Butterfly Retreat Cottage, Delvin

Located 10 mins outside of Mullingar, Butterfly Cottage is a beautiful location for Olive MacDonagh’s holistic health and wellness retreat. We were delighted to be invited there this week to participate in a Kundalini Yoga session.

If you thought Yoga wasn’t for you, you are mistaken! I didn’t expect to leave the cottage so excited! I’m already looking forward to taking another class. Turns out, yoga isn’t all about flexibility and being able to touching your toes, it’s about what you learn on the way down and how to care for yourself with some well-deserved “me time”

Kundalini yogaand meditation is a form of yoga that involves singing, breathing exercises, and repetitive poses. Its purpose is to activate your Kundalini energy, or shakti. This is a spiritual energy that’s said to be located at the base of your spine. Kundalini Yoga is known as the yoga of awareness, a yoga for householders that can be used to elevate consciousness and bring about transformation in your life very efficiently. It starts with an opening chant (known as “tuning in”) followed by a brief warm-up for your spine, a kriya (which is a sequence of postures paired with breathing techniques), and a closing meditation or song.  Olive’s speciality is the yoga of sound called Naad yoga using gong, sound bowls and other instruments which makes for a very restful relaxation

After the session I caught up with Olive as she walked me around the cottage and all it has to offer. The cottage plays host to a self-contained studio apartment perfect for taking quality time out for yourself to have optimal health and relaxation. The retreat days can be the exact kick start you need to get your health and wellness back on track! There is also 2 separate bedrooms in the main cottage to allow for bigger groups, perfect for someone who is restarting their lives.

We took a walk around the cottage gardens which has a number of different elements including a beautiful stone circle we know will make the perfect area for an upcoming event with Mullingar Chamber. Olive told me about her life and what she did before starting Butterfly Cottage and explained she was formerly a chartered accountant with a very busy lifestyle. When her health declined, she embarked on a holistic health and spiritual journey to improve her own health and wellbeing and now shares the tools and techniques that have helped her to heal, grow and transform.

We finished up the morning with one of Olive’s delicious homemade Carrot, Orange and Ginger juice and found out she is also a nutritionist and juice therapist! his shows how to make the carrot, orange & ginger juice which you can find out how to make here https://youtu.be/6LV39Wrdqw4. Olive has also written articles for many books and produced many CD’s for relaxation – all of which are available directly from her website.

Butterfly Cottage Retreat offer courses in Nutrition, Overnight Retreats, One on One sessions, Group Sessions, Work Group sessions in a business and her website offers many guided practices you can do at home.

Mullingar.ie highly recommend Olive and Butterfly Retreat! 10/10. Check out her website https://butterflycottageretreat.ie