I want to share something with you that I haven't quite put into words before. The real story of why Sal-Me exists.

Not the polished version. The real one.

I built this from a broken place.

Chronic pain. Burnout. Years of raising my children mostly alone, holding everything together while my body quietly fell apart. There came a point where I simply couldn't work anymore. Couldn't keep going the way I had been.

What saved me — slowly, imperfectly — was yoga. And rest. And community.

During the years when I was working and alone with my children, yoga was what kept me going. It was the thread I held onto. And when my children left for holidays with their father, I would leave too — for a yoga retreat, a meditation retreat, a few days of being held by something larger than the daily weight of it all.

Those days became more precious to me than I can fully describe. For the first time in a long while, I could breathe. I could simply be myself — not only a mother holding everything together, but a woman. Just a woman, held by others for a change.

For years, I longed for exactly this kind of space in my everyday life. Safe. Quiet. Real. Women gathering together, arriving exactly as they are — tired, tender, imperfect — and being welcomed anyway.

So when my partner dreamed of land — old stones, fruit trees, a chapel, silence — and we found La Commanderie, something in me recognized it immediately.

This is it. This is the place.

I still live with chronic pain. I have not healed my way out of it – yet! But I have learned what it means to be held — by rest, by nature, by movement, and by the quiet power of women in community.

That is what I am offering you. Not perfection. A real place, built from real longing, by someone who needed it herself for a very long time.

If this resonates, you are welcome to explore what we offer at Sal-Me and at La Commanderie.

You are welcome here — exactly as you are. 🧡

With love, Catja