SUN, SEA AND SOUL-SEARCHING
INSIDE THE FIRST SOUL-SEARCHING CAMP FOR MILLENNIALS
We head to a Spanish hillside, where British millennials are finding themselves...
The Quarter Life Health Project; a sunny seven-day escape claiming to help fix the most stressed, anxious and depressed generation of all time. Alexandra Jones gives it a try – anus breathing and all...
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‘THE REASONS WOMEN HAVE FOR COMING HERE ARE MYRIAD AND MOVING’
SAFE SPACE
The hour-long drive from Málaga airport to the hotel – a sprawling family resort – passes through some of the most primped countryside in the region. The golf courses and chi-chi restaurants suggest a wonderland for the well-heeled, and pulling up the long drive past manicured lawns and immaculate swimming pools fuels my expectations of a few days of luxe wellness: sunbathing, sun salutations, maybe a little unobtrusive soul-searching over gourmet dinners. Inside, I meet Stephanie Kazolides, the 29-year-old Brit who founded the QLHP. (She’s one of those overachievers.) Strikingly beautiful and wearing a flowing tie-dyed dress, she has a demeanour of deep calm that no amount of Headspace could help me emanate. She tells me it was a personal crisis that gave her the idea of founding a self-help retreat for millennials. After battling depression from the ages of 22 to 25, she looked around her friendship group and peers and saw the same issues time and again: low self-worth, guilt, a sense of feeling stuck. ‘I wanted to create a safe space for people my age – in their twenties and thirties,’ she explains. ‘Society doesn’t seem to present opportunities to explore this stuff. My biggest personal breakthroughs for my mental and emotional health occurred after therapy. I knew we needed a space to integrate the psychological and the spiritual.’ Stephanie led the inaugural retreat in February 2016, aimed at tackling the headline-dominating issues of anxiety, depression and stress. That more than 100 women in their twenties and thirties have since parted with their cash (between £500 and £1,000 depending on the accommodation option you choose) and crossed the threshold is surely testament to the scale of alternative help this generation – my generation – is seeking. The stats are scary. A global survey commissioned by the Varkey Foundation last year found that young people in the UK are among those with the poorest mental wellbeing in the world, with only Japan falling below British millennials. And while 2017 was hailed as a triumph for conversations around mental health, few would contest that we have a long, long way to go. I fit the profile. Last year began with the end of a decade-long relationship, leaving me sick with grief, convinced I had ruined my one chance at happiness. Then there was the 10-year anniversary of my father’s death. We’d had a fraught relationship, and in all honesty I didn’t think about him much after he died. And yet, this felt like a monumental milestone – something that couldn’t be ignored. By the time an email from Stephanie popped into my
inbox last autumn, I was on a waiting list for counselling and taking beta blockers for anxiety. Quite frankly, if she wanted to help me, I was prepared to let her. The youngest women in my contingent are 20; the eldest 36. Among them are bankers, teachers, marketing execs and solicitors. Their reasons for coming here are myriad and moving – an unfulfilling marriage, an eating disorder, an ill parent – but they share a bright-eyed optimism about this place and how it might help them. I smile and nod and listen, but I feel a knot in my stomach – the cynicism I’ve carried with me from London. It all feels a bit too easy. After the year I’ve had, I wonder how much healing you can squeeze into a week. And I worry for these women, too. Best-case scenario, I think, it’s a few days of sunshine away from the grind; worst, it’s a deft commodification of the mental health issues that are raging among us in the UK.
LIVE YOUR EXPERIENCE
This is where my mind is at on day one, as one of my fellow quarter-lifers walks towards me, holding the tea light. She places it on the floor in front of me. It’s my turn to talk. My tears are the first thing that take me by surprise. They trickle down my cheeks without permission as I try to find the words to articulate what brought me here. The reaction of the group is the second thing. There just… isn’t one. No one’s eyes meet mine with silent sympathy, no one pats me on the back, no one hands me a tissue. This is tactical. ‘Live your experience,’ we are told, repeatedly. It might seem harsh, but it’s designed to help us delve into why we are really here, and – truth be told – there is something oddly liberating about being alone with my tears while surrounded by strangers. But I have my limits. We finish the day’s session by holding hands and chanting to call in various spirits, then we walk around the room touching palms and staring into each other’s eyes for far longer than polite British society would usually allow. ‘This,’ I think to myself, staring into yet another stranger’s face, ‘is bloody ridiculous.’ The days that follow are a combination of snigger-inducing sessions and exercises so emotionally exhausting that I actually contemplate packing my bags and arguing my way on to the next flight back to Gatwick. We begin at 7.30am with meditation and yoga, led by a graceful blonde woman called Maya. She guides us to imagine our chakras lighting up and we’re encouraged to breathe into our anuses. Yes, you read that correctly. I open my eyes to see if anyone else finds this ludicrous, but around me, everyone is breathing deeply. They look pretty serene, actually. I suppress an urge to roll my eyes and try to get into it. Once you get past the word ‘anus’, it basically encourages you to breathe through your entire body, which, granted, feels pretty relaxing. The next few hours are filled with sessions led by either Stephanie or fellow leader Rebecca Wilson that aim to help us access our most authentic selves. In one, we are tasked with sitting in silence for two hours while we write letters to our parents, which we later burn ceremoniously; in another, we take it in turns to stand on show as the rest of the group convey love with their eyes. Please. By the penultimate day, which I’m tasked with spending in complete silence while writing a timeline of every single significant relationship I have ever had, I almost welcome the solitude. But it’s to mark the start of a 24-hour period that almost breaks me. Cloistered away in my room conjuring up ancient conversations with my dead dad, I feel rage – towards Stephanie for inventing this bullshit task and towards myself for my reluctance to do it. By the end of the day, the thoughts that used to simmer away quietly below the surface are now roaring through my mind with an urgency I’ve honestly never felt before: all the ways I ruined my 10-year
relationship; shame over not being a good enough daughter; fear of not being a worthy friend. That evening, I’m not the only one openly weeping at the dining room table.
SELF-SUFFICIENCY
The following day will be our last. I catch up with Stephanie. We’re both folded into wicker chairs as the sun sinks below the horizon, turning the courtyard pink. I tell her about some of my issues with the QLHP. I confess that the spirituality element isn’t for me. Why the need to speak of ‘the journey’, I ask her; why the altar; why the rituals; why the chanting? ‘We offer a rounded approach,’ she explains. ‘It’s about mind, body and spirit.’ ‘But I’m not spiritual…’ I contest. ‘This type of spirituality is internal,’ she says. ‘It’s not about someone standing in front of you and telling you what to believe. It’s about your relationship with yourself and with a higher power, whatever that might be.’ Though
‘I’M NOT THE ONLY ONE WEEPING AT THE DINING ROOM TABLE THAT EVENING’
I’m not entirely convinced, I concede that perhaps the spirituality and the sense of a higher power could offer hope to some. I also raise the fact that there isn’t actually a qualified psychotherapist on site. On this, Stephanie is clear. The retreat is largely self-guided. What the staff provide is the space – both physical and emotional – to access emotions that might have otherwise gone ignored, leading to lasting, low-level discontent that could ultimately evolve into something more serious. On this, we are aligned. She is right to acknowledge that there is so little space in our lives to truly explore the issues we all experience: the little daily stressors, the break-ups, the trauma, the losses. I wonder if the depth of emotion I’ve experienced in the past few days could ever have been accessed over a glass of wine with a good friend or via a talking therapy session. If my generation are a bunch of ‘snowflakes’ – the accusatory descriptor often levelled at us due to our so-called thin-skinnedness – is it not testament to our characters that we are willing to own up to our issues and flaws and at least attempt to deal with them? I don’t have the answers. But the phrase I keep coming back to, that I have heard more times than I can count over the past few days, is self-sufficiency: the idea that you, and you alone, are responsible for your own happiness. It’s something we all know, but perhaps need reminding of from time to time. I still carry my cynicism – anus breathing is not for me – but on the flight back to London, I do feel a little lighter. The Quarter Life Project runs 15-21 March, 17-23 April, 11-17 October and 8-14 November. Prices from £500 for six nights, including meals, four-star accommodation, daily workshops, yoga and use of the hotel spa; thequarterlifehealthproject.com