I believe in you

I’m sitting here drinking tea. It’s Bengal Spice. This is a tea that I drank at meditation retreats, and it reminds me of being there.

I haven’t done a retreat for almost two years. Of course, this whole past year has been almost like a retreat.

A long, stressful retreat.

I almost did a solo retreat last year. I was going to hole myself up in my apartment and do nothing but meditate and walk for a few days. But, that didn’t happen.

On my first retreat (10 days), I was worried about leaving the world behind. I thought things would fall apart if I stopped checking my email. They didn’t.

Instead, it seemed like no one noticed I was missing.

But, I realized something. The fact that there’s no Internet access on the retreat is part of the meditation practice. It forces you to come to terms with your mundane life. You begin the retreat even before you get to the meditation center, because you start thinking about what’s real and what’s not, what’s important and what’s not, what the world would be like without “you”, and what it’s like with “you”.

When I turned my phone off on that first evening, I was terrified. I worried I had made a horrible mistake (I hadn’t).

Yeah, I think you should do a retreat if you want to meditate.

But, that’s not practical for everyone. So, in the meantime, while you work up the “courage” to do that, you should start with my course.

Here’s the link: No Problem.

—Michael

P.S. Go for it. You can do it. I believe in you.