If you’ve found your way here, welcome.

This is a place for people drawn to wide horizons — intellectual, emotional, and geographical. For those who love ideas as much as landscapes, who are curious about how we live, lead, grieve, heal, and begin again. Some arrive looking for calm. Others for clarity. Others simply for language that feels honest in a noisy world.

I live and work on Vancouver Island, where sea and forest create the kind of quiet that invites reflection. From here, I write, host retreats, and explore the inner lives that shape our outer ones — through culture, travel, leadership, and lived experience.

I’m Melissa Horrell — a British-Canadian writer and retreat host, born in Uganda and raised across continents. My life has unfolded between cities and wild places, ideas and institutions, healing work and leadership roles. What connects it all is a long-standing fascination with how people make meaning — especially at moments of change.

I grew up in a household shaped by contrast: the daughter of a former senior intelligence director -Masterspy – and an artist-academic mother. Curiosity, culture, ethics, and creativity were daily conversation. Moving between New York, London, Paris, Brussels, and West Africa gave me an early understanding of how history, politics, and place quietly influence who we become.

Those early years taught me to observe closely — people, systems, language, power — and to notice what sits beneath the surface.

A Life Shaped by Travel and Inquiry

In my early twenties, I left home to travel solo through Asia, Africa, Europe, and the Americas. What began as adventure quickly became something more reflective. I wasn’t collecting destinations so much as paying attention — to how different cultures approach community, spirituality, resilience, and care.

Along the way I kept journals, lived with local families, learned languages, and sought experiences that stretched my understanding of courage: trekking in the Himalayas, facing war in Kashmir, fundraising for an orphanage in Uganda, skydiving in New Zealand, returning again and again to places that challenged my assumptions.

Travel, for me, was never about escape. It was about perspective — about learning how small and interconnected our lives really are.

From Healing Arts to Leadership

That curiosity eventually led me into the healing arts. I trained in aromatherapy and massage in London, and later in reflexology, yoga teaching, and counselling. What began as personal exploration became a career spanning more than two decades in wellness and hospitality.

I went on to direct one of British Columbia’s largest spa resorts and later founded my own award-winning holistic spa in Vancouver, building it into a seven-figure business, and sold it. Alongside this, I opened an art gallery and consulted for wellness and hospitality businesses across Canada and the UK.

Throughout these roles, one truth became clear: leadership is not separate from inner life. The most effective leaders — in business, community, or family — are those who understand themselves, their values, and their capacity for reflection.

Loss, Responsibility, and the Quiet Work of Care

Life has also brought loss. My brother lived with schizophrenia and later died by suicide. His death profoundly altered how I understand mental health, systems of care, and the everyday courage required to live with invisible struggles.

In the years since, I’ve worked closely with individuals and families navigating disability and mental health challenges. Currently, I work as a facilitator for a Canadian government organization, supporting people with disabilities and Indigenous communities. This work has grounded me — moving my attention away from ideals and toward dignity, patience, and presence.

Other experiences — grief, childlessness, starting over in new places — have shaped my writing and teaching in quieter ways. They’ve taught me that resilience is rarely dramatic. More often, it’s steady, unremarkable, and deeply human.

Writing, Retreats, and Place

During the pandemic, I rediscovered a journal I’d kept in Southeast Asia decades earlier. One entry read:

“One day, I will open a retreat — a place where people can rest, heal, and remember who they are.”

That long-held idea eventually became Vancouver Island Retreat. It is not an escape from the world, but a pause within it — a place to think clearly, breathe deeply, and reconnect with what matters.

Today, I host small, thoughtful retreats for women focused on reflection, leadership, creativity, and renewal. They draw on nature, conversation, movement, and stillness — and are shaped as much by listening as by teaching.

Alongside this work, I write — essays and reflections on culture, leadership, identity, grief, and the inner lives behind public roles. My voice sits at the intersection of lived experience and observation, informed by travel, history, and systems I’ve worked within.

Mission

This work is grounded in a few simple beliefs:

• That vulnerability, when handled with care, is a form of strength

• That nature and art restore perspective

• That leadership begins with self-knowledge

• That courage often appears quietly, in ordinary choices

Whether you are here to read, reflect, or retreat, this is an invitation to slow down and engage more thoughtfully with your own life — and with the world beyond it.