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I had an interesting dream on my first night at a yoga retreat a couple of weeks ago. In the dream, I was accused of behaving violently at the retreat centre - and that it wasn't the first time this had happened. My dreaming self was horrified. I had no memory of this violence, either then or in the past, but there were many witnesses to my violent behaviour. This time, I was told, I had thrown a mattress into the pond.

Well, that's violent enough all right ...

Only two things were clear about the meaning of the dream. One was the use of the word 'violent'. It was repeated often enough to be significant. The other was the fact that this 'violence' happened at this particular retreat centre. I'd been to this place many times before for meditation retreats but this was the first time I'd been there for a yoga retreat.

I jotted down the details of the dream and hoped that the meaning would get clearer in time.

Sure enough, the morning after I got home, it did. The host on my early morning yoga TV program used the word 'violence' in her teaching that day.

That caught my attention.

Her teaching that week was about 'ahinsa', which means 'non-violence'. Her teaching that morning was about violence towards oneself. She spoke about how our frustration when we can't accomplish something we want to accomplish can turn into 'beating ourselves up' about it and that this is a form of violence against ourselves.

As soon as I heard her say this, I knew what my subconscious had been trying to show me in the dream.

My past experiences of retreats at that centre have not always been joyful. I struggled. With back pain, with homesickness, with my own limitations. The structure was strict and silent and the activities were not considered optional, but since it was a format that has been used effectively for centuries, and was designed to provide a safe, ordered environment where people could come to develop insight, I kept going back. Unfortunately I usually came home from them feeling rotten. I couldn't see that continuing to return to them over and over, when I struggled so much, was a violence against myself.

My friends and family could see it - they rolled their eyes every time I signed up for another one.

The yoga retreat was different: the tone, the format, the teaching methods, the participants. From the first moment, the teacher stressed that everything was optional. Her kindness, openness, exuberance, wisdom and even silliness encouraged the same in us. Self-acceptance was a strong underlying theme over the whole retreat while laughter, respect and friendliness made our personal efforts to explore our limitations a joy.

No wonder I had the dream on the first night there. It showed me that even though I had no memory of it, I had been violent towards myself there in the past. It took an environment of non-violence in the same location and a focus on self-acceptance to make that clear.

Perhaps one day I'll be able to return again to a formal meditation retreat there, without it becoming a violence against myself. But when I mention that to my friends and family... they just roll their eyes.

In keeping with my newly revised and updated correspondence course on Talking With Nature, I'd like to introduce you to Patrice Bouchardin's work in the same field. His book is filled with beautiful illustrations, exercices and ideas that are similar to the ones I use in my own courses. His approach is bit different, but that makes sense, since each of us has an experience of trees that is unique to ourselves. Have fun with it.
Talking With Nature email correspondence course

For more book recommendations, check out my Resources page.

I like the idea of using the breath as Thich Nhat Hahn suggests, thinking a specific thought on the inbreath and another one on the outbreath. It's a great tool to bring my attention - or intention - back to something. Easy to remember, easy to use. Anyhow, it goes like this: (breathing in) I calm my body. (breathing out) I smile. And then repeat for a few breaths until I can feel it working. So for a while I was using (breathing in) Life is imperfect. (breathing out) I am enough. Then when I was having sticky thoughts I wanted to release, I tried: (breathing in) Life is imperfect. (breathing out) Letting this go. Seemed like a good plan. But then it dawned on me that as long as I was saying, 'Letting this go,' I was still actually pointing my attention towards something I wanted to leave in my past. By telling myself to let it go, I was actually hanging onto it. So I switched to this one: (breathing in) Life is imperfect. (breathing out) Keep moving. And it's working much better.

Even as we reach upwards towards the light and grow spindly in our efforts to fulfill ourselves to our highest possible potential, we do not strive in the way of needing to fulfill this potential. We strive as is our nature and allow our existence to be what it is. Our existence does not depend on this physical expression. We rest in our own beauty and in the beauty of the energies around us and we glory in the opportunity to express ourselves.

In this meditation you bathe in a healing pool of water.

1. Sit in a comfortable position. Take in a breath and let it out. Relax.
2. Start to imagine that you are approaching a warm pond or pool of water. Make the scene as elaborate or as simple as you wish. It can be a simple tub of healing water or a pond at the bottom of a waterfall in a forest glade. Whatever you like.
3. Get a feel for the peace and beauty of this place and get a sense of just how special the water is. The water has been infused with healing energy, vibrant yet soothing, warm yet energizing. There's something magic about it.
4. Let yourself gently enter the pool and relax in the water, either sitting in it or floating in it. Relax deeply.
5. Begin to notice how this special healing water tingles a bit on your skin and then seems to warm you from inside. Imagine the feeling penetrating your skin and filling you up; every corner and cell being changed by this healing water. Feel any tension or pain or disease being soothed away, dissolved by the healing water. It feels marvelous.
6. Stay as long as you like, enjoying the peace and energy. And when you have had enough, leave the healing pool, knowing that you are carrying its goodness home with you.

If you're the type who likes to let go in a tub of hot water after a long day, this may be an easy meditation for you. Try taking it a step farther by doing this meditation while you're in the tub.

Remember most meditations become richer the more you practice them. They reveal more of themselves. It can take practice to remember to do a meditation when you need to, and it can take practice to go through the steps. But that's why it is called practice, and for most of us, we practice for the rest of our lives.

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