My First Retreat

Throughout my life, I sought out and read many different kinds of spiritual books in hopes that they would guide me to greater peace, less anxiety and a sense of fulfillment.  I am grateful to the many authors such as Eckhart Tolle, Michael Singer, Pema Chodron, Lama Surya Das, and Thich Nhat Han who helped guide me in the right direction--the realization that the answers to my struggles were within. However, for many years, what I read had only a conceptual impact on me. In other words, I understood what the author was writing about but I did not directly experience their message.  One book that really intrigued me was a book a friend sent me whose title held great promise; When fear Falls Awayby Jan Frazier.

I read the book hungrily to find the author’s secret potion that rid her of fear. It seemed to me at the time that she had made a request to the universe for her fear to disappear and somehow it did.  I thought I missed something when I read the book because it seemed so easy for her fear to fall away and yet I was struggling so hard and my fear was not budging. It was like crazy glue stuck on me with no antidote to remove it. 

A few years later, Jan wrote another book, The Freedom of Being At Ease With What Is. This time I had a greater understanding of what she was talking about - or at least I thought I did. Miraculously, the author was offering a 4 day retreat and I was invited to attend by the same friend who had given me both of the Jan’s books.  I had never attended a full sleep-over retreat.  My friend was hosting it for a small group of people, only ten, so this seemed safe and something I could handle.

 On my way out to the retreat which was in California, I reread the book so that I would be fresh with the Jan’s insights.  As I reread it, I realized that she was sharing a way of experiencing the world where fear didn’t play a role. She described in her book the role that thought used to play in the way she experienced the world and how a radical shift of awareness had taken place and from this new vantage point fear was absent. I had some panic on the plane that I had missed this message the first two times I’d read the book and suddenly realized I was going to a retreat about “waking up” and I had no idea what that even meant. I hoped that she would be tolerant of my lack of understanding and that I would still benefit from the experience.

I had read so many books about awakening to our Buddha nature but I had never thought I would actually get to meet someone who had “awakened“ to their Buddha nature. A few years back, I had gone to hear the Dalai Lama speak with 1,000 other people but I did not relate to his insights at the time and figured he was just so far down the spiritual path there was no catching up with him. So, to meet face to face and have the opportunity to experience someone with this realization was both frightening and exciting.

I remember meeting her the first time outside the house coming up the walkway. She seemed very normal. She wore regular clothes (no robe) and she had wavy soft brown hair that almost touched her shoulders. She was friendly and kind and seemed quite at ease as she greeted me with a gentle soft smile.

I wondered how she was experiencing me and how it might be different for her. Was she judgement free, carefree, opinion-less?  Could she see through people’s insincerity, their insecurities? Could she see through me? I could tell right then and there FEAR had not fallen away from me by a long shot. I was apprehensive and worried that she would find me limited and ignorant. For the next four days I not only observed Jan, I experienced her.  Little did I know at the time the profound impact meditating and sharing her space and words would have on my being.

 Each morning, we would wake up and all have breakfast together. Jan joined us for every meal. I do not think that the structure of the retreat was unusual from others except the intimate size. After breakfast, we spent three hours doing a silent meditation followed by an inquiry discussion which Jan led. 

What I found unusual was how she guided us through the mediations. I had never meditated this way before.  She wanted each of us to become “aware” of what we were aware of. Then she wanted us to see if we could allow this “awareness” to move about freely without our guiding it. Instead, we were to follow this “awareness” as it moved from sight to sound to thought to bodily feelings and perhaps back to sight again. 

 After about an hour, we stopped. We then discussed what each of us experienced during this time. This went on three times a day for the next four days. By the end of the retreat, I definitely felt different within my body and my mind. I felt a great deal of spaciousness, mostly in my head.  My mind felt very relaxed and at ease. There was an ease, as if a deep relaxation had crawled inside my body. There was a pervasive feeling of well-being flowing through my system.

I wasn’t sure I completely understood what Jan was talking about those four days, but I knew that I felt very different than when I had arrived. When I left, I flew home on the red eye and arrived in NY the next morning.  I noticed that when I got home my left arm was tingling. It pulsed and tingled all day long.  At first, I figured that I slept on it wrong while flying but after 4 or 5 hours a fear set in that this might be some type of motor neuron issue.  My mother had described these pulsing sensations to me when she had been diagnosed with ALS. When she was sick, She would show me her leg twitching and pulsing. 

 I began to think that I now had ALS.  That spacious relaxed feeling began to evaporate and be replaced by a thick sticky like substance of fear. By evening time, I had convinced myself and my husband that there was a strong chance I could have ALS.  I remember going to sleep that night with fear really constricting my breathing.  I woke up several times throughout the night and practiced breathing as well as noticing my awareness and what it was being aware of at the time.  I woke up the next morning and the pulsing had left as had the sticky fear feeling that had been with me. 

 This was new and strange. My husband commented that in the past I would have been much more anxious and that perhaps the retreat had facilitated the early departure of my anxiety.

I did not realize it at the time and can only now see it as a piece of this greater puzzle of peace.  I was beginning to consciously access this deep sense of calm and wellbeing within me. This calm and profound sense of wellbeing that had saturated me for four days had quieted my nervous system.  It had also allowed the deep seated hidden painful false beliefs within me to begin to poke their frightened entities out for recognition and digestion.

I now know that I was releasing some of my past trauma and conditioning from my body and the tingling in my arm was the body letting go of a pain body within me. Instead of resisting these sensations, I had allowed them to be experienced.  Since that first retreat, I have had many more moments where my body seems to thaw and allow old false beliefs, conditioning and trauma from the past  to be digested within by my whole being. If I had known this at the time, perhaps I would have had much less fear that night going to bed. I have also noticed that my access to joy and celebration is much greater as I am no longer spending energy trying to avoid negative thoughts, emotions or felt senses. The dropping of my resistance to the present moment has provided more freedom for my system to allow the pleasures of life to be experienced with greater awareness as well.

This lightness of being within me I call PEACE. I have learned that the spacious awareness that Jan had introduced me to is a state of wellbeing that is within me at all times. It had been obstructed by thoughts, feelings and emotions. Being in this state  affords me the ability to sit with difficult moments that might be arising in my life and to be with others as they embrace their challenging moments as well. Through accessing their ground of wellbeing they too are able experience their own felt senses that in the past might have overwhelmed them. Uncovering this ground of wellbeing within ourselves is the beginning of our path to Peace.