I am standing in Warrior pose. Not about to go into battle, this is yoga and only my third ever session. It is the beginning of a day-long retreat, guided by therapist Carole-Anne Knott, a petite woman with tousled, red hair and insightful brown eyes.
Carole encourages us to connect with our strength and power. I ignore the challenging voice inside me taunting, “Yeah, but you don’t have any!”
Client reviews of the Serenity Lounge Retreats, describe the day as, ‘uplifting for mind and body’. Having felt my post-menopausal energy levels plummeting for a while, I had decided to give it a go, even though it might be too, ‘Woo Woo’ for me.
Next, we’re asked to rest on the soft cushions and blankets on the floor, as we are guided through relaxation and breath work. I am buoyed by Carole’s reassurance that ‘there isn’t really a wrong way to do it’.
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After a lunch of fresh tomato soup, crusty bread, homemade cake and herbal drinks, we concentrate on energy flow, chakra balancing, crystal healing and meditation, ending the day immersed in a sound bath, with Tibetan singing bowls and hand-pan drums filling the air with powerful vibrations, to remove any blocked energy.
As the day closes, clients say how refreshed they feel. I have to admit, I agree.
Mystified, I hang back to ask Carole what led her to these esoteric practices.
I am not prepared for the chilling journey she reveals, and feel abashed at my intrusiveness.
She talks of being the youngest of four children, brought up in 1960s Bradford. She recalls her early years as feeling secure, though grounding.
“There was little money and no luxuries. My mother worked in a mill and used to take me with her. I remember it being incredibly noisy from the machines. There was this old stool I’d sit on for hours at the end of the looms, fascinated. The ladies would all come and check I was ok.”
Her mood changes as she recounts how her protected childhood was shattered.
“Up until the age of nine, I felt safe, then I was sexually abused by someone close to the family. That started a cycle in my life of running away. At 17, I met someone who I thought was going to ‘save me, rescue me’.”
As she discloses more, I discover this marriage was just the first of three disastrous and damaging relationships.
I knew in my heart I had to leave, but my head was saying ‘How will you manage on your own?’
Therapist, Carole-Anne Knott
“He was quite violent and I ended up in a bad way. When I tried to leave he attacked me with a baseball bat. I got to the point where I didn’t care if he killed me. The police got involved in the end.
“I believe it was one of the things I had to experience, to grow and to understand. Now, when people come to see me for healing, there’s always a connection, an empathy and a bit of understanding.”
She is referring to the private one-to-one therapy she offers and explains: “I call it coaching, healing and therapy for the mind, body and soul. Each person is an individual. They may benefit from counselling, hypnotherapy, yoga, a retreat or a bit of everything. Some feel they are standing on the edge of a precipice and they need to get to the other side. I hold the ladder for them and we go together, step by step.”
I tell her I understand how the trauma of her first marriage must help her relate to her clients.
She astounds me by divulging there was more torment ahead, in her second, 27-year marriage. “I didn’t spot the signs of control soon enough,” she adds. “At first, I felt lucky to have a husband who was so interested in me. He’d tell the hairdresser how to style my hair, he’d buy my clothes. Later, I didn’t feel I had the strength to leave.
“I knew in my heart I had to leave, but my head was saying ‘How will you manage on your own?’ Then one night he went missing and I eventually found him at our business premises with a man. I found out he’d been leading a double life for years and I didn’t know.”
Their business together centred on fitness, nutrition and exercise studios. Carole remembers it being incredibly hard work.
“It was seven days a week, building the business. I thought we were in a really good financial position, I discovered we weren’t. I had very little to leave with, except our beautiful daughter.”
With incredulity and regret, she admits she still had not ‘learned to stand on her own two feet’. She embarked on yet another doomed relationship and confesses: “Again, I thought, ‘He can rescue me’. At first, he was incredibly charming. But within a very short space of time he became abusive. My brother had to come and get me away.”
With his help, Carole rented a flat for herself and her daughter and recalls feeling free for the first time in years.
“We could have fairy lights and candles, simple things we were not allowed before.”
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Still, she recollects feeling lost and helpless.
“I asked for help, I didn’t know who I was asking, but within weeks I came across an angelic reiki master who opened up my healing ability and it all unfolded after that. I trained as a reiki master. I studied psychotherapy, hypnotherapy and crystal and energy healing.”
“But how does it all work?” I ask.
“It’s a balancing of heart and mind. I just show you how to use the tools we all, naturally, possess,” she replies, simply.
I had arrived at the retreat a relative nay-sayer. I leave open-minded and intrigued enough to want to gain more knowledge than I can acquire in one day.
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