Cosmopolitan Australia September 2017

thrash out our feelings, in order

to transcend them. It’s like

clearing out your closet, only

with emotional baggage rather

than impulse eBay purchases.

We’re asked to spend the

day writing a list of 25 people

(minimum) we’ve experienced

negative feelings towards. You

can include the people you’re

closest to, and can go back as

many years as you like. Then

you ask a series of questions:

‘What did I do (if anything) to

put myself in a position to be

harmed and why?’ and ‘What

was I seeking or gaining from

the situation?’ That’s followed

by ‘What is the truth of the

situation?’ I head up to the

mountains to write my roll call.

After a couple of hours, my

notebook contains three ex-

boyfriends, a handful of f lings,

three family members and all

the girls who were mean to

me at school, plus a couple of

friends. I discover it’s actually

surprisingly easy to unearth

negativity towards mankind.

And that, right there, is the

problem. I look down the list,

and see some names I haven’t

thought about for years. Past

experiences (the ex-boyfriend

who held my arm against a

radiator until it blistered; the

thin-eyebrowed girl who threw

stones at me after school) begin

to snap, crackle and pop around

my brain like Pop Rocks.

Most of these people, and

the issues associated with them,

were sealed years ago. Not

always neatly, admittedly, but

they’ve been filed deep in my

subconscious. Up until now,

I’ve been OK with that. But

now I find myself becoming

angry and upset as I stare at

the names. It’s like lifting the

lids off a row of boiling pots –

and scalding you all over again.

Nina then instructs us to

match our emotional response

to the situations and names

from a list of adjectives. We can

choose from ‘inferior’, ‘ jealous’,

‘judgemental’, ‘hypocritical’

and over 20 others, then we

have to write ‘a lesson and a

blessing’ we gained from each

scenario. So I write down the

name of a casual acquaintance

who makes me grind my teeth.

After analysing the situation,

I realise that actually that’s

my problem – not hers. That

situation arises because I’ve

been ‘ judgemental’ and quick

to ‘anger’ around her in the

past. As I head back to the

hotel with a yoga mat slung

over one shoulder, I spot one

of the women crying next to

the swimming pool, hunched

over her journal. Gemma,

cross-legged on the terrace,

gives me a serene, silent wave.

MOVING ON

‘You had bad dreams last night.

Your breathing was panicked,’

says Charla, towelling off her

hair after a morning shower.

Now I remember. I dreamt I’d

broken into an ex-boyfriend’s

house, got lost in the dark and

then desperately tried to ‘find

everything I left behind’ there.

I feel emotionally hungover.

Later in the week, I see I’m

not the only one as many of

the women break into tears

during our daily meditation

sessions, though I do not.

The retreat draws to an

end. On our last day, Nina

instructs us to put everything

‘back in the basement’. She asks

us to imagine life as a wheel

with spokes (work, friends,

relationships, etc) coming out

of it and in the centre of it all

• in order for us to feel fulfilled


• needs to be ourselves. There’s
  no eye rolling this time.
  It’s dark outside and Nina
  is sitting by a bucket of burning
  fire blocks. One by one, we
  drop in our list of lessons from
  the week and dance like Kate
  Bush, to celebrate our freedom.
  The other women make solemn
  pledges to continue meditating
  and practising yoga daily – and
  from social media, it looks as
  if they have. So maybe some
  young women do need a camp
  to teach them coping strategies.
  Me, less so. On the plane home,
  I wonder if what I experienced
  last year could be classed as a
  quarter-life crisis – or whether,
  simply, it was just life. #

ADELE

‘Teetering on the edge

of being an adolescent

and fully-fledged adult,

I made the decision to

go into becoming who

I’m going to be forever

without a removal van

full of my old junk.’

CELEBRITY

QUARTER-LIFERS

BRITNEY SPEARS

‘I like my thirties

way more than my

twenties. My twenties

were horrible! [Being]

in my teens was fun,

but I like my thirties.’

LENA DUNHAM

‘When I got out of

college I thought, What

am I gonna do? No

one’s gonna hire me,

I’m a fat girl,’ she said.

And look at her now.

TAKE HEART FROM THE

STARS WHO’VE COME

OUT THE OTHER SIDE

*NAMES HAVE BEEN CHANGED. **CONVERTED FROM GBP AND CORRECT AT TIME OF SENDING TO PRINT. ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY SHARI NEMENTZIK. PHOTOGRAPHY BY CLIPARTOF.COM; FILMMAGIC

COSMOPOLITAN SEPTEMBER 2017 107