Soneva Fushi Soul Festival is drawing alternative thinkers

Times

13-05-2025

If wellness festivals are the new music festivals, then Soul Festival at Soneva Fushi in the Maldives is like the VIP-est bit of Glastonbury. Not only can you see your heroes perform, but you can also hang out with them afterwards — for a whole five days. It's like boozing with Liam and Noel after the Oasis gig. And, just like Glastonbury, to score a pass you have to be either famous, loaded or a freeloader.
I'm the only journalist to slip under the Soul Festival velvet rope and I'm pinching myself. Soneva Fushi is the castaway fantasy of its visionary owners, Sonu and Eva Shivdasani, who in 1995 pretty much invented the idea of barefoot luxury and the slogan 'No shoes, no news'. Since then, amid the hundreds of hotels that have sprung up on these pristine atolls, Fushiis still the place where movie stars, billionaire businessmen and their extended families merrily rub sun-kissed shoulders.
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The Shivdasanis have always invited extraordinary people to their island to share stories and experiences with guests: the astronaut Buzz Aldrin, the actor Stanley Tucci, the tennis player Jonas Bjorkman. But after Sonu was diagnosed with stage four non-Hodgkin lymphoma in 2017, they zeroed in on wellbeing, turning the already expansive spa into a space for doctors to practise alternative and western medicine. Alongside ayurveda and traditional Chinese medicine, there are cutting-edge integrative medicine treatments, including auto-haemotherapy, hyperbaric oxygen therapy, cryotherapy, prolotherapy and plasma therapy.
The (sugar-free) icing on the (gluten-free) wellness cake is the yearly Soul Festival, when for five days in October this tiny paradise island vibrates with big brains and big ideas. The speakers are wildly varied; for the latest edition they included the dazzling Jamie Wheal, the Pulitzer-nominated author, founder of the Flow Genome project and one of the world's leading experts in human performance, who has worked with US Navy Seals, athletes and Silicon Valley folk. He was joined by Eric Edmeades, the so-called architect of transformation who educates with levity while leaping about the sandy stage; Dr Nasha Winters, the integrative oncology expert and author, who speaks about metabolic health; and Robin Lim, a midwife, who blows us away with her life's work of saving and birthing babies in areas affected by climate change.
The big draw is Zach Bush, a specialist in internal medicine, endocrinology and hospice care, who talks about the interconnectedness between the soil and human microbiome, the failing of agriculture and how all these puzzle pieces will determine the future of humanity and the world. The conversation lasts long after the lecture's last clap. Over beach picnics, cocktail parties and sushi dinners, the island is abuzz with swapping and sharing, connecting and challenging, plotting and networking. It feels like the modern version of an ancient trading city, maybe Petra or Venice. But instead of frankincense or spice, the booty is hope and healing.
The guests are a hotchpotch of festival junkies, a chapter of Young Presidents' Organisation members, wellbeing investors and inventors peddling wares that include controversial stem-cell therapy, nasal breathing contraptions and a sound-frequency healing bed.
There are plenty of sideshows. There's Marcel Hof (Wim's brother) leading the celebrated breathwork-ice-bath combo, ayurvedic pulse diagnosis and gong baths among the wafting palms. And then there's Sanctum: the physical and mindful euphoric-movement system (now famous for getting this year's Davos stiffs to 'raise their vibration'). Its effects are spectacular. As we speed-boat at sunrise to a spit of sand in the sea, we slip on headphones that connect us to the founder Luuk Melisse, who delivers instructions to a soaring soundtrack. He plays us like a fiddle, physically, mentally and emotionally. By the end, some are whooping, others are sobbing. Everyone is feeling something.
You can't not be affected by hanging out in this heightened environment. For some, the effects are extreme. Six months post-festival, one attendee tells me the Soul Festival was so inspiring it was like chucking a firework into her life; she has developed a new business, has written a book and explains how 'during that week, my life's purpose became crystal clear. It's like I'm living on psychedelics. Now I can see things.'
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So be warned: unlike a thumping Glasto hangie, the aftershocks of Soul Festival might well change your life.
The next Soneva Fushi Soul Festival is from October 9 to 13. Seven nights, from October 9 to 17, staying in a one-bedroom Family Villa Suite with pool, half-board, costs from £9,999pp, based on two sharing, with return seaplane transfers and Etihad flights from London, turquoiseholidays.co.uk
There's nothing that breaks the ice like crawling around in cold, wet January grass with your bum in the air like a baboon, alongside 15 perfect strangers, writes Alice B-B. I'm at the inaugural Emotional Health Retreat weekend created by Dr Tamsin Lewis, a psychiatrist and the founder of Wellgevity, a longevity-focused functional and integrative medicine service based in London.
This primal movement is both ego-shedding and unexpectedly fun. We're on the lawns of a grand private house in Richmond (with ozone pool, sauna, steam and cold plunge), lent to Lewis by its philanthropically minded owner. It's a fat gaff that must have witnessed plenty of riotous behaviour over the years; it was originally Queen Victoria and Prince Albert's hunting lodge and, more recently, home to the Rolling Stones' Ronnie Wood.
Our leader is the charming and wildly energetic osteopath Boniface Verney-Carron. We follow him barefoot to encourage hormesis (what doesn't kill you makes you stronger), sniff the grass (to reconnect with nature and lower cortisol), run laps like loons (which gets the heart rate up), hold hands consciously (to properly connect with each other) and then enjoy feeling our heartbeat and breath (helping to connect with ourselves).
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We are living in an epidemic of loneliness and self-isolation, which Vivek Murthy, the former US surgeon general, says 'increases the risk for premature death'. Which is why, on these retreats, Lewis aims to create connectivity and eudaimonia. The latter is an internally driven sense of happiness resulting from an increase of oxytocin and serotonin (most commonly achieved through relating to others and nature — and the opposite of dopamine-chasing hedonism). Bioharmonising, this adaptable, balanced approach, is an alternative to the rigid, toxic biohacking popular with social media 'gurus'.
Each retreat is focused on emotional health with a varying roster of therapists. This time there's Rob Rea, a breathwork coach to chief executives, founders, actors and the superyacht brigade, who leads the group in sessions accompanied by the pianist Rosey Chan. Joining him is the intimacy and relationship coach Chloe Mackintosh, who has our group staring into each other's eyes and practising consensual touch. It's a little confronting and my awkward self is hugely relieved to be partnered with my best girlfriend. Once we've gone beyond nervous giggling, her teaching is powerful and jolly useful. 'It's about increased eye contact, being better communicators whether that's for individuals, couples or teaching the art of relating within business,' she says.
It's clear from the retreaters I chat to (some very broken, others dealing with relationship issues, others keen for increased intimacy) that this weekend has delivered — both as a reset and a springboard, serving up new tools, ideas and a new community (many of us swap details and make plans for further work with the therapists). 'Emotional health is the heartbeat of longevity,' Lewis says. 'With the right facilitators and environment it's like CTRL-ALT-DELETE for the nervous system — and the group setting magnifies it.' And what feels like a two-fingers-up to the biohacking bros, Lewis adds: 'Wellness is a skill, not a pill.'
An emotional wellness retreat costs from £195 a day, wellgevity.com