I attended my first spiritual retreat
Such a beautiful experience
The past couple years, I have been on a spiritual journey to find myself and my purpose. Over that time, I have utilized ketamine therapy and psychedelic mushrooms to look deep within myself and to work through past traumas so that I can move past all of that and work towards achieving my higher self. It has been a wild journey so far and I can honestly say that I am not the same person I was when I first started this journey. If you are interested and want to read through some of journeys I have documented, they are listed in order below:
A few weeks ago, my wife and I were on a walk with our grandson at the park near our home and we saw a group that looked like they were setting up for a yoga session at the park. My wife and I have really gotten into yoga the past few years, and this was the second time we saw this group at the park, so we took it as a sign to go up and find out more about what they were doing.
The group was actually setting up for a breath work and sound bath and I was immediately intrigued. Breath work is something that I have been trying to learn more about and I had recently started practicing the Wim Hof method of breath work. After doing the breath work that I had been doing on my own, I always felt a sense of peace within my body and I knew that there were some real benefits that I was tapping into.
We saw that they were planning a retreat that was coming up and we looked more into it. The retreat was going to be three days of yoga, meditation, breath work, astral meditations, Kundalini yoga, sound baths, cold plunges and just connecting with like minded people. This is something that I would normally disregard, but my word for the year is adventure and I knew this was going to be quite the adventure. Little did I know how much of an adventure this would actually be for me and how transformative it would be.
Last Friday, the day of the retreat came and my wife and I made our way up into the mountains where we would spend the next few days. When I pulled into the driveway of the house, I began to wonder to myself if I was even going to enjoy myself while I was there. As I was preparing for this retreat, I knew I was going to be way out of my comfort zone, but I also knew that I was here for growth and you dont grow without leaving that comfort zone.
We arrived as the group was finishing up a yoga. We were greeted by the hosts and they made us feel welcome and at home as they showed us to our room. When we got into our room, they had set up gift bags and blankets for us. Inside the gift bags, there was a journal and other stuff that we would be using throughout the weekend. I could tell that there was a lot of thought and love put into the gift bags and I was beginning to get excited for what was to come.
Then we all met up for introductions and our first group meditation. So we grabbed our journals and gathered together for the first time. I was immediately uncomfortable and I could feel my walls beginning to build. I was thinking to myself that none of the people here cared about me nor could they relate. I had to consciously push those thoughts out of my mind as I sat in the living room staring around the room at this group of strangers.
They asked us to write in our journal and answer some questions. I was called to that space for spiritual growth and community. I was reaching a point in my journey that I knew I needed to surround myself with people that are on the same path because the spiritual path can be pretty lonely in this world. Another reason I was there was to grow closer to my wife and to grow spiritually as a couple. I also knew I needed to work on parts of my past that I had either been putting off, or were hidden so deep down inside, I didn't know how to do the work on it.
I decided my intention was to connect with my higher self while I was here. I didn't have any clue how that was going to happen, but I knew it was something that I wanted to do. I wanted some sort of reassurance that this was the correct path for me.
I want peace. Peace in my mind and my body. I wanted to work on my self worth and to work on loving myself. I have always struggled with how I view myself and how I fit in with my surroundings. I also wanted to expand my heart and learn to love more. I was also searching for guidance in my life.
I want to feel peace afterwards but I also want to feel energized for life. I want to feel worthy of the life that I currently have and for the life I am creating.
I am energetic being of light that is infinite. I am a loving soul that is trying to find my way in this world. I am a fun, compassionate, empathetic person that is learning how to help brighten the path for others. I am a student and a teacher. I use my wisdom to help others find the light.
It is cool looking back at how I answered this question at the start of the retreat, because at the end, I really felt like I was embodying that answer.
I want to show up as a nice person. I want others to remember me as kind and compassionate. I want to be a guiding light for others. I want to be confident, happy, slow to react and a joy to be around.
I want them to say that I am a nice person, dependable, reliable, loving, helpful and fun to be around. I want them to be proud of me.
Once we were done answering these questions, we had a short group meditation. I don't really remember much about the meditation, but I recognized some of the music that was playing and it gave me hope that this was going to be a great weekend. The first song I recognized was a version of Hummingbird that I had never heard before. During my early mushroom trips, that song became very special to me. It was the song that broke me and made me realize that my wife is my rock and she will always be there for me and I dont walk this life alone.
Once the group mediation was done, we had the chance to meet up with the staff running the retreat for individual sessions. The first thing I went to do was a Reiki healing session. Looking back, I probably should have saved this for later because I dont think I was mentally prepared for it.
Going into this, I really had no idea what Reiki was or what to expect during a Reiki session. I just knew that it had stuff to do with energy and your chakras. The session started with me having to lay on a bed and she began to check my chakras and was telling me to visualize different things. Visualizing is something I have had problems with while meditating and stuff. It is usually just black behind my eye lids, so it was hard at first to see anything. I was expecting visions to just pop in my head on their own, but I quickly realized that I needed to use my imagination and create the visions myself, which was pretty hard to do at first.
She told me that there as a grandmother type energy there with me and that she was proud of me. I lost my grandmother almost 25 years ago and she was probably the closest relative I had growing up, so it was really cool to hear that her energy was there. I got a bit emotional when she told me that.
My chakras were all pretty out of alignment. She had me do some visualization to try and clear the chakras. I would pull energy out of the chakras and rotate them and send energy up to a cloud that I was visualizing. My root chakra was really out of alignment and needed a lot of work. She had me visualize taking a shovel and digging in the sludge that was blocking it.
While doing this, she said that the number six was really important. At the age of six was when I moved around a lot and I attended three different schools for first grade. I realized that six years old was really when a lot of the childhood issues began. That was when we started moving consistently every couple years. A lot of my issues making friends came from that time and was when instability issues began. She said that the number 32 was coming to her as well. It took me a while to realize what that meant, but 32 was when I quit working at the prison and began seeking help at the VA and I started school. So in a way, that was when a lot of my self work actually started. I was far from where I am now when I was 32 though, but I was so messed up mentally at that time.
I had done some breath work in the past, but not anything like what I was about to experience. It was a group session and we all grabbed our blankets and laid in a circle around an alter made of crystals and stones. Brock, the instructor, explained how the breathing technique worked. It was a two part in breath and an exhale. The first part of the breath, you breath into your belly and then finish the breath up into your chest and shoulders.
He started the music and guided us with our breath. After about a minute or so, I got into a pretty good rhythm with my breath and was just listening to the music. It only took a few minutes before I started to feel something. My body began to tingle and my hands began to cramp up. He had told us that the hand cramping was natural and that when it happens, to just try and shake it out. If I didn't know that was gonna happen, it probably would have freaked me out.
The tingling sensation of my body became more and more intense until it felt as if my entire body was buzzing just like what I experience during my mushroom trips. I welcomed this familiar feeling and knew that I was doing the breath work correctly. Emotions started to overwhelm me at times and I began to cry. I dont really remember what I was thinking about at the time I started crying. My mind felt like I was in a mushroom trip and it was just bouncing around to so many different things. I was thinking about my past and what I had been through, my present state of my life and the future I was building.
At times it felt as if I was no longer in my body. The buzzing sensation would vanish and there was peace, but then it would return. My hands were cramping pretty bad at times and I remember shaking them out and trying to stretch them. I knew that I was going to be pretty exhausted by the end of the breath work session. My body would shake uncontrollably at times and it would make me laugh to myself between different sessions of crying.
I never truly grasped how powerful the breath could be while not on mushrooms and I am looking forward to learning more about breath work and utilizing it in my day to day life. After the session was done, I felt closer to everyone in the room and felt an immense love for myself that wasn't there before. After the breath work, I knew that this was going to be a great weekend.
One of the retreat facilitators was named Pam and I wasn't sure what she did. She was sort of a mystery to me at first. She started talking to me while I was talking with some of the other people attending the retreat. She has a very familiar and safe energy. She began speaking to me and asking questions about my life. She has a way of lowering my defenses and I began crying as I answered one of her questions and that caught me off guard, but once I started to cry, I knew what she was doing.
Pam and I spoke privately a few times during the retreat and she helped me work through how so much of my life was stolen from me at such a young age. She was helping me work through the fact that I was basically still a child when I joined the military and was sent off to war. After speaking with her the first day, I realized that a lot of the reason I was attending this retreat was to work through that trauma so that I could remove the hardness I hold onto to feel safe.
The second day we did the cold plunge. I had never done that before and was pretty nervous about sitting in ice cold water for 2 minutes. There are health benefits to doing it and I knew that it was something that I needed to incorporate in my routine, but just had never done it. Everyone was nervous for the cold plunge and I dont think anyone truly wanted to do it.
Faith and I got in the freezing cold water together and sat across from each other. It was so cool to be in the water with her during this. She hates the cold so much, so I knew she was way out of her comfort zone doing this. We sat there hold onto each other's hands and just looked at each other. In that moment, I felt so much love for her and for the healing we were both doing for each other. Time moved a lot faster than I thought and when it hit two minutes, I jumped out, but Faith sat in for almost four minutes. I was so proud of her in there. It really was a battle of the mind to ignore the cold and control your breathing to remind your mind that you are safe. It was awesome seeing her overcome her mind in that moment.
This was a really cool experience. It was another meditation where you just visualize stuff and it was cool to be getting better at it and more comfortable with it. I lost the ability to use my imagination because of the military and law enforcement, so it was cool learning tools to get my creativity and imagination back.
During the meditation, she told me there was a two year old girl there with me and that she wanted to thank me. I immediately was transported back to when I was a police officer and I started to cry. One day as a cop, I was dispatched to a house fire and when I got to the home, flames were coming out of the home and a mother and father were outside saying their kids were still inside. I ran into the home and found a scared little girl on the top bunk of her bed. I grabbed her and ran out of the home with her and brought her to her parents. She was deaf and wasn't able to speak to me.
A couple years after that, I was filling up my patrol car with gas at a gas station and a girl that was with her little sister ran up to me and told me she loved the police and that one had saved her little sister from a house fire. I told her that it was me that saved her and she started signing to her little sister and she got so happy and gave me the biggest hug. Being a police officer was a very hard job, but saving that little girl from the fire was one of my proudest moments as a cop.
My best friend that passed away back in 2017 came through as well and told me that I was a warrior and that he was so proud of me. Once Scott died, I realized that I shut out any possible friends and didnt make any attempts to make new ones. I had lost friends all through my childhood and then lost so many friends in the military that I began to feel like if I made friends with people, they would just leave me or die, so I stopped trying. I realized that I deserved to make friends and that I needed to put in the effort to make friends.
SHe told me that there was a male figure that was in a set of blue overalls and I immediately knew it was my grandpa. He told me that he was so proud of me for the work I was doing on myself. He was also proud of the work I am doing to break generational curses.
Then I met the future version of myself. I remember feeling so proud of the healed version of myself. Then he told me that he was the one that was proud of me. He said that without me doing this work now and all the work I had been doing, he wouldnt exist. It was really cool to feel the pride that the healed version of myself has for the version I am now.
We also did some yoga, sound baths and the Kundalini yoga. Kundalini yoga was really cool and I am going to be doing that more often as well. I didnt really have anything significant come up during that session, but it was still fun to learn how to move my spinal energy.
One of the last things we did as a group was an astral meditation to meet our inner child. Before we started this, we all took time to write a letter to our younger self. In my letter, I told little me how proud I was of him. I never heard that as a child, so I knew that little me needed to hear it. I told him that he is a beautiful soul and that he matters in this world. I told him that the road ahead was going to be so hard, but not to worry because I was going to be with him through it all and that I would always be there supporting him. I told him that the darkness wont take him and that I wouldnt let it. I told him that there will be moments that he has to sit in the darkness and that is the only way he would be able to find the light after. I told him he has a big purpose in this world and that going through the hard was the only way he would be able to help others find the light and be a support for them.
I told little me that he was going to find the love of his life early on but that path of love will not be easy. I told him he would have to work for it and that he needed to lean into her to find strength to go on and that she will give him the strength to do so. I told him that even though it was hard growing up in the family he has, to not give up on them and that he would get them back. I told him he would become the teacher to show his parents the light and to help heal them.
I closed the letter to him with this:
You are loved. You are enough. You are good. You have always been good. You are needed.
P.S. I love you
Then after we wrote our letters, we all met together and began the meditation. During the meditation, we traveled up out of our bodies and into the upper chakras. I need to learn more about the upper chakras that are outside of our physical bodies. As we traveled up into the astral realm, it was very familiar to me. I realized I had visited some of these areas during my previous mushroom journeys and during my ketamine therapy. It was super interesting to me how familiar it was.
Traveling up through the chakras, it spiraled up higher and higher, and it looked like strands of DNA. We stopped at one of the chakras and met with our inner child. When I got there, it wasnt me that was waiting. It was Marshal, our first grandson that we had lost a couple years ago. Marshal took my hand and when he touched me, I realized that my inner child was lost until the moment he was born and his mom told me that I was his grandpa. Marshal gave me my inner child back. He was only on this world with us for a few short months, but his impact was massive and transformative.
Marshal and I flew hand in hand up higher where we met with Source consciousness. I had been in the presence of Source before in mushroom trips and Marhal and I floated around it. I felt the presence of my ancestors joining me as well. Then more and more beings of light began to show up at first I didn't know who they were but then realized that they were the people I was meditating with and their guides. It was sort of like a reunion. Out of nowhere, the person guiding the meditation said "Will you be my friend?" and I just broke. I started crying pretty hard and at the same time, Brock began crying because of what he was experiencing. I knew at that moment that I was releasing the fear of making friends. I realized I had friends and that I just needed to cultivate those friendships.
The next day was the final day of the retreat. We all went hiking together in the afternoon and had a great time. After we got back, I was sitting on the front porch of the home thinking about the entire experience. I asked for a sign that I was in the right place for my life and then the wind started to blow. I was just sitting there watching the trees sway and listened to the sound of the wind rustling the leaves. The wind got stronger and stronger until it was super loud and I knew that was confirmation from the universe that I was in the right place.
Then I met with Pam. She was going to do some energy work on me and cut cords that were holding me back. I told her how just before that, I was sitting on the steps and asked for a sign and then the wind came. When she started her ceremony, the wind picked right back up and blew the entire time she was talking. It was a pretty magical experience with her. I felt the love she had for me in my journey and the pride she has for me for the work I have been doing. I felt lighter once she removed the cords of self doubt, shame and low self worth.
Overall, this was a truly amazing weekend. I made some amazing friends that I am looking forward to staying connected to. I can honestly say I am not the same person I was prior to the retreat. I have a long way to go on my journey, but it is so cool to have tools and friends to help guide me along the way.
What an amazing story brother! Your story made me feel the love you were experiencing on your retreat. I have tried the cold water plunge before but didn't last long. lol
Finding self is always a journey we strive to perfect. Do everything with love and we will never fault.
Thank you for sharing your story man!
Thank you for taking the time to read through this long post. It truly was an amazing experience and it is helping me find myself and my purpose.
It is a fact that we all need to discover many things within ourselves and we should know what the purpose of our life is. Many people leave this world after living a purposeless life like this, and sitting in cold water improves our health a lot.
Finding out the purpose of one's life is a journey in itself. I am glad that I am on my way to finding that purpose and embodying it.
Wow! What a weekend of self discovery and transformation.
Not that I've tried any of all this before, I imagine a retreat weekend like this is very different from mushrooms and ketamine where you can hide away from everyone and try to self heal. Opening up yourself in front of strangers is such a difficult and brave thing to do, not to mention the unknown spiritual journeys you could be taken to.
I'm glad this has helped with your road to recovery, and you're looking so different from when we met in Bangkok. Something very good is definitely happening in your life!
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Ya, this past weekend was way outside of my comfort zone. Healing in from of others was a lot more healing for me than I thought it would be. It really made me proud of everything I have been doing and knowing that my healing is healing others as well.
Thanks for noticing how different I look than when we met in Thailand. The last couple years have been pretty transformative for me. I lost nearly 100 pounds of fat and have put on a lot of muscle. It has been a lot of work, but worth every second of it.
This was an amazing spiritual retreat, and you did a great job with the transpositioning of the experience, along with the culmination of what it means to you in this blog entry.
It sounds like this retreat with what it represented was heavy in trusting the unknown intentions and/or judgements of others, and was in and of itself an integral component in the path on your healing journey to face and overcome, as much of what you have already done on your healing journey has helped prepare you for this stage on the path. It speaks loudly in the multi-dimensional sentiment of trusting the universe and letting go of the ego which binds strongly the falsities which manifest from fear of the unknown.
I found it to be really cool that this retreat incorporated so many different spiritual exercises, and that ice water dunk is a powerful spiritual driver that you and your wife handled swimmingly well.
You and your family have been doing a great job on your spiritual healing journey and I look forward to seeing your future spiritual healing milestones as well. Keep up the great work man!
Namaste. I know that being "high" on oxygen and it is ridiculous how shallow we breathe throughout the day. I am glad you and your wife got this amazing experience and after all, found this important side of life.