Sacred Return ended the 2026 experiences on October 24th and as usual ten women come together and there’s always an unexpected throughline.
By the end of the day I had heard the same thing from more than one woman, each in her own words. Something hard was ending. Something new was starting. She was excited and scared at the same time, often in the same sentence.
A few women were standing somewhere slightly different. They had already decided it was time for a change. That part was settled. What came next was still blurry around the edges, and they could feel how much they wanted it to come into focus.
Most of us learned that we have to pick. Be brave, or admit you’re afraid. Have the whole map drawn before you’re allowed to take the first step.
I know this place from the inside. Being married and divorced three times will do that for you.
When I closed the business I had run for horse trainers for more than thirty years, I felt both grief and immense relief. Underneath the two of them was a quieter voice. Time to leap and see where it leads.
Then came the in-between. I was suspended between who I had been for three decades and who I was becoming. The old life was finished. The new one was still deciding what shape to take. And I caught myself rushing to fill the space, hustling again, just in prettier language.
Same woman, same season. All of it true.
What I watched in that room was women letting every one of those feelings be in the paddock. The fear got a place and so did the excitement. The woman still waiting for her next step got one too. Nobody asked any of them to leave.
Here’s what I’ve learned from my own leaps. The fear gets smaller once it’s allowed to speak. The excitement gets steadier once it has company. And the next step tends to show up after you’ve made room for it, rarely before.
Deciding it’s time is its own kind of courage. The rest gets to arrive at its own pace.
Thirty years in, that quiet voice was the whole plan I had. Time to leap and see where it leads.
It turned out to be enough.