From Fear to Summit: How One Woman's Health Crisis Sparked a Movement to Reclaim the Body
In 2018, a cardiac diagnosis changed everything for one entrepreneur. What began as a life-threatening health scare evolved into something unexpected: a complete shutdown of movement, followed by a profound awakening about the relationship between women and their bodies. This journey from medical trauma to physical empowerment became the foundation of Women Move Mountains, a company that's redefining how women approach fitness, leadership, and self-ownership.
The story isn't about overcoming illness—it's about reclaiming agency. In a world where women are constantly told how to look, feel, and move through space, Women Move Mountains offers something radical: the permission to discover what your body can actually do, mess and sweat included. Through challenging mountain retreats that prioritize "grit over glamour," participants learn that strength isn't about perfection—it's about trust, capability, and the profound empowerment that comes from truly inhabiting your own skin.
This is leadership development stripped of corporate speak and polished presentations. Instead, it's found in the raw honesty of steep terrain, wild weather, and the very literal outcomes of decision-making on the trail. Where other programs talk about resilience, Women Move Mountains teaches it through the simple act of putting one foot in front of the other, even when everything in your body wants to stop.
Your personal health journey in 2018 was pivotal in founding Women Move Mountains. How did that experience shape the core philosophy of your retreats and coaching programs?
My diagnosis was what I might call a ‘good shock’ as it came out of nowhere and explained a lifetime of undiagnosed symptoms. It was pretty quickly sorted out and thanks to the brilliance of modern medicine (I have a cardiac pacemaker) I now live symptom free and what was otherwise a very dangerous heart condition is completely under control. What was in many ways more surprising and more difficult to notice though, was how my body reacted to being unwell over many years. I’d developed a kind of health anxiety which I’d had on and off through my adult life but following the trauma of my operation, which didn’t go smoothly, it worsened dramatically and over the next six months I sort of stopped moving. My body shut down in a fear response to something terrible happening and I became very inactive. When I gradually started moving again and built my strength back up the contrast between before and after was immense. I realised how I’d completely lost control of my own body and now here I was learning to live in it properly, to care for it and to respect it. So at the core of WMM is this idea about reclaiming your body. For many women this will be following an illness, surgery or after giving birth. But even without that experience women too often feel like their body isn’t theirs. They lack the connection to this thing we walk around in which is simultaneously incredibly fragile and immensely robust. But it’s ours, it’s who and what we are. My experience showed me just how empowering it is to have agency over your body, not in the pursuit of perfection, but to feel strong and capable and to be healthy. That philosophy now runs through every aspect of our retreats and coaching programs.
Your retreats emphasize ‘grit over glamour’ and ‘authenticity over appearances.’ How do you cultivate this mindset among participants, especially those new to outdoor adventures?
My aim is to create an atmosphere of ‘realness’. No pressure or pretence, no expectations. The pressure on women to look, behave and even feel a certain way is as intense and ubiquitous in 2025 as ever. The so-called body positivity movement doesn’t help in my view, it’s still telling women how they should feel about their own bodies. With Women Move Mountains I want to offer women a chance to leave that all behind and think about their body in an entirely different way. Moving your body in the environment on challenging terrain, sometimes in wild weather, and testing your limits is messy, sweaty and provocative, you feel all sorts of things both when you’re getting started and when you’re super experienced. Some of the major barriers to exercise and adventure are the things women feel while they’re doing it that are scary or unpleasant. I work with women to notice these feelings, understand they’re normal, and help them learn to be ok with them, to be comfortable with discomfort. For example;
“Yes that’s hard, that’s my muscles working”.
“Yes I’m sweating, fantastic!”
“Why do I feel frustrated? I probably need to eat!”
By noticing how we feel, talking about it, understanding those feelings and either accepting them or tackling them, we can take control of our bodies, trust them, and learn what we’re really capable of.
With offerings like the ‘Live to Lead’ retreat in the Lake District, how do you integrate leadership development into the physical and emotional challenges of mountain experiences?
There are so many powerful parallels between leadership and moving in mountains. I draw on the physical and emotional demands of mountain experiences to develop leadership qualities like resilience, adaptability, communication, decision-making and self-awareness. Take communication as an example: If a leader sets off with a team towards a summit but fails to explain the route, the expected conditions, what to bring, or even the motivation behind the mission, how can that team possibly be prepared to succeed? The same applies to leadership in life and work. Clarity, trust and shared understanding are essential.
On our Live to Lead retreats, we intentionally design the time on the trail to foster both personal insight and leadership growth. We don’t overload participants with ‘thinking work’ while moving, but let the experience itself do the teaching with some guidance along the way. Then, we pair those experiences with facilitated reflective sessions, coaching, and leadership frameworks in the evenings so that lessons from the mountains translate directly into leadership practice.
By integrating leadership development with physical experiences where the outcomes are very literal, women leave with a greater sense of self-awareness alongside practical tools to take back to their professional and personal lives.
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