TRAVEL TRIBES

Tabitha frowns an even more brow-furrowed frown than the “Boat” pose normally demands. “Really?” she wheezes, glaring at the yoga instructor. “At the Samudra retreat last weekend we were told to tilt our pelvises forward, not stay in neutral.”

“Fabulous retreat, Samudra,” Tabitha whispers to the woman on the yoga mat to her left. “Better instructors than this, and they have this divine raw vegan chef.”

After her divorce, and during the launch of her new e-commerce business, Tabitha resisted habits that help us in challenging times. Her lips didn’t touch a cigarette and she wriggled out of the comforting arms of chocolate. The only thing that Tabitha binges on these days is health retreats.

She’s burnt out, she tells friends, emotionally exhausted; and after years of people-pleasing it’s time to lavish love – and thousands of pounds – on fixing herself. She’s sipped green juices at boot camps in Ibiza, nibbled on nothing but bread and yogurt at German clinics to reboot her digestion, and meditated all over Somerset.

“I mean, I used to spend so much money on designer clothes, fancy meals out and cocktails,” she says to the gentleman on her right, mid Downward Dog.

Every time Tabitha returns home she pronounces herself “reset”. But days later her fingers are hovering over the “Book” button for yet another trip. “My daughter Chloe says I’ve just replaced my old habits with a new health-retreat habit,” Tabitha hisses to the instructor. “But what would she know? She’s never even meditated.”