Soulstice Immersions are two-week, women-only experiences, designed to help us come home to ourselves - through courage, creativity and connection. The quiet clarity that emerges when life finally gives us space to breathe. We created Soulstice because so many of us women reach a moment in our lives where we feel ready for something more, but aren’t sure what “more” looks like. Perhaps the chance to tell the story of "us", with our whole heart. Maybe to explore the willingnes

There’s a funny comedian who asked this of the audience “who here is a glass half empty person?” Half the audience raises their hands.  “Show of hands for the half full?” The rest go up. Now that everyone had defined and labeled themselves, he delivers the punchline. “Has anyone ever asked what’s in the glass?” The room erupts in laughter. Because if it’s filled with sh**, you bet I’m a glass half empty guy!” To prove that all things are not black and white, he asks in a moc

A note on some feelings which recently surfaced, when Vanessa and I ran into a couple we hadn't seen for a while, and what began as a pleasant enough conversational exchange, soon had us on the back foot, in a sort of panicked display of what can only be described as "anxious over-explaining". It was very aparent that this was a central tenet to our personal sense of being in the right place. If our sense of belonging relates to the emotional landscape of moving to France, t

We all hear of superfoods - Goji berries, chia seeds… the list goes on and changes like the seasons. Fortunately, emotions don’t follow these trends, but as we head into the season of gratitude, let me highlight why it is your Superpower and why it’s the ingredient you’ll want in your morning mental smoothie. November is the month of gratitude. Being American, I used to celebrate Thanksgiving, and as an American in France, if there’s one of us within 100kms, we tend to gather

"We have two ears and one mouth, so we can listen twice as much as we speak". - Eptictetus. -

I know... some of you will not see relocating as an "art" . Perhaps viewing it more of an extremely daunting prospect, a discomfort to be avoided, or just something that other people do. Particularly, of course if it involves not a mere change of post code, but a move that crosses time zones and international date lines. We benefit from a built-in bias around the beauty of staying put. Home is where our friends are, or the kids live, or the climate suits. It's where we "belon

Why is it, when we see the ruins of a great castle, the knarl of an ancient olive tree or the oldest grave in the cemetery, we become so awestruck and admiring? We are so absolutely enchanted by the sheer age of things. We respect them. We willingly keep off the grass of history. We admire the flaws and crumbling imperfections. We feel a loving and protective instinct, despite no sense of personal ownership. It runs deep in us and we feel proud to be a product of our creative

Friends often tell me they dream of picking up and moving abroad. That is, until the thought of  logistics, language, visas… makes it feel too daunting a challenge. Change is hard when our ego says we are " fine where we are ", but there's more to it than that. Where do we even begin? Perhaps just begin, by beginning… A little about little me first… When I was eight years old, I was watching my mom put on makeup, when I blurted out “I want to move.” Confused, my mom asked “oh

"Labeling makes the invisible visible, but it’s limiting. Categories are the enemy of connecting."

It is all well and good to throw buzz-words around, but one that often comes up in casual conversation these days, is ‘frequency’. Like most expressions, it can mean different things to different people and yet actually, is very rooted in science. Not in a “my frequency is like..so off today” as though you‘re just having a bad hair day, but involving physics…a real exchange of energy with the environment and people - total friends or total strangers. We’ve all been in a room

This is something I came to learn very late in life, having never questioned either. I’ve since found so many areas in my life where I blindly accepted that my beliefs just are what they are, fixed in time, and my decisions simply followed. Turning things upside down to get a different perspective, allowing myself to question things and decide again, has become such a valuable tool. I like to think of it as “curiosity with benefits”. As young children, often before 7, we lear

There are so many questions when one moves to France. Will it be hard to learn the language? How should I dress? And, most urgently, how will I not “wear” all those pastries and calories, never having been raised on French cuisine? I can’t be the first one to obsess over these things, right? I did some investigating and data collection after a house viewing trip that coincided with my Birthday. We stayed in a tiny village in Provence, with nothing in it, aside from a few farm

Self-talk is not something to be taken lightly. Saying things like “I can’t carry a tune, I’m tone deaf.” whilst it can be an expression of mock humility maybe it is true... for now. How do you know? What if saying this is why you haven't become better? Sing because you love to. If all people thought they had to be perfect in order to love something or try something, we'd all be sunk. What I wanted to say has nothing to do with singing, or maybe it has everything to do with

“Travel whispers to the soul’s boldness. It asks not for the absence of fear, but the courage to lead into the unknown, to embrace both the journey and the self that is discovered along the way”.                      Attributed to Mark Twain                       Every step beyond what is familiar is an invitation to growth. We do not travel to coll

September is a bit of a hinge month, a threshold that resists placement in the pigeon hole. It is neither the lingering ease of summer, nor the crisp certainty of autumn. It hovers in a space of its own — a pause in the rhythm of the year, a seasonal ellipsis. Spiritually, September invites us inward. The sun still warms our skin, but the evenings hint at a chill that asks for sweaters and thoughts of firewood come. This duality reminds us that change is rarely abrupt; it is

Platform 13 CEO Vanessa Grant on Soul, Strength and the Sacred Feminine.

Perhaps the greatest barrier to worthwhile communication is that we no longer listen to understand. We listen only to reply. Our ears twitch, our tongues prepare their retorts, and before the sentence has even ended, we are already halfway into our counterpoint. What passes for dialogue is often little more than a polite duel to get one’s point across and be heard. But what if listening was something else? If we approached each other’s words with kinder curiosity, the intent

Roman statesman and philosopher Cicero, confidently proclaimed that gratitude was not only the greatest of virtues, but the "Parent of all the others". What he could be forgiven for not knowing 2,000 years ago, was the positive impact that a practice of gratitude has on our emotional well-being, the strengthening of social bonds and our mental health. Gratitude is a powerful emotion. It is how we acknowledge the good things in life. It can be defined in a dictionary as "a pos