The ‘Me-Chelorette’: How a solo self-discovery trip helped me prepare for marriage

I’d always imagined that being engaged would be the happiest chapter of my life. But—and this feels hard to admit to the Internet—my bride-to-be era hasn’t exactly been the champagne-showers-and-sunshine I was promised.

Don’t get me wrong: There have been plenty of surprise celebrations and a whole lot of love, and I am *so* excited to throw my dream wedding in Mexico with all of my favorite people. But if I’m being totally honest, behind all of my cute white outfits and smiling Instagram photos, I’ve spent much of my engagement seriously struggling with my mental health.

Wedding planning—which has been happening in tandem with the most stressful year of my career thus far—became an absolute nightmare for my anxious, ADHD brain, and the overwhelm of it all was simply more than I could handle. I was also really struggling with going through the process without my dad, who passed away eight years ago, and the whole becoming “a bride” thing brought my long-dormant eating disorder back in full force. By the time August hit, I was a burnt-out shell of the person who’d said “YES!!!!!!!” nearly a year earlier. The things that were supposed to make me happy about planning a wedding—like picking out flowers or deciding who was going to walk me down the aisle—were giving me full-blown panic attacks, and there were still five months to go.

No matter how excited I was (and am!) to marry my partner, I learned the hard way that finding *the one* doesn’t mean that all your problems are suddenly solved forever. For that, apparently, you have to look inward—which is why I booked myself a solo “me-chelorette” trip at Miraval Resort in Arizona.

Going it alone: The rise of the solo bachelorette

For what it’s worth, I’m hardly the first bride to need a little “me time” before their big day. The New York Times first reported on the solo bachelorette trend in 2023, and that same year, Zola estimated that 7 percent of couples would forego the traditional group celebration in favor of doing something on their own. These trips are less about “one last night of freedom” with your friends, and more about self-love, reflection, and making the transition into marriage on your own terms.

According to experts, there are a few reasons why people are opting to go it alone. For some, it’s because planning a solo trip for yourself comes with a whole lot less pressure than planning a 20-person themed vacation (FWIW, I also went to Las Vegas with 14 of my closest friends, so that doesn’t really apply here). For others, it’s about exerting their independence and celebrating themselves before they enter into a partnership. And for many—myself included—it’s an opportunity to prioritize themselves and their mental health amidst the madness of wedding planning.

While I knew that three solo days at a spa would give me a break from the daily stressors that were constantly sending me spiraling, that was only a small part of why I wanted to get away. I needed a whole lot more than a few phone-free days and a luxury massage: I needed some real, meaningful alone time to focus on myself, process my emotions, and set intentions for the life I was starting to build. Before I commit to another person until death do us part, it felt important to me to really know who I am. I needed to mentally, emotionally, and spiritually prepare for what was ahead, because I didn’t want to start the next chapter of my life feeling like such an unhappy (and unstable) mess.

I’d spent so much of my life dreaming about who my husband would be, but I’d never really stopped to think about who *I* wanted to be when I became a wife. During my engagement, though, I realized pretty quickly that the version of me who was stressed out, burnt out, and constantly losing her shit was definitely not it. Before I officially (and legally) attached myself to another person until death do us part, I wanted to feel like the best possible version of myself—because that’s what we *both* deserve.

Planning my solo bachelorette

From what I’d heard about Miraval, I knew that there was no better place in America for unplugging and figuring out your shit.

The resort has everything you’d expect from a luxury wellness retreat—but at the highest possible level. Miraval has been around for 30 years (it was bought by Hyatt in 2017), and is based on the mission of meeting people where they’re at in their wellness journey and helping them find balance through mindfulness. There are properties in Austin and the Berkshires, too, but I opted to take my me-chelorette party at the OG spot in Arizona.

Nestled at the base of the Catalina mountains about an hour outside of Tuscon, the breathtaking desert oasis feels like a five-star summer camp, but with much better beds, showers, and food. Where it really goes above and beyond, though, is with its abundant list of activity offerings. There are things you’d expect, like yoga, fitness, hiking, biking, and meditation, but there are also some seriously cool (and admittedly out there) things on offer, like horse therapy and metaphysical exploration. Their practitioners are best-in-class, and include a wide range of specialists, from world-renowned psychic mediums to registered dietitians.

As you’d expect, a three-night stay at a place like this isn’t exactly cheap (though all of the food and most of the activities are included)—during the off season, rooms start around $1,000 a night. The good news, though, is that if you’ve got the World of Hyatt® Credit Card from Chase, you can book the whole thing using points. The card offers up to 9X points on Hyatt hotels, and spas (if you’re a World of Hyatt member, which is easy and free to sign up), plus double points on fitness classes and gyms (so, there are basically perks for all of my favorite things to spend money on) and access to all kinds of curated experiences. It also comes with a 60,000 point sign-up bonus, which means that if you swipe it enough, you could be on a basically-free trip to Miraval in no time (or, at the very least, treat yourself to a massage while you’re there).

The life-changing magic of Miraval

During my three days at Miraval, I attended at least a dozen different activities, including workout classes, guided meditations, and workshops on things like stress management, intuitive eating, journaling, and creative expression. I got two life-changing massages, ate my weight in vegetables, and closed out each night with yoga under the stars. I laid by the pool and read a book cover to cover, filled an entire journal with my feelings, and bonded with women who were also at Miraval to find themselves (which seemed to be a common theme among the clientele).

I also cried. A lot. Save for a few check-ins with my fiancé, I tried to totally unplug for the entire time I was there—which meant there was nothing to distract me from what was going on in my brain. And it was terrifying. It was the first time in a long time I had been alone with my thoughts, which was especially tough considering that the whole point of the trip was to force me to confront the most uncomfortable among them.

While every experience at Miraval helped me do that on some level, there were three in particular that were such transformational parts of my journey, I haven’t stopped thinking about them since.

Confronting my trauma

Hours after arriving on property, I dove in head first with something that the activities pamphlet called a “Trauma Healing Journey.” I sat on the floor of a yurt with crystals in each hand while an intuitive medium named Rae Jessie led me and one other woman through a guided sound bath, and by the end of it, we were both in tears.

It was one of the more “woo woo” wellness-y things I’ve ever done, and in 75 minutes, turned me into a full-blown believer. I’ve got decades of talk therapy under my belt, but this was something different—I can’t fully explain it, but as the healer spoke, I could physically feel the energy shifting inside of me. It was as if the knots of trauma that had built up inside my body over the years were finally loosening, and it was overwhelming.

As if that wasn’t enough, at the end of the session, Rae Jessie translated messages from the spiritual world. My dad (who passed away in 2016) came through to tell me he’d be right beside me when I walked down the aisle in January, and recommended that I play “Fly Me To The Moon”—a song we sang together in the car at least 300 times—for the moment. She also told me that the biggest successes of my life were up ahead, and that I wasn’t far off from turning the book I’ve always dreamt of writing into a reality.

Confronting my trauma wasn’t part of the original plan for my bachelorette trip—or for this engagement, honestly. But as I sat there crying next to a complete stranger, I realized that wedding planning had unlocked parts of me that I’d pushed down for years. I’d thought finding the “one” was the final piece in my happiness puzzle, but in that moment, it became clear that to show up for my marriage fully, I had to untangle the parts of me that were hurting.

By confronting long-buried grief, I felt parts of myself finally start to soften, and hearing that my dad would be right beside me as I walked down the aisle brought a peace I didn’t know I needed. I left that session feeling like a weight had lifted, and there was still so much more to come.

Losing my fear

On my second day at Miraval, I found myself face-to-face with a fear that had plagued me my whole life—literally, on top of a telephone pole, with tears streaming down my face yet again

When I signed up for one of the resort’s ropes course challenges, I thought it might be a good way to push my boundaries. What I didn’t realize, though, was how much it would parallel everything I’d been feeling leading up to my wedding.

The experience began with setting an intention. My only goal for the day, I decided, was to tell myself “I can” instead of convincing myself I couldn’t. I had recently realized that my negative self talk was really messing with my wellbeing, and making me question whether or not I even deserved the happiness I was working toward.

When I started climbing up to the platform that I would eventually zip line off of, it took everything in me not to give up. I was shaking and crying and cursing myself for ever thinking this would be a good idea. When I made it to the top and realized that the ground was at least 50 feet below me, the panic became so intense that it somehow turned into a wave of calm. The adrenaline was so deafening that it drowned out anything outside of the current moment, and the only way to get through it was to focus on my breathing and keep telling myself that I could do it.

As I mentally prepared to step off the platform, I couldn’t help but notice that it felt like an all-too-obvious, smack-me-in-the-face metaphor for the next step I’m about to take in my life. For me, the thought of getting married comes along with the same sort of full-body fear and excitement, and requires the same sort of blind faith that things are going to work out.

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, and was soaring through the sky before I had a chance to second guess myself. Not only did I do it, but I loved it—I laughed the entire way down, and tried to hold onto that weightless feeling of unbridled joy for as long as possible

Somehow, the intense pressure I felt—both on that platform and throughout my engagement—finally shifted into a strange calm, and all I had to do was tell myself I could do it.

Understanding myself

The third notable time I cried at Miraval happened when I was staring into the eyes of a horse.

I’d chatted with a few of the other guests during some of the sessions, and the activity they kept recommending again and again (aside from anything with Rae Jesse) was… horse therapy.

I, for one, was skeptical. I’ve had enough human therapy to know that talking is a very key part of the process, which horses can’t really help with. But after a fifth person told me that I absolutely couldn’t miss the “Unbound” equine experience, I figured I had to give it a shot.

Once again, me and one other woman (I’d highly recommend going to Miraval during the off-season, because the group sessions wind up being fairly private). And of course, our beautiful cream colored therapy horse.

The (human) therapist (who was very much in attendance to lead the session) started off by asking us what brought us to Miraval, and I gave her the highlights of everything I’d been struggling with. Then, she asked who was ready to get into the ring with the horse, and I volunteered to go first.

The exercise was simple: All we had to do was lead the horse in a circle using commands and body language. Horses are known to be highly sensitive creatures, so the idea is that they can sense your energy—if you’re calm, working with them should be easy; if you’re anxious, they may move away or show signs of discomfort. This mirroring is meant to help people recognize emotions they may be suppressing to foster a deeper understanding of themselves. Of course, I knew none of this going into it.

When I stepped into the ring, I started to panic almost immediately. Getting the horse to move with me was not as easy as the trainer had made it seem, and the more anxious I got, the harder she was to work with. I tried to keep my cool, but internally, I was freaking out about the prospect of failing at something *so* seemingly simple in front of two complete strangers and a horse.

The therapist intuited all of this within the first few minutes, and challenged me to look inward to try to understand where this fear of failure come from. She picked up on my debilitating perfectionism, and helped me realize that my people-pleasing tendencies were put in place as a means of protection.

“But this is a horse,” she reminded me, “So she doesn’t really care what you do.”

At that point, I was sobbing—I had never felt more vulnerable in my life. Within minutes, the horse had somehow uncovered the parts of me that had been buried for years, and laid them bare in front of me and two complete strangers (one of whom was crying right along with me). But when I was stripped of all of my defense mechanisms, a wave of calm washed over me, and the horse and I finally started to move together. It was incredible.

Later that day, I wrote 23 front-and-back journal pages about what the experience brought up for me. I confronted some pretty dark demons, and wound up with a deep understanding of myself that no amount of talk therapy has ever been able to root out. All from walking next to a horse!

It was in that ring, facing my deepest fears of imperfection, that I realized I had been carrying so much weight—trying to be the ‘perfect’ bride, the ‘perfect’ partner, and, frankly, the ‘perfect’ version of myself. But the horse didn’t give a shit about all those expectations, and helped me see that the only way forward is to let go of the need for control and lean into authenticity. By the end of that session, I felt more seen and understood than I had in years—not by the horse, but by myself. And as I head into marriage, I’m bringing that vulnerability with me, knowing that I can show up as I am, with all my strengths and flaws, and still be deserving of love and happiness.

Bringing my ‘me-chelorette’ learnings into marriage

To say that this trip changed my life isn’t just some click-baity hyperbole I put in the headline to get you to read this story—with all of my heart, I believe it to be true.

Obviously, a few days on a solo vacation didn’t magically “fix” my mental health struggles, nor would I ever want to suggest that it did. My trip to Miraval did, however, give me clarity around the things in my life (and myself) that weren’t working, and motivated me to start working to change them.

Three months later, I feel like a completely different person than the one who touched down in Arizona. When I came home, I promised myself that no matter what was going on with the wedding or how stressed out I was about work, I was going to put my wellbeing first. First and foremost, this meant clueing the people around me into what was going on, and putting together a team of professionals to help me continue healing. But it also meant making the time to go on walks and see friends and cook myself dinner, finding things that challenged me and forced me to get outside of myself, and relinquishing control over place settings and floral arrangements in favor of focusing my energy on things that bring me joy. And as it turns out, a “life in balance”—which is Miraval’s tagline—really is worth living.

All of this, at Miraval and beyond, has not only helped me feel firmly planted in who I am, but it has also inspired me to work toward becoming the person I want to be—both for myself and for my partner.

With eight weeks left until our wedding, I’m endlessly proud of how far I’ve come, and of the person I’ll continue to grow into as we start to build our life together. I know who I am, and I feel ready to start the next chapter of my life with my favorite human by my side. In large part, I have Miraval to thank for that, and I can’t wait to bring my husband back next year.