Inside Fee Drummond’s Inaugural Retreat

Fee Drummond leads her own retreat amid the untamed beauty of Formentera

Here’s What Happened At The First Wilding Tribe Retreat In Formentera

The idea of creating my own retreat has been with me for many years. It comes from my own long health journey – two decades of dealing with chronic illness, first in myself and then in my family. I tried many things, but it was through food – understanding it as medicine – that I found the greatest change. Over time I developed an approach I call ‘nutrient dense living’, which became the foundation for the programme – both digital and retreat-based – that I now share with others. 

For our first in-real-life retreat – with a focus on food (nutrition), flow (movement) and tribe (our community) – I chose Formentera, for its wild forests, rugged coastline, crystalline waters and barefoot privacy. We gathered at Teranka, a Marbella Club hotel well-known for its rustic luxury and effortless style, for four days to slow down, take stock, and look honestly at the habits that drive our health and our state of mind. 

Each morning began at dawn with breathwork led by meditation master Chris O’Connor, an immediately anchoring presence with his Yoda-like calm. We then built a gently layered daily practice of meditation, movement and mind work, immersing ourselves in nature, journalling – and having ‘wild’ conversations over brunch on topics that are often taboo in daily life. 

Later, we walked the coastline with adventurer Mattias Måhl and his reassuring ‘Viking’ presence: bare feet on rock, the sound of wind in the pines, the sand under our toes. We flowed between shaded shalas and the sun-drenched yoga deck, rode on horseback to the sea, swam, and took part in group work as well as one-to-ones, gently opening up channels to new ways of living, based on ancient wisdom and inner knowing. 

Food is central to everything. Every dish being drawn from the principles of ‘nutrient dense living’: seasonal, unprocessed, restorative. It is the approach that helped me manage my coeliac disease, hormonal imbalance, PTSD, and long post-viral fatigue, and I continue using it to guide my family’s health every day.

On the final evening we danced together freely under a sky alive with shooting stars, glowing in the darkness with candles and headsets, lost in our own movement. For four days, we committed to the serene wilderness around us, showing up, being vulnerable, sharing and learning. Supporting minds and bodies with ancestral practices, nutritional food choices and the gift of space and time to rewild our tired minds, and recalibrate. This was a beginning of how we can start to thrive – not just here, but in our daily lives back home.

Restoration

Each day begins with meditation, tuning the body back into balance with our intuition. This is a remembering of our root wisdom – that deep seated knowing that has become suppressed and is often now hard to feel or find. I have realised that my time spent healing in nature has become a prayer, and that has turned into a much-loved meditation. 

Ice Bathing

Our resident Viking Mathias leads the group in the energising ice and cold immersions. We align our breath and body with intentions seated in ‘the nest’, a bamboo shala designed to light our resting faces lattice-like while also giving shelter from the midday heat. Entering a wooden cask of ice one by one, the entire group delights in the newfound results of our refreshing daily routine.

Nourishment

Our generous meals deliver a full-spectrum of nutrients as we relearn how to listen to our bodies, eating consciously and when truly hungry. We discuss how to connect with food while enjoying locally sourced, whole ingredients. 

Hiking

We start by sitting cross legged in on a carpet of pine needles at the far end of the island and then walk from the woods to the sea, inviting those who wish to feel nature to the fullest to walk barefoot. Everyone in the group chose to abandon their shoes and to feel the sensations of rock edges, needles and white sandy cliffs through the soles of their feet.

Riding

Horses have been part of my life since my childhood in Arabia, and they are part of every trip I take. Exploring this small island was no different and we ride at a walk through pine forests to the salt flats, catching peeps of azure between the branches on our way.

Find out more at wildingtribe.com