People often ask me about attending a meditation retreat, trying to understand if it really is the right choice for health and healing. The short answer is yes. However, it is important to remember that each outcome is unique — For me, it is the most engaging, profound, and rewarding experience of my life. For a more elaborate answer, I would like to take you all the way back to 2018. This is a very personal account of my week-long meditation retreat in Sardinia, Italy. One of my most profound experiences in recent years.
To give you a bit of context, meditation has been a part of my life for what feels like forever. I have enjoyed the benefits of week-long retreats, meditation sessions, and inner work for over three decades. That is thirty years of a fulfilling, life-changing, and very enjoyable journey.
Three months before going to Sardinia, I had attended another meditation retreat. Really profound. My brother had just passed. I was trying to be there for my parents and everything was just in chaos. Attending that retreat was like going to an emergency room at a hospital because experiencing it was like a major reset. It helped me heal and calm myself.
Using that momentum and those feelings, I joined the one in Sardinia. At this particular time, I was still going through the process of healing after the loss of my brother. I knew I needed the negative energy removed from my life and to find my balance again. I also needed to realign my goals. I needed to start living my life again. Get back on track. I needed a profound experience to kickstart this new leg of my journey and I knew this meditation retreat could deliver the emotional healing and direction that I craved.
Surrendering to the experience.
This particular retreat had three daily meditation periods – a morning meditation, usually around 6 or 7am, another around noon, and one more in the evening – with plenty of breaks and resting times throughout the day. During the first few days, we were also required to participate in challenging activities, such as completing a grueling zipline course blindfolded. These were designed to help integrate the meditation work into the body. Being able to witness the profound revelations that myself and others went through during these activities was always such a pleasant surprise. And it helps that these activities are excellent tools to overcoming self-limiting beliefs, making big changes, and conquering fears.
By day three, I realized that I had settled into a pleasant rhythm and could feel the transformations starting to take root. That was also when my favorite style of meditation began: the pineal gland meditation. Pineal gland meditation awakens the third eye and activates intuition, empathy, and decisiveness. These were 4+ hour sessions that started at 4am, so, as you can imagine, not easy. And they could be especially grueling for first timers. (Thankfully, time flies and you honestly don’t feel it!!)
Letting go to grow.
A meditation retreat gives you the chance to just let go. You disconnect from the world around you, your everyday life, your worries, and take a journey within yourself. This inward exploration allows you to reset yourself. This new calibration of the Self is something that you should do often, since it’s liberating and enlightening.
There are many components to a successful retreat. One of the core components is the ability to overcome your ego and work towards self-alignment. For me, that includes interacting with other people and supporting them on their transformational journeys, which, inevitably, and in return, supports my own experience.
One of the things I loved about this particular retreat was the ability to connect with other people, through a custom mobile app, prior to the event – this immediately created a strong sense of community. It allowed us to participate on the same level of consciousness, while also sharing rides from the airport and discussing packing strategies.
This sense of solidarity transpired throughout the weeklong retreat, but it was especially noticeable during the healing meditations. In pods of 8, we surrounded the individual that sought healing, and focused all our energies on their intention. When it was my turn, I felt all the heavy emotions pouring out of me and being replaced with an instant lightness and spiritual awareness. But the effects of meditation are far more powerful than most people realize. I have witnessed a woman regain her vision and another being able to leave her wheelchair and perform physical activities one week after major spinal surgery! Once you experience the life-altering benefits, it’s hard to go back!
A profound, lasting impact.
Even now, I still meditate twice a day. I have also implemented various thought-patterns to achieve a more positive outlook on life. Meditation has played a pivotal role in my physical and emotional well-being and has been one of the best things for my health.
So, here is my advice for anyone considering a meditation retreat. Completely surrender to the full experience. Just let go. Because if you don’t, you cannot, and will not, benefit from the retreat.
Also, remember, each experience is unique. and meditation is about YOU. It is not a competition. It is not about doing it right or wrong. So, don’t judge yourself. This is about you doing your best to be there, in the moment, at ease. It’s about you getting to know YOU. All you have to do is relax and enjoy.
Have you decided this is the right next step in your journey into health and healing? Contact us. We can connect you with the right healer.
