Offering access to an Equine-assisted Empowerment Day Retreat with Dr Margaretha Montagu and her Friesian and Falabella horses in the foothills of the French Pyrenées Mountains
A limited number of Day Passes are available for a minimum of 2 people and a maximum of 8 people, thus ensuring that each participant will get the experience of working directly with the horses in a small group setting with the additional benefit of the transformational effect of the group synergy.
Day Passes can also be booked by couples, friends, a mother/daughter etc. on birthdays, anniversaries, graduations etc. or by work colleagues.
Day Passes are available on Fridays from the beginning of June to the end of November.
If you would like to attend an Equine-assisted Empowerment Day Retreat, please send an e-mail to welcome2gascony(at)gmail.com, with ‘Day Pass’ as its heading.
A Confidence-boosting Stress-busting Day Retreat is for you if you have a niggling feeling that you are meant to do something much more meaningful with your life but you are not confident and assertive enough to make it happen and you feel stressed, drained, exhausted and overwhelmed but don’t know what to do about it.
Would you feel less stressed if you could be more assertive?
If you were more assertive
- You could say no and mean it, without having to feel guilty and without having to make excuses. you would not agree to take on more work than you have time for, or that you do not really want to do.
- You would not agree to take on more work than you have time for, or that you do not really want to do.
- You could stand up for yourself and refuse to oblige when people try to use you to their own ends.
- You could have more balanced and mutually beneficial relationships with your significant other, your family, your friends and your colleagues.
- You could make time for yourself, you could look after yourself better, you could prioritise your own needs and wants and concentrate on realising outcomes that are important to you.
- You could say what you mean without worrying what other people will think of you
- You could be authentically you. You would not need to live to up to other people’s expectations of you. You could claim your unique feminine power and live a purposeful, productive and prosperous life without regrets.
If you were more assertive, you would be so much less stressed! And if you were less stressed, you would be less at risk of physical and mental illnesses caused or worsened by the unrelenting and escalation stress that characterises modern life.
If I offered to introduce you to an infallible technique that will make you dramatically more assertive, would you be interested? A way to combat stress that is easy to incorporate into your daily life, doesn’t need you to buy any fancy equipment, takes 10-15 minutes a day and does not cost anything to put into practice?
I am sure you would.
That is why I created our Confidence-boosting and Stress-busting Equine-assisted Personal Empowerment Days based on equine-assisted mindfulness and equine-guided meditation for stress management.
This Day Retreat can enable you to:
- Effectively handle and reduce the conflict in your day-to-day interactions
- Say ‘No’ without feeling guilty and without feeling the need to make excuses
- Foster more supportive and more fulfilling relationships
- Connect easily and deepen connections with less effort
- Communicate with more ease and greater effect
- Put yourself and your interests first without neglecting the needs of those important to you
- Determine clear boundaries to avoid being taken advantage of
- Get rid of your limiting and inhibiting shyness
- Dramatically reduce the stress you are suffering from and so protect yourself from the damaging physical and mental effects of long-term stress
Honestly, once you have experienced the infinite inner peace that becomes yours during a mindfulness meditation session led by the herd, you will no longer have to worry about burnout and the dangerous effects of prolonged stress on your physical and mental health.
That is not all. There is much more to this Retreat Day than a morning equine-assisted mindfulness session and an afternoon equine-guided meditation session.
Each day consists of a 3-hour morning session that includes:
- On arrival, a walking meditation session with the horses – a powerfully stress-busting meditation method that you can easily add to your day – on your way to work, for example.
- A short briefing session during which we will discuss any concerns participants may have about working with the horses and during which you will find out exactly what to expect during the equine-assisted coaching session
- An equine-assisted experiential learning session after we have introduced you to each horse individually and you choose the horse you want to work with
- A longer debriefing session when we discuss the experience with the horses and determine exactly to what extent the horses have helped each participant become more assertive and how they can transfer what they have learnt from the horses into their everyday lives.
And a 3-hour afternoon session that includes
- An equine-facilitated mindfulness exercise
- An equine-guided meditation
- A writing meditation, focusing on the empowering benefits of journalling
- A discussion of what you have learnt and achieved during your retreat day over a cup of tea/coffee/hot chocolate and pastries.
In addition, each participant receives
- A pre-retreat day preparation pack via e-mail
- An e-book copy of the latest edition of Dr Montagu’s book Mindfulness and Meditation in the South of France
- A certificate of completion
“This was an absolutely amazing experience. Life-changing, totally. Due to a seriously unfortunate experience with horses in my childhood, horses scared me witless. Today I not only overcame that fear, I learned how to defend my boundaries against two humongous Friesian horses. After this, no one is ever going to make me do anything that I am not 100% committed to do. The meditation sessions were out of this world. I have meditated before, but never like this. An unforgettable experience that I very highly recommend.” S. Bradshaw
You will walk away from this day retreat confident that you can handle whatever challenges come your way. You will feel more alive, energised and positive about your future and about life in general than you’ve felt in years.
Now is the time to invest in yourself and your future. Consider how much time and money you have wasted over the years on countless self-help books, self-help programs and consultations with so-called experts that never offered you a practical way of increasing your confidence and assertiveness, nor a sustainable way to manage the stress that you are suffering from.
Cost
- Option 1 Morning or afternoon attendance 75€ pp
- Option 2 Morning, lunch and afternoon attendance 149€ pp
You could continue to try to figure this out on your own. You can keep on desperately trying each new stress-busting or confidence-boosting method that appears on the horizon for the next two, five, ten or twenty years.
Or you could contact us to discuss the possibility of attending an Equine-assisted Empowerment day retreat.
All you have to do is
- Send an email to welcome2gascony@gmail.com with “Day Pass” as its subject.
- Include your name, your age, the size of your group and a little bit about why you are interested in my Equine-assisted Empowerment Day Retreats
- Give me an indication of when you would like to attend one of a day retreat
I look forward to hearing from you and even more to working with you and with our horses to help you attain and maintain the life of your dreams.
All the best for now,
Margaretha
About Dr Margaretha Montagu
Qualifications
Dr Montagu (MBChB, MRCGP, NLP cert, Med Hyp Dip and EAGALA cert level 2) is an experienced medical doctor, medical hypnotherapist, an NLP practitioner and an equine-assisted psychotherapist (EAGALA cert level II). She has worked in a variety of medical disciplines, including Psychiatry. She worked in Jersey, in the Channel Islands for 12 years – 8 and a half of these years as a General Practitioner. Dr Montagu has retired from medical practice and now shares what she has learned through workshops and public speaking in the UK, France, Holland, Belgium and South Africa and during her residential Equine Guided Growth Workshops.
Approach
In spite of these qualifications, Dr Montagu is a very down-to-earth person who has a warm, personal, active and non-judgemental approach to problem-solving. She will help you address your problems with highly structured, solution-oriented techniques with the assistance of her horses (the “real therapists” as she calls them) and she will treat you with as much respect, dignity and compassion as she treats her horses.
Experience
Dr Montagu has had extensive experience with a variety of individuals covering a wide panorama of disciplines, age, education, ethnic and cultural heritage. Her frequent attendance at professional conventions and participation in continuing education classes and seminars has greatly expanded her repertoire of therapeutic techniques. When working with clients, she draws from many modalities, including Cognitive/Behavioural Therapy, Emotional Focused Couple Therapy, Positive Psychology, Short-term Solution-Focused Therapy, Equine-assisted Experiential Learning and NLP.
Dr Montagu’s approach to equine-assisted experiential learning emphasises self-exploration and self-revelation promoting understanding, recognition, respect, better communication and appreciation of others.
Drawing upon this rich background of training and experience, Dr Montagu and her horses will help you understand, evaluate and neutralise the limiting beliefs that you bring to your present situation so that you may be free to become the kind of person that you always wanted to be.