I’m standing on a grassy slope, looking over the three-mile-long curve of Rhossili Bay, on the south-western tip of the Gower peninsula in Wales. Alongside eight others, I’m taken through a breathing exercise. It is rhythmic: we take one big breath in, slowly exhale, then repeat. We’re told to focus on the present, just the things around us, and my gaze settles on the timber carcass of Helvetia, shipwrecked in 1887, which protrudes from the wet sand on the beach below. Next, we close our eyes, shifting our attention to only what we can hear. We’re asked to identify the different noises, and I find myself relaxing as I unpick them: there is the wind and, further away, the sea’s waves.
