Before
The emptiness allowed the answer to find me
Rita is the only participant who has been on the Sahara journey twice, in 2025 and again in 2026. The idea had been planted years earlier in a conversation with Johan, one of the facilitators. “I understood that an event like that, by disconnecting completely from your everyday life, from technology, from communication with your beloved ones, from your work, allows a fairly unique space where you are able to empty your bucket. Which invites the possibility to shift something significant in your consciousness, in your way of looking at your life and things around you.”
Before her first journey, she was honest about where she stood: “I was quite confused and overwhelmed about both my professional and personal life, hoping to find some sort of direction, how to make sense of all there was.” A few years earlier she had left the corporate world after more than twenty years to build her own business, and the road had been bumpy, full of questions whether it was the right move.
Before the second journey, everything was different: “I was fully excited, because I knew from the previous year that with full surrender to whatever comes, something meaningful will come.” She had no illusions it would be a repeat. “I recognized that no, it’s never going to be the same, and it’s good that it’s never the same. I felt I had just scratched the surface in 2025. There is more I don’t know than I know.”
In the desert
From the buzz to the emptiness
“You come from a really hectic, busy life into a very hectic, busy city, Marrakesh. I still wanted to take care of everything at the last minute, even on the bus, sending emails, transfers, offers. And I was wondering: how can you actually afford switching off? And then you enter the desert, and it just disappears. You don’t care anymore.”
The transition from the buzz and hectic busyness to the emptiness of the Sahara was incredibly powerful.
“You would think that your world will stop evolving if you unplug. Then the next day you are sitting in the sand, and the relevance of all that completely vanishes. The transition from the buzz and hectic busyness to the emptiness of the Sahara was incredibly powerful, and it was actually quite fast and easy.”
The simplicity itself became a teacher. “Surprisingly little suffices. The arrangements were quite rudimentary, very basic tents, very basic facilities. But eventually you realize you don’t need more. Then you start questioning: why do you create all this stuff around you, which just makes you always more busy? Perhaps so much less is actually perfectly enough.” That reflection came home with her: “I started to appreciate a lot more what I already have.”
In the desert
Two journeys, two discoveries
For Rita, each journey delivered something distinct.
“Before the first trip, I had an imbalance, a lot more acting than inquiry. I was doing more, and working harder to get things done, which was not sufficient any more. The biggest shift, which I not only knew with my mind but also sensed, was how it is when you intentionally do not act, but change yourself into a being which allows the things you wish to happen. To allow, to attract. Being where you allow the clarity to arrive: what actually is your purpose.”
She went in with one clear intention: “Empty my bowl. Empty myself. And really surrender to whatever needs to find me.” In one exercise, participants were asked to meditate on their true gift. “I was wondering: how on earth will I answer that question? And surprisingly, pretty much immediately the answer found me. The emptiness allowed the answer to find me.”
“During the first journey you discover what’s your purpose. The second journey, for me, was a lot more about how do you manifest that purpose. The discovery after the second journey was: how do I access my greatest potential? You start realizing who you really are.”
After
What changed at home
Back in her business, the shift is measurable. “It takes a lot of effort to chase customers when you create a business from scratch. What has shifted is that lately a lot more often the business finds me. The leads find me, more than I need to run after them. I go to a three-day exhibition, and during the first day I’m not even able to go through my usual rounds of trying to sell, because people actually come to me, through acquaintances, recommendations. And there’s a lot more ease and flow in how my days are constructed. It’s less stressful.”
I discovered during both trips that there is a lot more I can help him, and even more, he can help himself.
The deepest example is personal. Her son lives with a complex genetic condition, and for over a decade the family has worked to keep him thriving, combining medical care with an unshakeable belief in his health and capability. Today he is symptom-free, and his doctors marvel that on some measurements he outperforms healthy children his age. “There is a connection in how my belief in helping this happen throughout these years has been confirmed and enhanced by the journey, which now I’m able to convey more clearly to my son.”
After
The container: facilitation, exercise, community
When asked what made it possible, Rita points to three things: the space, the facilitation, and the people. “What Heidi and Johan bring to the equation is incredibly powerful and valuable.”
The embodied coaching and constellation work at the end stood out in both years: “The first year was powerful and beautiful, and the second year it literally blew us away.” The closing appreciation circle in 2026: “It was magical. There was just so much love and positive energy accumulated in the room that we couldn’t stop it. I think it went on for some five hours.”
“You forge friendships over decades with people, and here, over one week. The connections we developed are so special and so meaningful that even if we don’t know much about each other’s daily lives, there is a level of connection which is not going to disappear, no matter what. I know if I have a need, I will find the ears or the heart which I seeked.”
After
What is there to lose?
To anyone hesitating, Rita reverses the question. “You spend a certain amount of money and a number of days, but in the context of your whole life, it’s really nothing. The potential gain is just so massive in comparison to what is there to lose. Why wouldn’t anyone give herself the possibility to experience something potentially life-changing?”
And would she go again? “Oh yes.” She’s now exploring how to create spaces with a similar spirit closer to home. “I think we all need spaces and times like this in order to connect and reconnect.”
“The potential gain is just so massive in comparison to what is there to lose.”
Rita · France
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