We went to an LGBTQ retreat at Charlotte Church’s The Dreaming in Wales – here’s what we really thought

“I’m alive!” I bellow, naked under a waterfall in the Welsh countryside, each drop of water as vital as a first kiss.

But there’s no one around to hear me, save for countless trees swaying in the breeze as if expressing their approval of my Timotei moment.

It’s springtime in the Elan Valley in mid-Wales, and the water is bracing yet bearable. I have spent the previous hour working up a sweat traversing this unusual swathe of woodland — so minerally enriched and geologically unique, it could be Narnia — and climbing a rope-laden trail that is near-vertical in places in order to reach this highly satisfying endpoint. 

Previously, I fancied myself too cosmopolitan to enjoy a natural shower. In fact, as an Attitude journalist through and through, I couldn’t have imagined anything worse. But here at The Dreaming wellness and spiritual retreat centre, owned by Charlotte Church — yes, that Charlotte, the ‘voice of an angel’, former opera star-turned-pop star and previous Attitude cover star — the area’s naturally healing properties have sparked a striking change in my perspective. 

By spooky coincidence, I am perfectly primed for my Welsh adventure because, the week before, I have an acupuncture session with London-based Five Element Acupuncturist Asha Chong. I fully expect the endeavour to be a curious folly, but am mind-blown to find her capabilities leave me freer of stress than I’ve been since I was 16, and accessing an inner vibrancy I thought I’d lost long ago.

[…] We arrive at the 47-acre property for the LGBTQ+-focused retreat named (somewhat clunkily) Returning to the Queer Heart, and the gloriously picturesque mansion therein, Rhydoldog House, once owned by fashion designer Laura Ashley, on a Friday afternoon. All of us are uniformly gobsmacked. From the aforementioned woodland out back to the gorgeously manicured gardens and plunging, painterly valleys out front, this is nature on steroids, thus offering instant relief for life’s ailments. (I am, however, comically thrown by the absence of a Wi-Fi and phone signal. A digital detox at The Dreaming, then, is less ‘encouraged ideology’ and more ‘inescapable and confronting reality’. Although, in the end, I’m grateful for it.) 

The group’s shared awe at our surroundings helps to melt the ice among the group, but several attendees are, understandably, palpably nervous. I, on the other hand, am still uncharacteristically calm from the acupuncture. Upon feeling a flicker of physical attraction towards someone in the group, for example, I suppress the usual spiral of overthinking before it begins. ‘This isn’t the time or place for that,’ I reason, correctly. 

Most of us are quickly compelled to become model students for retreat practitioners Daniel Sutton-Johanson and Dr Sanah Ahsan, the former a registered psychotherapist with the UK Council for Psychotherapy (UKCP) and the latter a registered clinical psychologist for the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC), plus an award-winning poet, writer, presenter, speaker and educator. 

During our first group session that evening, they ask us to describe how we feel in three words. “Open, calm, curious,” I say. So begins a self-care odyssey encompassing multiple group practices, teachings and meditations led by the practitioners, mostly themed around the healing and all-encompassing power of nature, broken up by mealtimes and breaks for rest or getting out and exploring the terrain. 

Much of the ‘work’ hinges on the effectiveness of the leaders. Thankfully, they guide us through difficult journeys with awe-inspiring skill and delicacy. This, despite my being initially intimidated by their qualifications and energies. At first, I misread Sutton-Johanson’s depth and reverence for the work as coldness or impenetrable stoicism. It also takes me a beat to get used to Ahsan’s overwhelming life force: they’re so bright and astonishingly generous of spirit that they’ve, unsurprisingly, developed something of a public profile.

During our first meal with the pair of them, it feels like we’re dining with celebrities. (And through no fault of their own — they can’t help their magnetism.) By the retreat’s end, however, I am enamoured by both of them, floored by their harmony as a twosome, and charmed by their friendly, occasionally mickey-taking dynamic. Both field every taxing question I throw at them with effortless grace and fascinating insight, whether it’s hypothetical scepticism about their work, or weighty subjects like individualism versus collectivism, or the ambiguity of words like ‘queer’ — all of which often leads to illuminating group conversations.

To read this feature in full, check out issue 365 of Attitude magazine, available to order here, and alongside 15 years of back issues on the free Attitude app.

For more information about The Dreaming, visit the official website.