I changed my mind

I know. I feel a bit daft, if I’m honest. Some of the lovely women I work with — clients, community members, proper good eggs — had a quiet word with me. Then I had a quiet word with myself (with a brew and a biscuit), and do you know what? We all agreed: The Wild Woman retreat shouldn’t end.

So I’m bringing it back next year. I love it too much, it’s too special, and now I feel tucked up with the decision.

I’m sorry for all the back and forth — but I’ve got to tell you, the reason I even considered pulling the plug was because some absolute yahoo came on my August retreat and completely twisted my melon.

Well — it was two women actually, one was just a bit bonkers and the other brought her demonic, maladjusted inner little girl to the party and drank all the vodka! 

She was so toxic I turned into an emotional puddle for days. Honestly didn’t know what to do with myself. What gutted me the most was that I’d let her in amongst other vulnerable, open-hearted women — women who came for healing, community, and a bit of horse-based peace.

She had a lovely lady in tears on the second day. She disrupted the whole thing like a Tasmanian devil in a wind chime shop. Now, I’ve been running women’s retreats for over a decade and until now, the Wild Women have all been wonderful — funny, fierce, kind, even if they were hurting. This one? She turned up with an agenda. So big you could see it from the moon. Let’s call her Perpetua. 

The other disruptive guest just didn’t help matters and latched onto the disruption like she was following a mud-cart thinking it was a wedding! Let’s call her Sally. 

Sally farted, groaned, belched and emotionally side-eyed her way through the all the activities. She loudly announced every pelvic floor exercise and bellowed through yoga until the walls rattled. She interrupted shares and meditations to announce yet another spiritual rebirth and then contort into demonstrative “labour”. At one point, a lovely lady was showing me a little video of her doing ballroom dancing — and Sally, noticing the attention was elsewhere for two minutes, loudly accused her of having an “oversized ego”.  Oh deeeyer. 

But back to Sally. The first thing she said on arrival? “I don’t really want to be part of a group.”

Alrighty then. Great start.

She said she wanted to “dip in and out”, didn’t want to see anyone cry because she’s a therapist (and that “pisses her off”), and she likes to “do her own thing.” All this in the first hour. I nearly packed up there and then.

But I didn’t. I tried — bless me — to gently draw her in. “You’ve joined a GROUP women’s retreat,” I said, “where healing arises from looking after each other.” But she looked at me like I worked in admissions for the Magdalene Laundries.

The next morning, she gathered three other women and marched them down to Costa. During yoga. They missed 45 minutes — came back late, branded drinks in hand — and said “I can’t do two hours of yoga anyway,” The other two ladies nodded sniffly while laying back on their yoga mats to sip hot chocolate. Perpetua was making bullets for the other women to fire! 

Then she dragged a chair out, flung her yoga mat to one side, rooted through her bag for car keys, slammed doors, left the building, came back in, did a random headstand in the corner and loudly declared she “should’ve gone for a run instead.” Meanwhile, Sally was mooing through her rebirth in the other corner.

It was utterly bonkers. But I was utterly focused on continuing to try and draw them into the philosophy and activities. 

When we went out to be with the horses — it was an animal connection retreat, after all — Perpetua looked panicked. “How long do we have to do this for?” she asked, like someone had sentenced her to community service. Later, during a gentle group share, she announced the retreat was “nothing like she’d expected” and that she had to leave meditation early because she needed a nap.

I tried to encourage her to lie on a yoga mat in the sun but it may as well have been an custom community service jumpsuit. Off she went, took two women with her… and they never came back. We waited three hours for them to show up for dinner. Nothing. No message, no goodbye. They just left.

The retreat was so disrupted, I had to offer a second retreat for the participants who were affected by the Sally and Perpetua. I don’t normally offer free spots — I have rescue horses to look after, after all— but in this case, I’m more than happy to. Lindsay and her friend deserve the experience they came for.

I flew to Majorca the day after the retreat, still in total shock. Completely baffled. Spoke to loads of people, asked for advice, mulled it all over in the sun when I should have been playing with my daughter. And I’ve come to this:

Yes, I’ll be bringing Wild Woman Retreat back next year.

Yes, I’m tightening things up.

From now on, women will be informally screened before joining. Not to be exclusionary — but to make sure they’re genuinely ready to do the work. That means being honest with yourself, turning inward, and owning your own stuff.

Also: this is a group experience. It’s not a bespoke wellness weekend for your inner diva. Group first. Always. For this work, that is where the gold is — and frankly, it’s what makes you less of a knob and a much nicer person to be around.

A(wo)men

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