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.
- Why Hitting Rock Bottom Actually Makes Your Brain Smarter: The Science of Dopamine Dips and Resilience
Your Setback Is Rewiring Your Brain for Success: Understanding Dopamine Dips, Plasticity, and Life Transitions What this is: A neuroscience-backed exploration of why your worst moments might be creating your wisest self, with practical strategies for harnessing your brain’s natural rewiring process during life transitions. What this isn’t: Toxic positivity dressed up as science, or … - What Nobody Tells You About Starting Over After DivorceWhy Purpose matters more than ever when you are going through a Divorce/Breakup What this is: A frank, research-informed look at why reconnecting with purpose isn’t just feel-good advice when you’re divorcing, it’s the difference between starting over and simply surviving. Expect practical strategies, not platitudes. What this isn’t: Another “you’ll be fine” pep talk …
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- The Ultimate Digital Detox: “You Mean People Will Pay to Just… sit and Read?”“The best moments in reading are when you come across something – a thought, a feeling, a way of looking at things – which you had thought special and particular to you. Now here it is, set down by someone else, a person you have never met, someone even who is long dead. And it …
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- Preserving the Essence of Human ConnectionWhy I won’t be unleashing a “Digital Margaretha” upon the world any time soon Every few months, someone asks me a question that makes me blink slowly, tilt my head, and wonder whether I’ve missed a memo. The latest one goes something like this: “Have you thought about creating an AI version of yourself?” You …
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- Winter’s Grip – My First Attempt at Writing a Proper PoemMy fingers ache inside my gloves,each movement slow and clumsy now,the kind of cold that steals your grip.I hoist the bales with stiffened limbs,feel needles shoot across my back,the rough hay scraping at my wristswhere skin meets air, already cracked.The water sloshes, heavy, dark,my shoulders burning with the weight.Ice glistens on the surface as I …
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- The Reading Retreat: The recalibration method to use when everything else has failedTrade your to-do list for a stack of books: The counterintuitive reason high achievers are choosing books over bootcamps What This Is: A research-backed exploration of why deliberately stepping away to read, intently and without interruption, can create more meaningful life change than months of frantic productivity. What This Isn’t: A prescription to abandon responsibility, …
- Protected: Why AI Is Your Secret Weapon for Intermittent Fasting SuccessThis content is password protected.
- Why Storytelling During a Divorce Recovery Retreat Might Be the Plot Twist You NeedWhat 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 …
- Countdown to Christmas Calendar Day 24December 24, 2025 – Christmas Eve Theme: Making Friends and Maintaining Friendships during Life Transitions Today’s Story: The Novel Unwritten Louise sat at her desk on December 19th, staring at a blank document titled “Chapter One—Draft 47” while her cursor blinked with what felt like instant judgment. Outside her window, Labastide d’Armagnac’s medieval square was …
- Countdown to Christmas Calendar Day 23December 23, 2025 – 2 days to Christmas and before-last post in this series Theme: Making Friends and Maintaining Friendships during Life Transitions Today’s Story: The Lighthouse Elise sat on her living room floor on December 23rd, surrounded by thirty-seven years of teaching materials in cardboard boxes that smelled like dust and institutional failure. She’d …
- Christmas Calendar Countdown – Day 22Theme: Making Friends and Maintaining Friendships December 22, 2015 – 3 days to Christmas Today’s Story: Les Dolphins Argentés Monique stood at her kitchen window on Christmas morning. It was 9:47 AM. The Biarritz Bain de Noël—the traditional Christmas Day Dip in the Atlantic Ocean organised by Les Ours Blancs, would start at 10:30 at …
- Countdown to Christmas Calendar Day 21Theme: Making Friends and Maintaining Friendships December 21, 2025 – 4 days to Christmas Today’s Story: The Last, Late Harvest André sat in the vineyard office, a generous term for a stone shed with a desk and a filing cabinet that smelled like mildew, staring at the contract from Bordeaux Wines International. Clean, simple, devastating: …
- Countdown to Christmas Calendar Day 2020 December 2025 – 5 days to Christmas! Theme: Making Friends and Maintaining Friendships Today’s Story: An Alternative Christmas Letter Donna sat at the wooden table in her rented ski cabin, laptop open, staring at a blank document titled “Christmas Letter 2025.” Outside, snow fell steadily on the Pyrenées mountains, muffling the world in white …
- Countdown to Christmas Calendar – Day 19December 19, 2025 – 6 days to Christmas! Theme: Making Friends and Maintaining Friendships Today’s Story: Christmas Punch (Recipe Included) For Penny. Eleanor had been hunting for the nutmeg—surely she’d bought nutmeg at some point in the last two decades—when her hand touched a dusty cardboard box, wedged behind the huge punch bowl she never …
- Countdown to Christmas Calendar – Day 1818 December 2025 – only 7 days to Christmas! Theme: Making Friends and Maintaining Friendships in Difficult Times Today’s Story: Walking Wednesdays Harold stood in the car park of the Plage de Messanges, watching a group of men mill about near the wooden walkway that led down to the beach. December wind came off the …
- Countdown to Christmas Calendar Day 17Theme: Making Friends and Maintaining Friendships December 17, 2025 – 8 days to Christmas Today’s Story: One Step at a Time For Rosie. Céline had officially decided that life could take its unwanted diagnosis and kindly shove it into a snowdrift. Preferably one a million miles from her little flat. Lourdes had turned itself into …
Ready to start again, stronger than ever before? This quiz will help you find out. It is not just about measuring where you are right now; it’s about shining a light on the areas of your life that feel meaningful, as well as those that might need attention. It’s an opportunity to reflect, recalibrate, and take steps toward a life that’s not only successful but profoundly fulfilling. Take The Quiz
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.