Le Sentier Tranquille ... a retreat centre in the Pyrenees

Stress is insidious.  

It creeps up on us without our noticing.  It does this by reducing our awareness of what is going on, what we are doing.  We don’t notice that we are working over every night, not just the times we absolutely must;  we forget that we haven’t taken a proper break;  we don’t realise that we never say “no”, take on too much, make promises we can’t keep without sacrificing our own rest & recuperation time, help others and end up not being able to help ourselves.  Social media, smartphones, mobile computing, all cease to be tools and become masters, if not obsessions.  

Stress is usually about boundaries and balance

Its effect is to take away our ability to make proper judgements.  We’re ill more often, we’re constantly irritable and take it out on others, we don’t sleep properly, we need a drink more often, we ‘relax’ with endless channel-hopping television, we’re losing touch with what’s really important.  Until - if we’re lucky - our system says “stop!”.  Mind and body together close down.  Why - if we’re lucky?  Because, if not, our immunity is steadily lowered making us prone to life-threatening conditions, especially cardio-vascular illness.

AtLe Sentier Tranquille is a way to address that before it’s too late.  It is a way which respects who you are and the role you have in life, the people you look after and the work you do, but also helps you to turn back and look at the person inside – not navel-gazing, but finding and asking the questions which matter.  We offer you a setting where you are accepted, where defences and anxieties can start to fall away, where you have genuine empathic companionship to help release you from the stress which is imprisoning you.

We will listen to where you are and work through with you what fits with the person you are, always focusing on the need to be able to re-connect with what’s here and now.  There’s no magic, but there’s an atmosphere which is conducive to unwinding and relaxing, and then there are ways to look at what’s been happening and to re-focus on how you can be.  In the end it’s much less about techniques than about attitude and insight. We will use music and poetry, walking, meditation, counselling, drawing, and just looking… not because you need to become ‘good’ in these, but because they will all help you to re-connect.