It’s a Sunday evening in London and my WhatsApp pings. Then it pings again. And again. And again. It’s my new best friends, recently met on Heartcore’s first ever retreat in Saint Tropez, plotting a reunion. Back from the trip – four days and nights of dynamic Pilates and yoga, with petanque, pastries and pastis taking up most of the rest of the time – I am glowing with a newfound vitality. But while the Pilates was undoubtedly excellent, (90 minutes a day plus an hour’s yoga) I owe my relaxed vibe, stretchy body and rosy complexion to the connections I made with the Heartcore community – people I’d never met before. From the young corporate lawyer who hails from Ukraine, to the sustainability expert determined to change the world, to the female founder driven to help big corporations find their path to meaningful inclusivity, it’s my mind that has been most stimulated. I’ve opened up, listened to others open up, and not once has the word “therapy” been mentioned.
If you’re reading this as a fully paid-up member of… well, anything frankly, this sort of positive response will feel very normal indeed. But for me, someone who lives in abject fear of being invited to a hen night, who restricts visiting guests to three nights maximum, struggles with villa holidays, can’t wait in a hotel lobby for others without feeling resentful at their lack of respect for punctuality, let alone does any of those activities with exercise thrown in, it is somewhat transformational.
It doesn’t take much amateur psychology to attribute my fear and loathing to being a middle child of five, with several miserable years spent at an all girls convent boarding school, (always picked last for team sports, obviously), but it also stems from a realisation that big groups are just not my thing for a multitude of reasons, from disliking the way that only the loudest are heard (even if their ideas aren’t the best), to disliking the way I then attempt to become the loudest and funniest myself in order to compete, before finally, tragically disliking myself for not being, well… louder, or funnier. Easiest just to not do it. In this instance though, I had no choice. A retreat, with a group of people I didn’t know, seemed the easiest way to shift the exercise rut I had fallen into following a frozen shoulder condition. What could be better than some healthy eating, a little South of France scenery, and lots of Pilates with an amazing teacher?
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I have to give credit to those – my fellow retreat attendees – who realised all this a long time ago. The mind-body connection you get from going on a retreat with other like-minded people, and stretching your muscles while being intellectually stimulated by each other’s company has grown into a movement where articulating ideas and sharing stories has moved front and foremost in the pursuit of “beauty”. And while wellness in general is booming, with the global wellness economy generating $4.4 trillion in revenue during 2020 according to the Global Wellness Institute, and an expected annual growth rate of 7.7 per cent until 2030, it’s retreats in particular that are capturing our imagination.
“Retreats help us to live our best life,” says Caroline Sylger Jones, founding partner of Queen of Retreats, a website specialising in helping us choose the right retreat. “Quite simply, this is what many of us want to do now after the incredibly hard time we’ve had over the last few years.” In her opinion, “retreats are the conduit to step away from our lives, whether we need serious rest, want to change the way we think or feel, to find our voice, to heal or grieve, or reconnect with those we love, to get fitter or find our joy”.
They also – crucially – challenge us to step out of our comfort zones, by immersing ourselves in a community (yes, it’s that word again, I make no apologies), we might not know personally. “Everything we do in a group as opposed to in isolation comes back to us being, at the very heart, social animals,” says Jessie Blum, founder of Heartcore, which is based in London but has a global online studio. “When you work out in a studio instead of in a personal training session, the energy and the dynamic of the team propels you, and lifts you to a higher level of that experience. Once you take that to a retreat, where you’re with people who share the same values, or a passion for something in particular, the “these are my people” way of feeling kicks in, satisfying the emotional need that makes us want to be affiliated with others.” For Blum, who had been teaching by Zoom only for much of the past few years, the Heartcore gathering in Saint Tropez was incredibly satisfying. “We all turned out to be one group in the end, even though we hadn’t met before. It wasn’t forced, it wasn’t even curated, it just happened.”
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So if you’ve never been on a retreat before, what can you expect? Without your usual family and friends at the dining table, the conversation will certainly be different. Roman Carel, co-founder of Harvest, a retreat at the Six Senses Kaplankaya on the Aegean coast of Turkey, which brings thought leaders together to talk on everything from functional medicine to the microbiome to the essence of human nature, has made the exchange of ideas a priority. “There is no barrier at Harvest between speakers, therapists and the audience, and that’s a nice feeling because when you sit down at the dinner table or for breakfast you don’t know what conversation you’re going to have.” Certainly it has challenged his own ideas of the contrasting ways in which we live. “We once had a speaker who believes the only way to eat fish is to catch it yourself, so he was explaining his way of spear fishing and the challenges it throws up. Then the oceanographer Sylvia Earle came on stage and was quite hardcore about how every fish is a being in its own right and we shouldn’t touch them. That moment of contrast put everyone in a little… weird mood. And then we had fish for lunch! It was a very interesting moment in nature!”
If you’re going off on a retreat for the first time, Sylger Jones’s tip is to have the courage to go solo. “And pack lightly – less is so much more,” she says. She also suggests setting up your life so that you can genuinely switch off digitally during the course of your retreats: “You’ll get so much more out of it, so much quicker. I can’t stress this enough!” And having completed my own first retreat, what would my advice be? Don’t be afraid. Two days before I set off, I was dreading being the sole non-gym bunny in a sea of Lycra-clad Pilates devotees. I couldn’t have been more wrong, and now look forward to the ping of the WhatsApp… excuse me, that’ll be my people calling.
Six retreats to try
Heartcore’s next retreat destination is still to be confirmed, but if it’s anything like their last one, at the supremely comfortable Hotel Villa Cosy in Saint Tropez, you can expect plenty of Pilates and yoga, as well as the odd boat trip in a vintage yacht along the coast. No detox here – but you’ll leave feeling fitter, refreshed and having made new friends.
To join the waiting list for the next Heartcore retreat e-mail hello@weareheartcore.com.
Tucked into a hillside in the Peloponnese is the Euphoria Retreat, a haven for anyone in search of a few days of relaxation, drenched in sunshine and overlooking olive groves. Founder Marina Efraimoglou has created the three-night Feel Alive Again Retreat to guide us through the process of unwinding, using meditation, breath work, body work, creativity and journalling.
The next retreat is from 17-20 November, with more to follow in 2023.
Imagine some of the world’s most inspiring speakers gathered in astounding Turkish nature, against the backdrop of a phenomenal Six Senses spa, and that’s somewhere close to the unique retreat that is Harvest Kaplankaya. In the past, thought leaders like Dr Gabor Maté, the Hungarian-Canadian physician and expert in human trauma, microbiome researcher Anita Frauwallner, and functional medicine physician Dr Mark Hyman have gathered to talk about everything from world events to how we can celebrate human potential.
The next retreat is from 10-14 May 2023. Sign up at Harvestkaplankaya.com.
Taking place at the sublime Soneva Fushi resort in the Maldives, the 10-day Soul Festival brings together leading practitioners in Ayurveda, naturopathic doctors, mindfulness and motivational speakers, as well as a gastroenterologist and psychologist for panel discussions, group wellness sessions and immersive workshops. Running from 29 September to 8 October 2023, this is one to plan ahead for.
Book at Soneva.com.
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With a proven track record (50 per cent of guests go back for more) and 12 years in the game, this seven-day retreat isn’t for the faint of heart, but the views as you hike, the deliciousness of the plant-based nutritional diet, and the contagious positivity that builds with each step you take, makes it all an enjoyable, rewarding way to completely recalibrate mind and body.
Find out more at Theranchmalibu.com.
The programme of retreats at Palmaia, the House of Aia on the Mayan coast of Mexico, is like no other. Past attractions have included learning the Wim Hof method (augmenting your focus and stamina with cold immersions and breathing techniques), to discovering the spiritual path of the jaguar, in which you can learn how to move on astral planes (possibly better for the environment than the more conventional kind).
Book at Thehouseofaia.com.
