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.

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