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The search for inner fulfilment and the search for the meaning of life is in all of us. Amid our busy, frantic lives we crave reassurance in knowledge and understanding. But while previous generations might have gone to church, today we are more likely to do yoga, chant 'Om' and hire a wellness coach.
Yet still, it is not enough. We are obsessed with self-improvement – in our careers, in the gym and in the type of person we are. Our self-help journey is fuelled by our urge to seek out new forms and experiences to help provide us with answers on our journey of self-exploration.
One context that can provide exactly those experiences is the retreat. Once the preserve of religious fellowships and devotees, spiritual retreats are today enjoying wider appeal, especially among young professionals seeking to escape the pressures of everyday life and gain perspective on their own existence. As a 'young professional' myself, I've put together a small selection of my favourite retreats...
1. Mandala Yoga Ashram, Wales
Mandala Yoga Ashram
Best for: Holistic, yoga experience
Book: mandalayoga.net
As for many a Western gal, yoga has become key to my exercise routine. My interest led me to Mandala Yoga Ashram in Carmarthenshire, South Wales. A thriving teaching centre, it upholds a simple way of life. You can take part in a course or stay as a working guest – board and lodging in exchange for a small fee and helping out.
Here, in the easy company of the resident yogis and the quiet isolation of the hills, it’s easy to let go of worry and take stock of life. Just a night or two in the ashram’s routine – stretching, chanting, cleaning, gardening and reflection – leaves me as rejuvenated as a fortnight on the beach. Read my interview with the Ashram's founder, Swami Nishchalananda here.
2. The Sacred Trust, Dorset
Best for: Celebrating the feminine
Book: sacredtrust.org
I have just returned from a rejuvenating time embracing my femininity at The Sacred Trust shamanic training centre in Dorset. Not the stereotypical version – see my Editor’s hello for the full denunciation of that – but femininity in all its gentle, nurturing glory.
I signed up to the not-for-profit centre’s five-day, women-only course The Way of the Melissae, not sure what to expect. What I discovered was a wonderful camaraderie with 18 other women of all ages, backgrounds and nationalities, ably led by our course teachers Naomi Lewis and Deborah Willimott.
The workshop focused on the need to embrace ourselves through our wombs – to build a rapport with that part of the body which, it is believed in that particular shamanic tradition, is a woman’s first brain and the font of her intelligence. Naomi and Deborah asked us how well we knew and felt our wombs. Do we really value them as their power and fertility demand? The frequent tragedy of trauma in childbirth suggests not.
As we were there to celebrate women and our role in the world, it was no accident that we took the humble honeybee – one of the great matriarchal species – as our inspiration, following meditative practices from the Path of the Pollen tradition.
For one who has spent my life firmly in my head, getting down to my vagina was a plunge into the unknown. And yet, as I discovered after a couple of days, building a deeper bond with our bodies is possible: we really can learn to hear them ‘speak’. Women may be the fairer sex, but in giving birth we have great strength and resilience – and we ought to celebrate it more.
Moved and inspired, I left The Sacred Trust intent on embracing the loving, gentle power of the feminine.
3. Family Constellations with Sarasi Rogers, Devon
Best for: Resolving family feuds
Book: familyconstellation.co.uk
Sarasi Rogers has been a therapist for over 34 years and for the past 17, has specialised in Family Constellations – a radical form of complementary therapy that helps to heal feuds, separation and trauma.
The work was developed in the early 1990s by German psychotherapist Bert Hellinger when he observed similarities between the emotional issues presented by his clients and the tragedies suffered within their family history.
Hellinger felt that he could see patterns arise between the trauma that had occurred within individual families and the subsequent emotional issues that he noted would then beset its members. Often affecting more than one person, the upset would moreover appear to 'pass down' the generations.
His conclusions resulted in the establishment of the therapeutic practice, the focus of which lies in the theory that if major upsets such as early deaths, murder and rejection are not sufficiently healed and resolved, they cast an energetic shadow and possible detriment over the individual as well as to his or her family lineage.
Indeed, it was Sarasi's initial desire to make sense of her own family situation that drew her to the practice.
“It was working on my own problems and that of my family's that led me to train in it,” she explains. “I began to see such improvements within myself and the family dynamics that it began to inform my work as a therapist and bodyworker.”
By enabling acknowledgement of the wrongdoing, so Hellinger posits, and the suppressed emotions that inevitably accompany it, the trauma of the event will no longer continue to haunt the individual and his or her family, and therefore 'free' subsequent generations from it.
During her weekend workshops, Sarasi works with groups to help heal issues presented by individuals by guiding them through a ‘constellation’ of their family situation. It appears to be like a role play, with each of those present represents members of the family who then work through the circumstances that have arisen from the event in order to reconcile the family members and heal them of any residual upset.
Sarasi gently leads the actors to explore the consequences of the situation that brought them harm, before bringing the session to a peaceful resolution based on forgiveness. All of which creates – somewhat unexpectedly in my case – an incredible rapport within the room and within oneself for many days.
One does, of course, require a deal of trust that the Constellation will have the desired effect, and it goes without saying that it is difficult to offer a full and frank explanation within the framework of Western medical science. It also involves a degree of trust in Sarasi, for whose kindly and perceptive manner I was grateful when confronting my own vulnerabilities regarding sensitive situations within my family.
Yet, thanks to her guidance, the experiences I have had during my own constellations have greatly improved relationships within my family, and I shall no doubt return.
4. Close to home
Best for: The local retreat experience
Douai Abbey in Woolhampton near Reading is home to Benedictine Catholic monks and welcomes visiting pilgrims to its guesthouse of 15 ensuite rooms.
Kadampa Meditation Centre on Bath Road in Reading is home to an international Buddhist community and hosts regular weekend retreats.
Nuneham Park in Nuneham Courtenay, Oxon, is home to the Global Retreat Centre and the Brahma Kumaris World Spiritual University – a worldwide spiritual movement dedicated to personal transformation and world renewal, founded in India in 1937. It offers a variety of residential and non-residential classes and courses.
Soto Zen Buddhism Priory on Cressingham Road, Reading was founded in 1990 as a temple in the Serene Reflection (Soto Zen) tradition of Buddhism and is part of the Order of Buddhist Contemplatives. It holds regular meditation workshops and retreats.
