Dr Margaretha Montagu
With great enthusiasm, I put the essence of who I am and everything I have experienced that makes me who I am into my retreats, courses, coaching and books. Dr Margaretha Montagu
Basically, I’m a cartographer, a map maker, a path lighter, a get-through-a-crisis guide. I help people struggling to find their way through life transitions like career changes, starting new businesses, moving to different countries, getting divorced, losing loved ones, empty nests, debilitating illnesses, retirement – any substantial change – planned or unplanned – in their circumstances.
We go through the same major life changes repeatedly, until we learn the lessons each change offers us. What I do best, is to help people learn that lesson with as little collateral damage as possible and move on.
Sometimes we go through more than one transition at the same time: after a relationship/situationship break-up, we may need to move house, change jobs, or even move to another country to find a new job. Other times, we realise that we are stagnating where we are, and decide to initiate the transition ourselves.
Without a map.
I’ve been there. I understand how challenging life transitions can be, especially transition pile-ups, both personally and professionally. I know what it feels like—the uncertainty, the insecurity, the overthinking, the gut-wrenching fear. In the last 30 years, I have been through several pile-ups, I can’t say it has gotten any easier, but I got better at coping with it, and at learning the life lessons faster, with the steadfast support of my horses.
So if you feel lost in a life transition, I’d like to hear from you.
I reply personally to each one I receive.
Dr Margaretha Montagu (MBChB, MRCGP, NLP master pract cert, Transformational Life Coach dip, Counselling cert, Med Hyp Dip and EAGALA cert)
My Story
I may have a fair number of letters after my name, but that is not what qualifies me to lead retreats, create courses or write books. It is my intuitive understanding of my clients’ difficultires and the strategies that I had to develop to cope with what happened to me during the last 30 years that make me good at what I do.
In the last decade, the debilitating eye disease that threatens my sight got dramatically worse. Several unsuccessful operations have left me completely blind in one eye and with limited sight in the other eye.
Somewhere along the line, during the last ten years, I started writing.
Writing was my salvation. I started small, by keeping a journal. I wrote all the pain, doubt, fear and suffering out of my system and onto the pages of my journal. I somehow managed to find something to be grateful for every day. Eventually, I distilled the content of my journals into books: five books so far, all equine-inspired, life-enriching and subtly French-flavoured.
I wrote these books because I felt an urgent urge to share with as many people as possible how I managed to survive these insufferable years, in case what I have learned can help others cope with equally difficult circumstances.
En plus, there is a certain satisfaction to be had from putting nearly thirty years of knowledge, training and experience down on paper.
During the last 30 years, I have learned how to cope with the stress generated by insecurity. Working as a medical doctor already gave me a fair amount of insight, but it was the fear of going blind that was my most merciless instructor.
I developed a whole arsenal full of tried-and-tested strategies to cope with the challenges that came my way, challenges I often have to face with a severely limited number of resources.
In my books and courses, and during my retreats, my horses and I share these strategies with you. My business is called Eprit Meraki Retreats. In short, “meraki,” μεράκι, is a Greek word that means “made with love.” It is about putting the essence of who you are, joyfully, into your work – a true and pure labour of love.
Blog
As I mentioned, I discovered that I liked writing, so I started a blog called Savoir Vivre Vignettes. I intended the blog to be a shop window showcasing our region, my horses and my retreats. It quickly became much more. Browsing my blog is indeed a bit like visiting me virtually, but it is also a library filled with articles about confidence building, problem-solving, strengthening relationships, conflict resolution and much more.
Latest Savoir Vivre Vignettes posts
- How Strategic Touchpoints Can Transform Your Personal and Professional Relationships
- The Rising Demand for Small Group Retreats
- How to Rebuild Your Self-Confidence after a 3-in-1 Life Transition
- Why I host Walking and Writing Retreats
- 10 Limiting Beliefs Holding You Back from living a Meaningful, Fulfilling, Purposeful Life
Books
My first book is called Self-Confidence Made Simple: 16 Frenchwomen Share Their Self-esteem Secrets. I wrote a second book called Mindfulness and Meditation Options. I also wrote a book for horse riders who have lost their horse riding confidence: Horse Riding Confidence Secrets. My best book ever has to be Embracing Change, 2nd edition. My latest book is called Make the Most of Your Next Retreat.
Online Action
Living here in deepest rural France is pure bliss, but one has to be careful not to become too isolated. Social media is my connection to the world beyond all these glorious sunflower fields, vineyards and woods. When I researched books, I collected a considerable number of quotes, articles and blog posts that I share on BlueSky (@MMontagu.bsky.social) and Instagram (RetreatsSouthofFrance) but my favourite social media haunt is LinkedIn (MargarethaMontagu.) I’d love to connect there. I waste a LOT of time on Pinterest (Margaretha Montagu’s Retreats.) I have a Facebook page that I use as an aide-memoire. It is called Margaretha Montagu’s Retreats.
If you decide to come to one of my potentially life-changing retreats, don’t forget your fur coat, your highest heels and your tiara! If it sounds as if I have lost the plot, click here.
There is one more thing I want you to know.
Despite all my experience, knowledge and qualifications, I am no different from you. I am far from perfect. I do not always practise what I preach. I do not have the answers to all my questions, and I do not have the solutions to all my problems. Like you, I sometimes feel confused and overwhelmed. I am, however, convinced that mindfulness, gratitude and generosity can make a massive difference in your life.
- Interview with Melissa Volpi
- Interview with Hélène T. Stelian downloadable pdf
- Interview with Liz Boulter from the Guardian Newspaper(UK)
One of my favourite Quotes
“No matter how many scars we carry from what we have gone through and suffered in the past, our intrinsic wholeness is still here: what else contains the scars? None of us has to be a helpless victim of what was done to us or what was not done for us in the past, nor do we have to be helpless in the face of what we may be suffering now. We are also what was present before the scarring—our original wholeness, what was born whole. And we can reconnect with that intrinsic wholeness at any time because its very nature is that it is always present. It is who we truly are.” Jon Kabat-Zinn, Full Catastrophe Living