Before we gathered in South Africa, my husband Patrick and I shared an invitation with the group: start listening before you arrive. While packing bags and making travel arrangements, we encouraged everyone to notice what was stirring within them as they prepared to step away from their familiar routines.

We would be learning from the land, the animals, and one another. This requires leaving room for experiences we can’t plan and discoveries we may not yet know how to describe.

This August, our Return to the Heart retreat brought us into the South African bushveld, with time at Kruger Untamed and Londolozi. Alongside trackers Renias Mhlongo and Meghan Walla-Murphy, we learned from the land, the animals, and one another. Throughout the journey, each person found something different that caught their attention.

When Patrick and I listened to their reflections, what emerged was a story of people becoming more curious about their place in the world and more willing to let themselves be part of it.

Letting the Experience Become Different from the Expectation

Val has joined me on several retreats, and she arrived at Kruger with a love of wildlife photography and memories of close encounters with animals. But our new setting of tracking on foot asked her to adjust those expectations. The animals weren’t always nearby, and her camera wasn’t able to bring them closer.

At first, she wondered whether she would find enough to hold her interest. Then, while walking with the group, she started paying attention to the tracks under her feet. Although there wasn’t an animal in sight, the ground was evidence of so many lives moving through the same space.

“I’m learning so much about this story on the ground, and how many different species have passed where I am now walking, and I realized I’m part of the story now, too,” Val shared. “And not just for the animals who came before me, but the animals who will come after me.”

Her attention had shifted. She was beginning to recognize herself within the land she had come to observe.

Our master tracker and guide, Renias noticed something similar across the group. “At first, I could see that they were not connected into nature,” he explained. “But on a daily basis, they started connecting to nature. I could see how everybody just tended to become more patient.”

Meghan described how the uncertainty people carried upon arrival gradually began to loosen. As their expectations softened, this gave participants more room to respond to what was happening in the present moment.

As Meghan said, “And then when that happens, you can come into your body and you can start to notice, versus being locked into some kind of thought pattern.”

That willingness to notice opened the door to experiences that might otherwise have passed us by.

What the Elephants Opened Up for Us

On our first evening, we watched elephants wallowing in the mud. Later, Meghan invited the group to consider what it might feel like to give themselves that same freedom.

The following day, she returned to the mud wallow with three women from the group. Sarah was among them.

When Meghan began covering herself in mud, Sarah’s first response was hesitation. She could immediately imagine the objections: what other people might think, what might go wrong, and why a sensible person wouldn’t do something like this.

But watching Meghan, she recognized how quickly those thoughts could define an experience for her.

“And I’m looking at Meghan, who thinks nothing of it and just decides,” Sarah reflected. “She didn’t ask permission, she just goes and does it!”

Finally, Sarah joined in. What stayed with her after the experience was the realization that she often waits for someone she considers more knowledge or more worthy to give her permission. The mud offered a tangible encounter with that pattern; she could feel the hesitation, but she was able to allow herself to play. 

For Meghan, witnessing the women’s freedom in the mud was one of her favorite moments of the retreat. The elephants had offered an invitation, and the group had found their own way of responding.

While unexpected, these small moments can reveal something important when we take time to reflect. Suddenly, a familiar inner rule becomes clear, and we then have a chance to question whether it needs to guide every choice.

Learning When to Join In and When to Be Still

Sarah’s experience also held another discovery, one that deserves just as much space.

The walking portions of the retreat were more physically challenging than she had anticipated. While others found that movement helped them connect with their surroundings, she became increasingly occupied by the sensations in her body.

“I become so swamped by the noise coming from my body that I miss everything else,” she explained.

She wished to be someone who found peace in walking and physical activity. But the experience reminded her that stillness is often what allows her to become most receptive.

One morning, Sarah stayed behind. Sitting on her porch with a book, she could hear the birds and take in the smells around her.

“I was so happy to just sit on my porch and read my book, and to be quiet,” Sarah explained. “And then be able to smell the smells, and hear the birds, and the things that I missed while I was out trying to keep up with everybody.”

I love the honesty of her reflection. Listening to ourselves includes recognizing when an experience isn’t meeting us in the way we hoped. It’s possible to make an adjustment without turning it into a judgment about who we are.

Sarah’s time in the mud and her morning on the porch was part of the same process of discovery as the rest of the group was experiencing. In one moment, she found room to try something unfamiliar. In another, she honored what she already knew about herself. Both asked her to pay attention.

Allowing Other People to Be Part of the Experience

The people beside us were also shaping what became possible. Val, another participant, offered this reminder when asked what she would tell someone considering a retreat: “It’s also the specific combination of people who are here with you.”

Some of her meaningful moments came while listening to someone speak around the dinner table. Others arrived quietly, while sitting with her journal or watching an animal explore. There wasn’t a specific setting in which insight was supposed to happen.

Steve, Val’s husband, was visiting Africa for the first time. Alongside the experience of the land, he spoke about the willingness it takes to open up to people you haven’t met before.

“You receive back a lot more than what you’re expressing out, whether it’s through reactions, facial expressions, responses, um, whatever it may be,” Steve said. “Or just the releasing of it.”

Sharing something personal can feel like a step into uncertainty. But it gives others a chance to respond, and it also gives us an opportunity to experience being heard.

Meghan noticed that growing sense of relationship in the group’s encounters with wildlife, too: “As human beings we’re not invisible; we’re actually part of the system, and that it’s okay for us to be here and to be interacting.”

As we became more aware of the life around us, we were also exploring what it meant to participate and to belong.

Finding a Different Way into a Familiar Conversation

For Steve and Val, that openness continued at Londolozi, where a challenge in their relationship became an opportunity to try something different.

Steve described his tendency to keep things inside. He wanted to become more supportive and more able to express what he was feeling. After we spent time talking, he decided to revisit a conversation with Val that hadn’t gone well earlier that day.

That evening, he asked her to sit with him. “I said, ‘Let’s replay that and just come to me as if we’re starting this whole thing all over and just repeat exactly what you just did and let’s try that again,’” he recalls.

They gave the conversation another chance. Steve realized he was able to communicate more clearly, and Val felt more heard. He began recognizing how much of their difficulty lived in the feelings underneath the subject they were discussing.

Val also spoke about feeling softer with one another and more able to step outside their familiar patterns.

This is one of the ways an experience away from home can begin to enter everyday life, even before we return. A conversation becomes a place to practice. We listen a little longer, express something we would usually withhold, and even ask if we can begin again.

Understanding the Community Our Visit Touches

At Londolozi, Dave Varty, Co-founder and Owner of the Londolozi, joined us before dinner to share the history of the place. His stories widened the conversation about belonging.

Our presence there had consequences beyond our own experiences of the retreat. He spoke about the livelihoods supported by the reserve, opportunities for children to learn, and the importance of protecting wildlife.

“What goes on at Londolozi ripples out all over the place to the benefit of those families and all sorts of different places and people,” Dave explained.

His account helped place our visit within a much larger community. The opportunity to spend time here was connected to the work and care of people whose lives continued long after we packed our bags. By listening to Dave, we were invited to consider how those relationships develop through attention over time, and how our own presence becomes part of their continuing story.

Bringing a Different Kind of Attention Home

The participants’ reflections are evidence there’s not a single experience everyone is meant to have.  Val found belonging in the tracks beneath her feet. Sarah discovered both the freedom of trying something unexpected and the value of honoring her needs. Steve found an opening to communicate differently with someone he loves.

What connects these moments, however, is the willingness to pay attention and allow that attention to change our response.

For Sarah, returning home included having more flexibility around the routines she once felt a need to follow. “The world is not going to fall apart if things are shuffled around a little bit,” she said.

Val offered another reminder that reaches well beyond our time in South Africa: “It’s any moment that you want to pay attention, there’s something to pay attention to.”

I’m grateful to everyone who shared their experiences so openly. Their stories remind me how differently this work can unfold, and how much we can learn when there’s room for everyone’s experience.

If you feel drawn to explore your own relationship with the natural world, and what it might reveal about the way you relate to yourself and others, I invite you to join our mailing list to learn more about the future retreat opportunities. It would be an honor to share that time with you.