The Joy-Led® Soul-Oh! Retreat Salon
Curate and embark on a solo retreat, led by your highest, wisest, minxiest, sovereign self, and fan the radical blooming of your creative power and unique leadership, held by an inspiring collective of women doing the same
A new Joy-Led® offering for women leaders, creatives and changemakers
Salon begins: 29th September
Solo retreat week: 7th-14th November
Salon completes: 8th December
8 places only
I’m writing this to you from the side of my pool. My private pool. No one else is here. The sun is warming my sun-cream-slathered skin. A Spanish family’s lunchtime conversation is drifting from the house next door. Mountains to my right, ahead the sea. White crests of waves are just about visible.
When I say ‘my pool,’ what I really mean is that it belongs to José, the Airbnb owner, who lives in the apartment above. But it is mine for this week. No husband, no son, no soon-to-return-from-university daughter texting me for money to fund her final week of term. No clients. No Zoom calls. No email. No social media. No one else’s needs but mine.
This practice of claiming expansive time for me and my creative flourishing has returned more to me in liberation, relational transformation, and sheer capacity to create and embody the work I’m here to do than any other practice I can name.
Each Soul-Oh! Retreat, whether on a hillside in Devon, a cliffside in Cornwall, or here underneath the Mediterranean sun, was designed by my highest, wisest, minxiest, sovereign self. She knew exactly what I needed for the next phase of my becoming. And then I stepped into it.
Because, of course, this is about far more than going away alone. That's what makes it a Soul-Oh! Retreat.
And now I feel inspired to invite you to join me.
Not literally. Oh no! I love you - but no. But alongside me, as you create and offer yourself your very own Joy-Led Soul-Oh! Retreat in the location, setting and format that calls to your soul.
The first time I did this I thought I was going away to complete my book manuscript. But between the morning dancing with no time limit, and the twice-daily coastal walks, something far more wondrous emerged. A version of me who had a different relationship with time, with creating, with being alone. Every retreat since has been a chance to spend time in her company again, and invite her to play ever more fully in all parts of my life and work.
I adore group retreats. I have been transformed by them.
But what my soul craves now isn't another beautifully curated experience designed by someone else.
It wants to be alone. That’s it. And I don’t mean just for a few hours.
It aches for more space. No interruptions. No schedule. No washing to be hung. No dishwasher unloading. No meetings. No interruption of the glorious creative flow.
Perhaps yours does too.
And perhaps you, too, long to embody, ever more fully, the woman your highest, wisest, minxiest, sovereign self already knows you to be.
The woman who drifts for hours on a lilo in the pool listening to choral music that makes her weep with the sheer joy of being alive (or is that just me!?)
The woman who writes poetry in her pyjamas, then cooks a delicious, nutritious breakfast, then takes long walks wrapped up in her coat, wearing her favourite perfume, with sandwiches packed for a day-long adventure with no map.
This part of us holds our highest creative potential. She is connected to the divine.
She is here to lead you.
And if we follow her weird and wonderful instructions, she will take us to places in our lives and work our clever, linear minds could never have planned.
Which leads me to something else. A Soul-Oh! retreat is not a get-shit-done week
Not at all. Unless your highest, wisest, minxiest, sovereign self is saying loud and clear: you need to get this shit done. Now.
Rather than dutifully writing 1,500 words a day before rewarding yourself with a coastal walk and a Cornish cream-tea, a Soul-Oh! Retreat might be about living like a writer who lives on a hillside overlooking a valley, who wakes and writes, eats breakfast, walks, writes some more, realises she’s still in her pyjamas, has a long bath, then writes again. Because write write write is what she wants to do.
Rather than going away to finally get your website rewritten, you might spend the week communing with your website. Tinkering. Crafting. Reading old journals packed with fragments of wondrous ideas. Following the muse. Deepening your own understanding of the genius of your work, and letting the words that express it rise through you.
Rather than going away to figure out your 2027 plan, you might spend the week listening. Opening. Making yourself available. Knitting, if that’s what turns you on. Or reading poetry. Writing it. Being a woman who’s comfortable with silence, and not-knowing. Trusting the process. Allowing what could be calling to you now to arrive in its own time. Whether that’s during the retreat, or later. You don’t need to know.
A Soul-Oh! Retreat is an embodiment practice.
We experience ourselves in a whole new way. We surprise ourselves.
We are creating a portal. Which means, yes, a few rules may get broken.
Like the rule that says if you go away alone, you had better come back with something tangible to show for yourself.
No.
A Soul-Oh! Retreat is a woman saying – no, not just saying – showing by how she chooses to live:
I am allowed to want what I want.
I am allowed to be unavailable.
I am allowed to follow the weird instructions of my soul.
I am allowed to devote time, money, energy and reverent attention to the blooming of my own creative power.
Now imagine doing this alongside seven other women.
Eight women choosing themselves changes the field.
Joining this Salon could be for you if…
You are a leader, changemaker, way-shower, creative-adventurer, coach, facilitator, artist – or some impossible-to-categorise woman with a body of work in her that refuses to be labelled.
You are hungry to embody more of your wild, true self. Your highest, wisest, minxiest, sovereign self. Not just write about her. Not just talk about her on another coaching call. Not just glimpse her in your journal and then return to the laundry. You are ready. It is time.
You envy women who unapologetically claim time for themselves, and tell yourself, ‘I couldn’t possibly do that.’ Or perhaps you have done it, and know the deliciousness of it. The silence. The first meal alone. The first morning waking up with nobody needing a single thing from you. And you want more.
You love your family, partner, friends, clients, community – and still, sometimes, even often, being the holder-of-all-the-things restricts who you are, your creative flow, your expression.
You know there’s work, art, new expressions of your leadership, or some still-unnamed calling wanting to come through you – and you also know it will not be accessed by trying harder.
The thought of spending a week alone feels terrifying and delicious in equal measure. You crave solitude, but do not want to feel alone in the claiming of it. You'd love to know there are seven other women, somewhere in the world, making the same gloriously unapologetic choice.
You’d welcome structure, that acts like a trellis, around which you and your creative power can bloom. You want support, prompts, witnessing, practical guidance and loving momentum, without being forced into someone else’s retreat fantasy, productivity plan, or beige box of self-improvement.
You are not attached to a guaranteed outcome. You are willing to let this practice surprise you. You suspect your highest, wisest, minxiest, sovereign self has something up her sleeve, which scares you a bit, but that’s also how you know she is onto something.
The Logistics
The Joy-Led Soul-Oh! Retreat Salon is designed as a spacious, richly supported creative container – part soul-led planning space, part group coaching salon, part delicious permission slip from the woman in you who already knows exactly what she needs.
Over our time together, you’ll be supported to curate your own solo retreat, go on it, and begin integrating what it opens before our time together completes.
I will not be handing you a retreat itinerary and telling you to follow it.
Supported by frames rooted in my own embodied experience of this practice, I will be inviting you to listen deeply to your own highest, wisest, minxiest, sovereign self – and allowing her create a retreat that will give you exactly what your soul needs, now.
You’ll be held inside a circle of women doing the same brave, beautiful, audacious thing: consciously creating conditions in which their own creative power can bloom.
There will be no more than 8 participants in the Salon. The dates and times for our calls are here.
Here’s what your journey will look like:
Seven spacious, two-hour calls: designed to move you from the first delicious ‘what if I actually did this?’ to a Soul-Oh! Retreat that is booked, shaped, claimed and ready to be lived. We’ll gather before your retreat to dream, design and prepare; pause while you go on retreat; then return for two integration calls.
One-to-one co-creation session with me: a 75-minute private call to support your retreat creation, deepen your discernment, meet any resistance, and help you claim the version of this experience you are truly longing for. This can be used at any point that best serves your process, with the exception of retreat week itself.
A treasure map, not a timetable: I’ll share the principles, prompts, practices and practical frames I use to create my own solo retreats – as a way to help you tune into the specific shape, rhythm and flavour of the retreat your soul is asking for.
Deep experiential exploration: Our calls will include guided reflection, intuitive inquiry, creative prompts and space to listen beneath the noise of ‘shoulds’, logistics and other people’s needs. You’ll be supported to hear what your body, soul, creativity and future self are asking for.
Progressive, soul-led creation: Each session will intuitively build on the last, guiding you from longing and possibility into practical decisions – where you’ll go, what conditions you need, what you’ll take, what you’ll leave behind, what you’ll give yourself permission to receive, and how you’ll protect the sanctity of the experience.
An inspiring. courageous circle: Expect a blend of spaciousness, warmth, play, courage, inspiration and loving accountability and women who know that claiming time, space, pleasure and solitude for themselves can feel both wildly liberating and surprisingly edgy.
An online group space: a private space for sharing insights, questions, nudges, practical wins, edges, packing-list revelations, wild ideas, and ‘oh my God I’ve actually booked it!’ moments.
A buddy system for extra encouragement: You’ll be paired with another woman in the Salon for optional support, witnessing and encouragement as you move from desire into action.
Soul-Oh! invitations between calls: Easeful, purposeful invitations to support you deepen your relationship with your creative power, your desire and the woman you are becoming as you step into your unique retreat space.
Retreat week itself: We’ll pause as you go on the retreat you’ve created for yourself, in the location that calls to you. A cottage by the sea, a hotel room in a city, a borrowed cabin, a house-sit, an Airbnb with a hot tub, a friend’s home you have borrowed.
During this week, we’ll hold our shared online space differently. Before you go, we’ll design how you want to relate to the group while you are away, so the space supports the sanctity of your retreat and does not pull you out of it. You may choose to unplug completely.
The invitation will be to stay devoted to your own experience.
Support will be available if and when you need it from me, and you may take nourishment from what others choose to share. But your solitude, your becoming, these remain the centre of the practice.
Integration support: After retreat week, we’ll come together twice – once soon after, and once a month later. We’ll honour and explore what’s been activated, and how the woman you met on retreat wants to live, lead and create, now.
Recordings available: All group calls will be recorded for your personal use – but this is intended as a live, relational experience, where attending in real time will give you the fullest benefit.
More specifically, over the course of our work together you will:
Uncover the deeper longing beneath your desire for a solo retreat – whether that is rest, renewal, creative awakening, sensual aliveness, decision-making, grief-tending, identity-shedding, devotion to your work, or simply the radical experience of belonging entirely to yourself for a while.
Listen to your highest, wisest, minxiest, sovereign self and tune in more deeply to how she speaks – through desire, resistance, envy, irritation, body wisdom, fantasy, grief, joy, dreams, sudden knowing, and the weird nudges you cannot explain.
Choose the shape and setting of your retreat in a way that honours your life, your responsibilities, your resources and your desires – without collapsing into over-giving, over-explaining or self-abandonment.
Create a retreat rhythm that balances spaciousness, with structure – with room for rest, pleasure, movement, creativity, silence, nourishment, exploration, ritual, writing, wandering, doing absolutely nothing, or whatever else your soul prescribes.
Identify what needs to be protected before, during and after your retreat – including boundaries with family, clients, work, devices, social media, domestic responsibilities and the part of you that is tempted to turn the whole thing into a productivity sprint or a story to share on Instagram.
Lovingly meet the resistance that will inevitably arise: The guilt, the logistics, the money stuff, the ‘who do I think I am?’, the fear of disappointing others, the terror of silence, and the old identities that still measure your worth by what you do, deliver, solve, produce, provide, and make possible for everyone else.
Design simple rituals, practices and touchstones to help you cross the threshold into retreat and return with intention – so this becomes more than a few days away, and instead becomes an embodied experience of self-trust, sovereignty and creative power.
Deepen and reclaim your relationship with solitude – not as isolation, avoidance or escape, but as a potent space where your own creative sovereignty and leadership can flourish.
Be witnessed by a circle of like-souled women as you claim something that may feel audacious, tender, necessary, ridiculous, holy, indulgent, and utterly overdue all at once.
Gather the wisdom and creative glimmers that emerge during your retreat without rushing to turn them into a plan, product, post or performance.
Begin integrating what you discover into your life, leadership, creative work, relationships and choices – so the retreat does not become a beautiful bubble you leave behind, but a slip ‘n’ slide into a more alive and sovereign way of being.
Yep! A slip ‘n’ slide!
Oh yes! And you’ll leave with all you need to repeat this again and again – alone, or alongside the women you meet in the Salon – so Soul-Oh! Retreating can become a transformative, cost-effective, life-giving practice you return to for years. A portal you can reopen whenever your soul whispers: do that again.
The investment
The Joy-Led Soul-Oh! Retreat Salon is an intimate, high-touch container with just 8 places.
There are two investment tiers:
The Abundant Tier
£5,000 + VAT
This tier is for you if your place is being funded by a for-profit SME, corporate budget, leadership development fund, or a household with the financial capacity to resource the work at this level.
This tier honours the true value of the work, and supports the wider ecology of the Salon.
The Self-Funded / Solo Business Owner / Non-Profit Tier
£2500 + VAT
This tier is for women funding their place personally, through their own small business, creative practice, self-employed income, non-profit organisation, community-interest work, or from a household where this represents a meaningful, activating investment.
For those in this tier who join by 7th August 2026, the early-bird investment is £2000 + VAT.
To celebrate the inaugural round of this Salon, there is also a bring-a-friend discount. If you join with a friend who is new to my Joy-Led world – meaning she is not currently, and has not previously been, part of one of my containers or worked closely with me before – you will each receive a £100 reduction. This absolutely includes current Joy-Led collective members inviting someone new into the field. This can be combined with the early bird offer.
Payment plans are also available for this tier.
Resourcing the retreat itself
You’ll also need to budget separately for your own retreat: accommodation, travel, food, and any particular deliciousness your soul prescribes.
I invite you not to make final decisions about this until the Salon begins. We’ll explore how to create a retreat that honours your desires, your resources, your real life, and the conditions your soul is craving – rather than some performative idea of what a retreat should look like.
For context, my own week-long Soul-Oh! Retreats have cost as little as £450 and as much as £1,800, and I have only ever chosen beautiful, nourishing, soul-feeding places.
God bless Airbnb and Cottages.com.
If this feels like a full-body yes…
I invite you to book a short 20-minute call with me.
This is a chance for us to connect, answer any questions you have, and check that this is a clear, resonant yes. Please make sure you’ve read the page in full before booking.
If, after the call, it feels like a fit on both sides, I’ll send you everything you need to confirm your place.
As I imagine the creative power that will be birthed through this Salon, I feel deeply inspired.
Our uninhibited presence and aliveness-fuelled leadership are needed now more than ever.
The invitation is to create and lead from places of joy, abundance and devotion – in ways that nourish ourselves, others and the ecosystems we’re part of.
Thank you for being here, and for being you.
With love, and in creative power
Claire ✨
P.S. If you feel called by everything I’ve shared in this letter, but would like to work in a more private, bespoke way, I offer a limited number of one-to-one Soul-Oh! Retreat experiences for leaders and changemakers (both men and women).
These are designed around you, your life, your work, your location – with the option for me to travel to your location of choice and support you while on retreat.
To explore this option, please complete the application here.
About Claire
I'm the founder of the Joy-Led® movement and have spent more than twenty-five years supporting leaders, founders and organisations through profound change.
If you're curious about the wider philosophy behind this work, or you'd like to know more about me, you'll find both below.
→ Read about The Joy-Led® Philosophy