Wish you were here?

Some of you will have heard me talk about my enforced sabbatical at Samye Ling Buddhist monastery in the Spring of 2016. Ceremoniously 'dumped' there by my eldest daughter, I was left there for a week and told to 'sort my bloody self out'.
After a whole life of cramming so much in to each day that people constantly said to me "I don't know how you do it" and working and mixing with people who replied 'Busy' when asked how they were; a week of no internet, no responsibilities, no work and no family to sort should have been a relief. But the reality was far from a relief, in fact it was scary as hell.
I had a whole week of doing nothing - and in that nothingness I started to understand about wholeness.
In the 20 months since, I haven't shaved all my hair off and donned Burgandy robes, or given up work and moved into a treehouse, but...... I have consciously and deliberately changed the way I work and the things I prioritise.
People who have known me for years remark that I look younger, happier, calmer, which is lovely, but what is truly important to me, is that the anxious knot that lived at the top of my stomach as far back as I can remember, has dissolved almost to nothing and I believe that soon, it will be gone all together. I can recognise immediately, the things that feed the knot and I know how to instantly diffuse them.
Many of the busy people I coach and mentor, men and women, are so used to living with this knot of anxiety, that they don't even realise it's not normal. They like the 'buzz' of constantly being 'on', being up against a deadline, fitting 30 hours into a 24 hour day, looking at the TV, mobile, internet all at the same time; but it's an addiction and the cortisol flowing through your body when you live like this, damages every cell and leads to chronic illness.
I had to stop and be on my own for a week to realise that life does not become fuller the more you pack in, it becomes fuller when you pause and realise that wealth is not about the money you earn but what you would have left if all the money was gone.
On 22.4,18, at the behest of many of my clients, I am hosting the first Role 5 day retreat for overworked and overwhelmed women. It's called STOP, because so many women have said to me during 2017, I just want to get off this treadmill and stop for a while.
The retreat is at Carsaig House on the Isle of Mull (see the picture) and there's nothing there but sea, hills, space and time. It's a guided retreat for 14 women, encompassing Leadership Embodiment level one, which is a beautiful combination of Aikido and Mindfulness, plus Heartmath resilience coaching, drama based workshops around purpose and communication and optional coastal or hill-walking. The house is luxurious and the cottages are cozy.
So, if any of you busy women want the best Christmas present you could ever dream of, ask Santa for a week of discovery and be prepared to discover someone you might have lost.
Yourself. 
For full details and to book click the link below
stop_incl_reg_form.docx