Experiences from Guiding the Vision Quest 2025

A month has passed since the beautiful Vision Quest I guided in June in the Swiss Alps. For several weeks, I felt the urge to share about this moving experience – but something held me back. It was as if I hadn’t yet fully understood how my emotions connected to what might be emerging next. Now, a few dots are starting to connect, and I feel ready to share more of what’s unfolding.

We held this Vision Quest in the Italian-speaking mountains of Ticino, where I grew up. Together with Manuela Treppens – an experienced guide with whom I collaborated for the first time – and with the support of Michael Ney, we accompanied six participants through this journey. My nearly 1.5-year-old daughter and a dear friend who took care of her were also part of our team.

Incredible but True: a Meaningful Work-action

I came into this quest not only with the intention of guiding a transformative and healing journey for the participants, but also with a personal wish: to enjoy being in this breathtaking valley – its forests, meadows, and rivers – without feeling drained by the end. I longed for this deeply meaningful work to merge with the regenerative quality of a holiday.

Despite this wish, I stayed open to whatever the quest would bring. What I received was more than I had hoped for. The collaboration with Manuela and Michael was smooth and full of trust. The participants quickly formed a supportive peer group. My daughter and friend blended naturally into the field we co-created. The weather gifted us two weeks of sunshine – except for some powerful storms, which brought its own “water medicine” to the land and to those out on their solo.

I learned so much from co-guiding with Manuela, who generously shared her wisdom on how to shape the experience. I was surprised – and deeply grateful – that it truly felt like a meaningful “work-action” (work–vacation)!

Sharp Critics Pointed Me to Further Integration

Not everything flowed without friction: a participant left in the middle of the quest. Despite our efforts, we couldn’t build the trust he needed. Judgment and mistrust – parts of himself he said he knew well – kept him from dropping into the process. And yet, the reflections he shared afterward about the moments when his trust was lost gave me helpful impulses to reflect on my way of showing up.

He reminded me of something essential: as a facilitator, it’s important to name what’s unnamed, make the implicit explicit, and share your own experience to build the ground of trust others need to open. These are practices I know well from guiding Authentic Relating workshops, yet I had let them slip into the background within the Vision Quest format. It now feels like a strong invitation to further integrate these two “worlds.”

Sensing What is Coming Next

One scene stays with me: all of us sitting around the fire, pine trees guarding us, the sound of water splashing in the background. We are singing – tuning into our essence, letting sounds emerge freely, be expressed, be heard. I am touched by the authentic, powerful beauty of each person. And I feel a deep stirring – a longing to shape this rite of passage in ways that more fully reflect my beliefs and experience about what supports transformative soul journeys.

As the participants descended from the mountain, returning to their homes, their loved ones, their lives, I felt a clear sense of completion. It was over. And not just this Vision Quest – something bigger. To my surprise, I didn’t feel the urge to fix new dates, to book the house, to ask if Manuela would guide with me again. This chapter had ended. It was complete.

This sense of completion stayed with me through the following week. It felt strange – to be so deeply blessed by an experience and at the same time to know I wouldn’t repeat it. During a mentoring call, clarity began to emerge: my apprenticeship as a “fresh woman guide” had come to an end. This was my third Vision Quest. Something had ripened and closed.

Facilitating wild soul-journeys

I’ve done the work I had looked up to for years as the pinnacle of what I wanted to do. And now, standing on that mountain top, I see new valleys and peaks. I’m ready to walk a new path – one that goes beyond the Vision Quest format I was trained in. I feel called to accompany people through broader psycho-spiritual processes – through soul*-journeys that move freely, wildly, and deeply.

*I use the term Soul as described by Bill Plotkin and described in my post The three kingdoms of personal development