse into trusting me. I want to be very clear about this, because for the first few months after I brought Tess home, I tried. Not obviously, of course. I wasn’t standing in the paddock barking commands. But there was a quieter version of rushing that I …
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Author Bio: Dr Margaretha Montagu – described as a “game changer”, “gifted healer”, “guiding light” and “life-enriching author” – is an experienced medical doctor, a certified NLP practitioner, a medical hypnotherapist, an equine-assisted psychotherapist (EAGALAcertified) and a transformational retreat leader who guides her clients through life transitions – virtually, or with the assistance of her Friesian and Falabella horses, at their home in the southwest of France.
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