This past Saturday I returned to the annual, Insight Dialogue Retreat, that one of my favorite people and teachers, Sharon Beckman-Brindley, teaches here in Charlottesville, as an offering of the Insight Meditation Community of Charlottesville.

These retreats have been scheduled every January for the past several years, and it’s a magical way to start the New Year. By the end of the day, one participant wanted to know, why we all had to go home. “Couldn’t we just keep going?” My feelings exactly, except I really did need a break to go home, eat dinner, and have a good night’s sleep. But had the retreat been scheduled to continue on Sunday, I would have been there in a heart beat.

Insight Dialogue, is the practice of working with a partner to whom we speak and listen to, as we contemplate a series of questions on a given theme. This year’s theme was about intentions and what is important to us as we navigate through our lives. As we slowly walked around the room, we were stopped by the instructor and told to engage a partner for the first contemplation, find seats across from each other, and decide who would be the first speaker.

Our first contemplation was, “What are the intentions you wish to carry with you throughout your life?” We were all encouraged to relax and pause if the speaker needed time to pull his or her thoughts together, or the listener needed time to banish intrusive thoughts. Each pause provided stillness in which new thoughts and insights arose and could be added to the conversation.

The speakers were then directed to talk about a difficulty in their lives and how they might use their intentions to make the situation less difficult. Other questions followed, with the speaker addressing what was true for them, always pausing to reflect on new insights.  The listener then had a chance to respond to the speaker and  talk about how the speaker’s words affected them.

Exchanging roles from speaker to listener and listener to speaker, the process began again, with the new speaker answering the same or similar questions. We were continuously reminded to relax, pause, close our eyes, and take a deep breath when necessary.

Except for the time that dialogue was taking place, we spent the rest of our time in silence, even during breaks and while having lunch, allowing more time for us to continue our own contemplations of our intentions.

Continuing on into the afternoon, additional questions with new partners were contemplated, each taking a turn at addressing the questions being asked. By the end of the afternoon we had each shared contemplations with three other people.

It’s always an amazing and cleansing activity for me, as I dig deep to find my truth, and practice being an intent listener. It becomes very clear that insights arise during our brief pauses, when we are in the moment.

The first time I went to one of these retreats, I had no idea what to expect and was very nervous about speaking so openly and intimately about myself and my inner world. But it’s become a yearly ritual for me and each time I come away with new insights about myself and inspiration from those I sit and speak with.  Often long lasting friendships are forged.

This time around I discovered that I’ve always kept the good things I feel about myself under wraps. Saturday afternoon, while discussing the good things that we do as we move through our lives, I realized, I’d been taught as a young girl that it was incorrect to talk about my goodness. Good little girls were not supposed to speak about how nice we were. It was a form of bragging and always seemed to bring on the same response to the silly questions I often asked … silence.

As a result, I was led to believe that the good things I did were unimportant. Only the bad things, like doing something stupid, talking back to my parents, or disobeying them, counted in any description of who I was at the time, both in my mother and father’s minds, as well as my own.

I also learned that I’d already used one of my intentions for this new year. I DARED to post a somewhat controversial, political essay last week here on my blog. I don’t normally like to do that. I like to be positive at all times, and dislike confrontation and disagreement. I’d learned early on to keep my mouth shut about things like that. Although no one needs to agree with what I wrote, I’m rather proud of myself for standing up and speaking out about an issue that was of great concern to me.

Setting intentions for a day, a year, or a lifetime are always good things to do.  If you have intentions for the next ten minutes, this coming year, or for the rest of your life, what are they and how do see yourself manifesting them?