What this is: A deep dive into why telling your story, out loud, to other humans who’ve been through it, matters more than you think. This is about the neuroscience, the heart science, and the practical magic of storytelling during divorce and breakup retreats.

What this isn’t: Another “journaling will fix everything” article. This isn’t about writing in a notebook at 3am (though that has its place). This is about the radical act of speaking your truth in community.

Read this if: You’re tired of keeping it all in. If you’ve been the strong one, the together one, the “I’m fine” one, and you’re wondering what it might feel like to actually say the messy, complicated truth out loud and have someone nod and say, “Me too.”

5 Key Takeaways

Storytelling rewires your brain, literally creating new neural pathways that help you make sense of chaos and move from victim to author of your life.
Speaking your story out loud activates different brain regions than writing it down, creating deeper emotional processing and release.
Witnessing others’ stories normalises your experience, shattering the isolation that keeps so many people stuck in shame.
The act of structuring your narrative gives you agency, transforming “this happened to me” into “this is what I’m making of what happened.”
Storytelling in retreat settings creates lasting bonds, providing a support network that extends far beyond the retreat itself.

Introduction: The Story You’re Not Telling Is Steering Your Life

There’s a story you’re carrying. It has weight. It has sharp edges. You might be telling yourself you’ve moved on, that you’ve processed it, that you’re fine.

But here’s what I’ve learned over 20 years of hosting crisis management retreats: the stories we don’t tell become the stories that tell us what to do. They whisper from the shadows. They dictate our choices. They keep us small.

The story of your divorce or breakup, the one you might be abbreviating into a tidy, socially acceptable summary (“We grew apart,” “It just didn’t work out”), deserves more. Not because you need to dwell on pain, but because the full, complicated, messy truth holds the seeds of who you’re becoming.

In this article, you’ll discover why storytelling during a divorce retreat isn’t just therapeutic window dressing. It’s neuroscience. It’s the bridge between the chapter that ended and the one you’re writing now. You’ll understand what makes storytelling circles different from therapy, journaling, or talking to friends, and why women who engage in this practice report feeling fundamentally changed, not just temporarily soothed.

The Woman Who Found Her Voice in the Foothills of the Pyrenees

Claire Thompson’s Story

Claire Thompson arrived at the retreat on a grey March morning with two suitcases, a perfectly timed smile, and the unmistakable air of a woman who had mastered the art of feeling fine. At 47, she looked exactly like someone who had her life together: neat blazer, excellent shoes, and that particular brand of composure that only comes from years of emotional Pilates—constant holding, tightening, bracing.

She’d been divorced for eight months.

“Amicable,” she said on the first evening, as we sat under the stars looking out towards the Pyrenees. “Very amicable. We’re still friends. Honestly, it was all very grown-up.”

She delivered this line the way one might recite emergency instructions on an airplane—calm, convincing, and clearly rehearsed. The kind of speech that sounds airtight until you notice no one is actually breathing.

The words hovered politely in the air. No one challenged them. The 200-year-old oak trees, wise old introverts, said nothing.

On the second day, after walking the Camino trail through oak forests still stripped bare by winter, Claire found herself sitting quietly with my Friesian horses, who have an uncanny ability to detect emotional incongruence. They don’t care about LinkedIn profiles, carefully curated narratives, or whether something was “for the best.” They are deeply unimpressed by performance.

That’s when something shifted.

“Can I tell you what really happened?” Claire asked, her voice suddenly smaller, less lacquered.

The horses leaned in. Literally. One of them exhaled deeply, which is horse for We’ve been waiting for this.

What followed over the next forty minutes bore little resemblance to the version she’d been offering at dinner parties. It was messy. Contradictory. Full of sharp edges and uncomfortable pauses. There was rage and relief in the same sentence. Grief tangled up with gratitude. Shame sitting awkwardly next to something that might—just might—have been hope.

She talked about the morning she found the messages. How her hands shook so violently she couldn’t hold her coffee cup. How surreal it felt to watch her life split cleanly into before and after in the space of three text messages, all while the kettle continued boiling, oblivious to the existential crisis unfolding beside it.

But then she said the quieter part—the one she almost never admitted.

That she’d known, months before, that something essential had already died between them. That she’d sensed it in the silence, the politeness, the way they talked logistics instead of feelings. And how she’d pretended not to notice. How she’d cooked increasingly elaborate dinners, as if the right combination of rosemary and optimism might resurrect a relationship that had already flatlined.

“I keep thinking I should have tried harder,” she said, tears finally arriving without prior notice. “But I also know I tried so hard I disappeared.”

By the third day, something remarkable had happened. Claire’s voice had changed. It had texture now. Depth. The careful control had softened into something truer. She laughed more freely—real laughter, not the polite exhale people use to signal they’re coping. She cried without apologising. A personal best.

On the final walk, she said, “I spent eight months telling everyone I was fine because I thought that’s what healed people do. But I wasn’t healing. I was performing healing. This—saying it all out loud, letting it be messy, having it witnessed—this is what actual healing feels like.”

Claire went home and, over the following months, made choices she’d previously been too frightened to consider. She changed careers. She moved to the coast. She started dating again—not from panic or loneliness, but from genuine curiosity about who she might become with someone new. A refreshing change from her former strategy of emotional endurance.

The storytelling didn’t fix her life. It did something far more powerful.

It gave her back her voice.

And with her voice came her agency. Her power. Her permission to stop being “fine” and start being real. And from that place, she began writing her next chapter—on her own terms.

Why Does Storytelling Work? The Science and Soul of Shared Narrative

The Neuroscience of Speaking Your Truth

When you tell your story out loud, something extraordinary happens in your brain. Neuroscientists have discovered that storytelling activates multiple brain regions simultaneously: the language centres, yes, but also the sensory cortex, the motor cortex, and crucially, the areas responsible for emotion regulation and meaning-making.

This is why speaking your story creates different results than writing it. Writing is powerful, but it’s primarily a cognitive exercise. Speaking, especially to a witness who reflect back empathy and recognition, engages your entire nervous system. Your body gets involved. Your voice carries emotion that bypassing words alone can’t hold.

I have witnessed this transformation countless times over two decades of hosting retreats. “People arrive holding their stories like grenades,” she explains. “Scared that if they pull the pin, everything will explode. But in the safety of a storytelling circle, they discover that speaking the truth doesn’t destroy them. It liberates them.”

From Chaos to Coherence: Narrative as Medicine

Divorce and breakup create what psychologists call “narrative disruption.” The story you thought you were living, the one where you knew what came next, suddenly ends mid-sentence. You’re left with fragments, contradictions, a plot that makes no sense.

Storytelling circles help you do what your brain desperately needs: create coherence. Not by prettying up the truth or forcing a tidy arc, but by speaking all the pieces, the mess and the beauty, and discovering that even contradictions can coexist in a story that feels true.

My Post-Crisis Protocols, online courses with or without mentoring, use storytelling as a foundational tool. Students learn to reframe their narratives, not by denying pain, but by expanding the frame to include possibility, agency, and future-focused meaning.

The Power of Witnesses: When Community Changes Everything

Although my Divorce Recovery Retreats are one-on-one, storytelling in a group can also be an intensely healing experience.

When eight, ten, twelve women sit in a circle and each shares her story, something alchemical happens. You hear echoes of your own experience in someone else’s words. You recognise yourself in a stranger’s tears. You discover that the shame you’ve been carrying, the particular flavour of failure you thought was uniquely yours, is actually part of a larger human pattern.

This normalisation, this “me too” moment repeated a dozen times over a weekend, shatters isolation more effectively than any reassurance. You’re not broken. You’re not uniquely damaged. You’re human, going through something profoundly difficult, and you’re not alone.

As one online storytelling circle participant wrote in a testimonial: “I came expecting to learn coping strategies. I left with a new family. The women in that circle know me at a level most of my oldest friends don’t, because they’ve seen the real story, not the edited version.”

Storytelling Creates Identity Flexibility

Perhaps most importantly, storytelling during a retreat allows you to try on different versions of your story. In the safety of the circle, you can tell it angry one moment, sad the next. You can acknowledge contradictions. You can say, “I hate him and I miss him” without someone trying to resolve that tension for you.

This flexibility is crucial for healing. Rigid stories keep us stuck. “I’m the victim.” “I’m the failure.” “I’ll never trust again.” These narratives, however emotionally true in the moment, become cages.

Storytelling circles teach you that you can hold multiple truths simultaneously. You can be heartbroken and hopeful. Angry and grateful. Scared and excited. This both/and thinking, rather than either/or, is what allows you to move forward without denying where you’ve been.

How Does Storytelling Transform Not Just You, But Your Whole World?

The Ripple Effect of Speaking Your Truth

When you change your story, you change your life. But it doesn’t stop there.

The women who told their stories during retreats often report that their relationships shift in unexpected ways. Adult children, who’ve been tiptoeing around “mum’s divorce,” suddenly feel permission to be real. Friends, relieved of the burden of pretending everything’s fine, deepen their connections. Even ex-partners sometimes respond differently when you stop performing and start being genuine.

This isn’t magic. It’s authenticity creating space for others to be authentic too. Your willingness to be vulnerable, to stop controlling the narrative, gives permission for everyone around you to do the same.

Building Communities of Resilience

The retreat experience doesn’t end when you go home. The bonds formed in storytelling circles tend to endure. WhatsApp groups stay active for years. Women meet up for annual reunions. They support each other through job changes, health scares, new relationships, losses.

It’s the most heart-warming thing. I have watched retreat groups stay connected for over a decade, providing a network of support that functions like family, but without the complicated history or judgment. “These women, who have never met in person, become each other’s witnesses for life,” she notes. “They’ve seen each other at their most vulnerable, and that creates a bond that’s remarkably durable.”

This community aspect extends the healing far beyond the retreat itself. Instead of returning to isolation, participants return to a web of connection, a group of people who truly understand the journey.

Modelling Resilience for Others

Perhaps the most profound ripple effect is how your healing becomes a template for others.

When you navigate divorce with grace, honesty, and courage, when you allow yourself to struggle publicly rather than performing perfection, you show others what’s possible. Your children, if you have them, learn that life’s hardest moments don’t have to be faced in silence. Your friends going through their own struggles, see that there’s a path through. Your community benefits from having one more person who’s faced darkness and come through it without becoming brittle or bitter.

This isn’t about being a role model in the traditional sense. It’s about being real. And in a culture that pressures us to have it all together, realness is revolutionary.

What Are the 5 Mistakes to Avoid in Storytelling Circles?

1. Trying to Be “Over It” Before You’re Ready

The biggest mistake women make when storytelling is attempting to arrive at the healing before they’ve done the grieving. They want to show up with the neat bow already tied, the lesson learned, the silver lining identified.

But storytelling isn’t about showcasing your growth. It’s about being where you are. If you’re still furious, be furious. If you’re confused, be confused. The transformation happens through the telling, not before it.

2. Editing for Your Audience

It’s tempting to soften the sharp edges, to protect your ex-partner’s reputation, to leave out the parts that feel too ugly or shameful. But the edited version doesn’t heal you.

Obviously, storytelling isn’t about being cruel or gratuitously harsh. But it is about being honest. You need to tell the real story, the one with all its complications, not the PR-friendly version.

3. Comparing Your Story to Others’

In any storytelling circle, there will be stories that feel “worse” than yours. Someone will have faced more dramatic betrayal, longer marriages, more complicated custody battles.

Don’t let this turn into the oppression Olympics. Your pain is valid regardless of how it ranks. Comparison steals the oxygen from vulnerability. Your story deserves to be told exactly as you experienced it.

4. Rushing to Solutions or Advice

When someone shares their story, the temptation to fix, advise, or offer solutions is almost irresistible. Resist it anyway.

The most healing response to someone’s story is: “I hear you. I see you. Thank you for trusting us with this.” Full stop. Let the story breathe. Let it land. Solutions can come later, if they’re invited.

5. Leaving Your Body Behind

Many women tell their divorce stories entirely from the neck up, as if they’re reporting facts for a documentary. But stories live in bodies.

Where was the betrayal held in your body? What did hope feel like? How did anger move through you? Bring your physical experience into the narrative. This is what makes stories visceral, memorable, and ultimately, transformative.

Setting Your Intention: A Powerful Exercise

Before you enter a storytelling circle, or even as you contemplate sharing your story with safe people in your life, try this intention-setting practice.

Find a quiet space. Place both hands on your heart. Close your eyes.

Ask yourself three questions:

What truth have I been afraid to speak?
What do I hope to release by telling this story?
What do I want to be true about me after I’ve spoken?

Write your answers. Not polished prose. Just the raw, first-thought responses.

Create a single intention statement that captures the essence of what you’ve written. For example:

“I intend to speak my truth without shame, to release the weight of performing fine-ness, and to reclaim my voice as the author of my life.”

Say this intention out loud three times. Let your nervous system hear you commit to it. Notice what shifts in your body when you speak it.

Carry this intention with you into the storytelling circle or conversation. Let it guide what you choose to share and what you choose to hold back.

5 FAQs About Storytelling During Divorce Recovery Retreats

What if I start crying and can’t stop?

This fear is universal and understandable. Here’s the truth: you will probably cry. Maybe a lot. And that’s not a problem, it’s the point. Storytelling holds space for all of your emotions. Other participants have tissues. They understand. They’ve been there. And you know what? You will stop crying, eventually. Your nervous system knows how to regulate. Trust the process.

Do I have to share if I’m not ready?

Absolutely not. Storytelling circles work on the principle of invitation, not obligation. You can witness others’ stories without sharing your own. Sometimes bearing witness is exactly the medicine you need. When you’re ready, you’ll know. And if that’s never during this particular retreat, that’s perfectly fine too.

What if my story is too messy or complicated?

Perfect. Bring the mess. Bring the complications. The most healing stories are the ones that don’t tie up neatly. Real life is contradictory, confusing, and rarely follows a tidy arc. Your messy, complicated story is exactly what the circle needs, because it gives permission for everyone else to bring their mess too.

How is this different from therapy?

Therapy typically involves one-on-one work with a professional who guides the process. Storytelling circles are peer-based, community-driven experiences. There’s no diagnosis, no treatment plan, no expert telling you what your story means. The healing comes from being witnessed by others who’ve walked similar paths, and from witnessing them in return. Many retreat participants continue therapy alongside the storytelling work, and the two practices complement each other beautifully.

What if someone in the group judges me or shares my story outside the circle?

Confidentiality is the bedrock of storytelling circles. At the beginning of every circle, every retreat, we commit to the principle: “What’s shared in the circle stays in the circle.” Violations of this trust are extraordinarily rare. The nature of the experience, the vulnerability shared, creates a sacred container that people instinctively honour. That said, you always have agency over what you share and how much detail you include.

Conclusion: Your Story Matters More Than You Think

Here’s what I wish someone had told me years ago, and what I now tell every woman who walks through the retreat door: your story, exactly as you’ve lived it, with all its mess and beauty and contradiction, is worthy of being told.

Not because it needs to be spectacular or unique. Not because it has to inspire others or teach a lesson. But simply because it’s yours, and you deserve to be heard.

The women who come to my online storytelling circles often arrive believing their story is too ordinary, too broken, or too shameful to matter. They leave knowing something profound: speaking your truth in the company of witnesses who reflect back recognition and compassion is one of the most powerful acts of self-reclamation available to us.

As poet Adrienne Rich wrote: “When a woman tells the truth she is creating the possibility for more truth around her.”

Your story doesn’t just heal you. It heals everyone who hears it, everyone who recognises themselves in your courage, everyone who thinks, “If she can face this, maybe I can too.”

So tell it. Messy, complicated, contradictory, and true. Tell it until it stops having power over you and starts having power for you.

Ready to Tell Your Story in the Company of a small herd of Friesian and Falabella horses?

The Unbroken – a Divorce Recovery Retreat in the southwest of France offers two days and nights immersed in the transformative practice of storytelling, complemented by gentle hiking on the Camino de Santiago trails and the grounding presence of Friesian horses who have witnessed countless women finding their voices again.

This isn’t a retreat where you’ll be fixed or lectured. It’s a space where you’ll be seen, heard, and welcomed exactly as you are. Where your story, with all its complications, will be held by a woman who understands the specific texture of divorce grief because she’s lived it herself.

You’ll walk ancient paths, eat meals that nourish both body and soul, and discover that the voice you thought you’d lost is still there, waiting to tell the truth about where you’ve been and where you’re going.

If you’re tired of pretending you’re fine, if you’re ready to be real, if you’re curious about what might happen when you finally speak the whole story out loud, this retreat might be exactly what you need.

Click here to learn more.

A Final Reflection:

If you could tell one truth about your divorce or breakup that you’ve been afraid to say out loud, what would it be? And who would you trust to hear it?

Stop second-guessing yourself. Start owning your success. This book gives you the step-by-step roadmap to break free from imposter syndrome, build unshakable confidence, and finally believe you deserve every bit of your success. You ARE Good Enough!

Designed for those navigating a life transition, the Radical Renaissance Protocol guides you through an identity reset, helping you reconnect with your purpose, realign your values, and reclaim the clarity you thought you’d lost. This isn’t about fixing what’s broken: through reflection, strategic reinvention, and soul-anchored mentoring, you’ll transform uncertainty into direction and dormant potential into meaningful impact.

“I am an experienced medical doctor – MBChB, MRCGP, NLP master pract cert, Transformational Life Coach (dip.) Life Story Coach (cert.) Stress Counselling (cert.) Med Hypnotherapy (dip.) and EAGALA (cert.) I may have an impressive number of letters after my name, and more than three decades of professional experience, but what qualifies me to excel at what I do is my intuitive understanding of my clients’ difficulties and my extensive personal experience of managing major life changes using strategies I developed over many years.” Dr M Montagu

Research

Research on divorce recovery and storytelling largely falls into three overlapping areas: (1) narrative therapy as a structured “re-authoring” intervention, and (2) narrative/meaning-making studies that analyse how people tell divorce stories as part of identity reconstruction.

Narrative therapy (re-authoring)

A 2025 quasi-experimental study tested ten structured narrative-therapy sessions for recently divorced adults and found significant improvements in post-divorce adjustment (measured with the Post-Divorce Adjustment Scale) and significant reductions in grief (measured with the Grief Experience Questionnaire) compared with a no-intervention control group. The authors describe the mechanism as helping participants “reconstruct” divorce narratives through externalising problems, challenging dominant cultural scripts about divorce, and building a future-oriented identity story.

Storytelling as meaning-making (qualitative narrative research)

Qualitative narrative studies treat divorce stories as data and show how people use storytelling to restore coherence after a major identity disruption (e.g., shifting from “spouse” to “independent self”), often through themes like agency, reclaiming dignity, and reinterpreting divorce as a turning point rather than a failure. This work commonly highlights “narrative reconstruction” as an ongoing process—people revise the story over time as social stigma, support, and practical realities change.

The best-supported therapeutic storytelling approaches emphasise guided, relational “re-authoring” (often with externalisation, values, and future narrative practices) rather than unguided cathartic journaling. The broader narrative research base supports the idea that recovery often involves rebuilding identity through coherent self-narratives, but it also warns that cultural scripts (shame, stigma, “failed marriage”) shape which stories feel available and healing.

Karina. Batthyany, Sabine. Kraus, Erwin A. William, Yaliu. Yang Narrative Therapy as an Intervention for Post-Divorce Adjustment and Grief: Examining Psychological Outcomes Published online 01 April 2025 in the Journal of Psychosociological Research in Family and Culture Volume 3, Issue 2, pp 34-42

Why Storytelling During a Divorce Recovery Retreat Might Be the Plot Twist You Need