It hit me somewhere between the oat milk and the probiotic yoghurts, just how many variations of “fix yourself” we’ve been sold. I stood there trying to remember what I came for, blinking through a brain fog that had lasted a year, maybe more. I picked up cheese. Not because I wanted it, but because it was solid, and I needed something solid.

Later, I typed “perimenopause” into the search bar for the twentieth time that month, half-hoping it would give me a new answer. One that didn’t involve supplements named after lunar cycles.

I’m 50, I have no transformation, no inner fire, no blooming into power story. Just the slow, steady erosion of illusions I didn’t know I’d bought into: that womanhood is a project, that aging is a glitch, that if we just meditate harder, drink more water (this one is probably true), and believe in ourselves, we’ll finally arrive. But arrive where?

All this healing talk is a cultural addiction to endless becoming. Wellness isn’t about being well; it’s about being visibly in progress. It is about ‘doing the work.’ There’s status in showing you’re trying… and killing yourself in the process.

And women? We’re given an endless supply of gentle demands. Be soft, but fierce. Be open, but not too open. Process your trauma, but make it inspirational. The unspoken rule: don’t make anyone uncomfortable, especially not with your discomfort. Better: avoid the discomfort altogether.

Unmade Retreat was born not out of inspiration, but irritation (probably influenced also by hormonal turbulence), after running many women’s retreats where women told me they were tired, tired of narrating their pain, tired of trying to find the ‘gift’ in every loss. It came out of my frustration with transformation and healing commodification, or wellness journey narratives. I created this retreat because I wanted to walk and sit with other women. Stare at firewood, drink tea and talk about nothing. Or talk about everything. It’s ordinary, and that’s the point. You come as you are.

Unmade Retreat isn’t a rebellion. It’s not dramatic enough for that. It’s a pause. A space where nothing needs to be solved, or even named. It’s what’s left when you let go of the pressure to achieve some elusive better version of your higher self (I know, that phrase tastes like a word salad).

There’s no grand finale here. Just presence. And maybe some cheese. Or not.