Before Hopping Into This
These are largely intellectualizations of emotional/spiritual things I experienced. While they can approximate what happened, nothing will match the act of doing.
If you’re considering a yoga/meditation retreat regimen, do it. The benefits of such things are to be had in the doing, not as much in the preparation before, nor the analysis afterwards.
Coming in from the jungles of central Bali.
It’s a beautiful place, and the structure I’ve gotten in the last couple of days has been incredible.
For a long time I have either travelled by myself or with one other person and I looked down on tours / retreats like this one as a watered down and out of touch way to travel.
While I wouldn’t want to only experience a country via a retreat like this. I’d like to join more of these in the future.
So Was It Worth it?
Would I Recommend A Yoga Retreat?
Yes, I think for anyone looking to better understand themselves and their relationship to yoga a retreat would be a great idea.
Would I Specifically Recommend Blooming Lotus?
Absolutely, it felt like the perfect balance between the hyper-strict Ashram style yoga retreats and some of the resorts that had daily, optional yoga classes without any real structure.
What Would I Look For In My Next Retreat?
I think more one on one time with someone would be great. Some time to dive deeper into my thoughts, questions & realizations during yoga and meditation that would’ve been great.
A picture of the group I did the retreat with. The community aspect was really awesome. Something that is really hard to build while traveling, read my guide here on how to build friends and community while traveling.
Did I Achieve My Goals?
As a reminder, here they are
Goal #1 – To find my middle path between being present & striving
Goal #2 – To find a direction & goal for my business. One that fuels me, and ideally is a bit bigger than just serving purely selfish desires.
Goal #3 – To find a sustainable, daily meditation technique that is more effective in building space between my thoughts and actions.
Goal #4 – To build a deeper appreciation & understanding of yoga so I can practice it 2 – 3x a week for the rest of my life. Whether that’s by myself in a hotel room, or with a group in a yoga center.
Let’s Break These Goals Down One by One
Goal #1 – To find my middle path between being present & striving
If you haven’t already read the first article, I would highly recommend you review that one, as I build a lot on that article here.
Following The Golden Path?
In one of our breathwork / meditation workshops I saw this golden path arise in front of me.
Similar to the one from The Wizard of Oz, a famous American movie from the 1950’s.
In the movie, the yellow brick road was Dorothy’s path to speak with the Great and Powerful Oz (her main mission in the movie)
📸 – albabackgrounds.com
As I was in this deep meditative state I could see this golden road laid out in front of me.
It felt as though there was a path I was meant to take, a designated road that I was meant to follow if only I could pay attention to it.
That I didn’t need to try to fight & struggle toward a goal, that I would have a very clear path to follow if only I paid attention.
Yoga As A Practice To Unveil My Middle Path
This realization became deeper as we were working on the crow pose
A picture of the pose 📸 -yogabycandace.com
I had done it before when I was practicing Hot Yoga regularly but it had been about 2 years.
No one in the group could seem to figure it out, with the exception of one other girl, and I felt a voice telling me.
Don’t go for the crow pose man, people are going to think you’re a show off and you’re competing with her. You’re here to relax and learn about yourself not to prove yourself to everyone around you.
Then I realized this was it!
This is my opportunity to follow the road laid out in front of me.
I felt a desire to do it, I would be challenged by it, but I could do it. I took an inventory of my desire and I wanted to do the pose to push myself, not to compete with her, or to overshadow her.
Why the fuck not man, go after it!
Afterward, it didn’t devolve into a ridiculous competition with her where I vied to prove my superiority over her this whole retreat.
As a matter of fact, I was off to the side and I don’t think anyone even noticed that I was pulling it off.
A microcosm of the extreme ends of the spectrum
In that instance, the voice in my head was reinforcing that false dichotomy. I either sit, do nothing and be “fully present & not striving” or else I’ll turn this whole retreat into a pissing match with everyone else.
I have spent enough time in therapy and introspection that I can notice the motivation that’s driving me to do things. If the motivation is out of anger or spitefulness I know, and if it isn’t, that’s easy to notice as well.
As best I can tell my middle path between being present and striving can be found via noticing moments when I do feel a desire to strive for something and being honest with myself about what is motivating this desire.
If I’m feeling a desire to strive for something, and it’s coming from a positive drive, let’s go for it! If the drive is something more negative, like spitefulness, anger, resentment, etc. Then maybe I should reconsider striving after it.
Goal #2 – To find a direction & goal for my business. One that fuels me, and ideally is a bit bigger than just serving purely selfish desires.
This one wasn’t as easy as the first.
Ultimately, though I ultimately recognized that my business is set to grow if only I can get out of my own way, that “The Golden Path” I mentioned above is pointing toward growth, I just need to get a bit clearer on things, and recognize my blocks.
Here’s are the tactics I implemented to come to this one
- Making it an intention for the retreat, so it’s something that my mind would come back to throughout things, that helped a lot
- I also took a look at my bucket list. I have a pretty intensive journaling process (see the full article here) in this process I outline a lot of things, one of those being my bucket list. I know these things usually get me excited, so I wanted to start with those as a basis, and ask myself?
- What would I need to do with my business in order to finish all of these items on my bucket list? This helped me gain more clarity and drive on the next steps in my business.
As I worked through where I wanted my business to go, I noticed a few blocks in my thinking.
You’re Going To Start Getting Super Competitive Again Man
A shot of me in Barcelona in 2020 right before the pandemic, incredibly competitive & incredibly driven to prove to everyone that my business was successful
This is a sneaky one, no matter what I do this competitiveness finds a way to sneak into my thinking haha.
As mentioned in my previous article, there’s a part of me that doesn’t want to strive anymore, that feels like it’s a waste of time and even unhealthy for me to strive. This includes striving for more money, more from my business, etc.
I realize that one of the reasons I don’t want to make more money is because this allows me to be better than all other other men I know who are so focused on making more money and growing their business.
I can sit back and watch them strive after things from a “higher” position looking down on them, thinking “wow what poor souls, striving and striving and it won’t ultimately change anything”.
This is genius too, because no matter how much money they make, how much their business grows and “outperforms” mine, I can still sit back with the win.
Becoming aware of how my competitiveness has transformed from out-competing to sitting outside of the competition and looking down on people has been big in removing the block to following my destiny and that of my businesses.
I Don’t Want To Deal With People
When I started my business I had three main focuses.
- I want to work wherever I want
- Whenever I want
- With whomever I want
I’ve been exploring the effects of my selfishness quite a bit lately, and my drive to only work with people I want to work with has resulted in some serious drawbacks.
In that last line I’ve become very rigid. If I don’t like someone, or don’t want to work with them anymore I don’t. I cut them out.
This seems like a dream to many, and the Loren that sat and listened to a client scream at him for 15 minutes loves this rule 😂.
Yes that did happen, I sat on a Zoom call and got yelled at for 15 minutes because the client felt disrespected about something I had said.
The Loren that had to sit in offices with whatever a**hole was running HR and listen to him or her talk to me about what I can and can not say loves this rule too.
The Loren who’s last manager told him not to wear a Hawaiin shirt or he would get fired, really loves that rule. Read more about the Hawaiin shirt, and my story to digital nomadding here.
A photo of me working at the first digital marketing firm that employed me, with the Hawaiin T Shirt that started it all
However, I’ve become a bit of a dick, unless someone is paying me or I’m sleeping with them I have a hard time dealing with people, and I’ve become very judgemental and lacking grace for others.
So how does this play into my business not growing?
Because I know that if I want to grow my business, it will mean that I’ll have to start dealing with more and more people, and part of me is like “fuck that man” dealing with the employees/contractors I have to deal with now is a pain in the ass, I don’t want to deal with anymore.
I recognize that this inflexibility with other people is also part of the reason I can’t build a successful long-term relationship. See my journey with understanding my relationships through celibacy here.
So I am working to switch my mindset from “God I have to deal with X person” to seeing obstacles with employees as an opportunity to grow, an opportunity to have more patience and empathy for others, a skill that will give me massive dividends in both my personal and professional life.
This is much easier said than done 😂
Goal #3 – To find a sustainable, daily meditation technique that is more effective in building space between my thoughts and actions.
This was nice actually to have some more guidance around my meditation. I have been meditating on and off for a few years now, and lately I’ve felt lost touch of the purpose to my meditation.
I was going through the motions.
However, having a guided meditation by someone who had spent 4 years in an ashram was really helpful (yes you read that correctly, 4 years! 🤯)
The big thing coming out of it was returning to my breath. Using my breath as a beacon when I felt myself getting lost in thought.
Goal #4 – To build a deeper appreciation & understanding of yoga so I can practice it 2 – 3x a week for the rest of my life. Whether that’s by myself in a hotel room, or with a group in a yoga center.
This retreat has helped me a lot in building my appreciation for yoga, and further understanding the spectrum of yoga available. Whether I’m more in the mood for the slower side of Hatha / Yin yoga or the more physically challenging side of Ashtanga.
Doing yoga 2x a day at there retreat really re-inforced how great yoga is for me, and how much it benefits both my mind and body.
Regular practice has been huge for helping with strengthening my back after tearing it a while ago, and it’s also helped huge with flexibility, and feeling more mentally tranquil.
Random Ideas / Insights During Meditation
Karma & Re-incarnation
I am a re-incarnation of my ancestors, and I carry all of their positive and negative attributes it is my job to build on the positives & work through some of the negative stuff I inherited from them.
I don’t think I was re-incarnated from a pig or another human, or another living thing. I think I am a re-incarantion of all of my ancestors and I carry within me their genes, their behaviors, their beliefs, etc and my job is to try to work through all of that the best way I can.
It’s All A Bug
At one point during my meditation, I had a bug crawling on my skin and it took all of me not to swipe it away. It continued crawling on my skin, as I worked to simply notice my mind freaking out and being creeped out by this.
Then eventually it flew away. Maybe I can view most of my problems like that, as simple and transient as a bug crawling on my skin.
Extreme Judgemental Mindset
I recall one of the first group sessions we had.
We were being blessed with a holy water before our yoga session.
There was a girl in the group sitting there with her eyes closed and a huge smile on her face.
I hated her face, my mind immediately went to “your old, fat and ugly, what the hell are you so happy about?”
While I had been very aware of my judgemental mind for a long time, I hadn’t been as aware of it lately and it was in full swing.
Luckily I noticed that thought and was reminded to be aware of that judgemental mind, as it can be super toxic, and in this case project all of my fears onto others.
Time Off Work
Even if I’m not literally working, if I’m sitting and thinking about work I’m not really taking time off and I’m not going to feel recovered regardless of how much time I “take off” from work.
Disassociating During Meditation & Thoughts On Death
Disclaimer – If you or someone you know is experiencing suicidal thoughts or a crisis, please find immediate help, if you are in the United States reach out immediately to the Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-8255 or text HOME to the Crisis Text Line at 741741. These services are free and confidential. The contents of this website are for general informational purposes only, and are not intended to diagnose, treat, prevent, or cure any condition or disease or substitute for medical advice. Always seek the advice of your physician, mental health professional, or other qualified health care provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition or treatment and before starting or discontinuing treatment. All information on the website is provided in good faith, however we make no representation or warranty of any kind, express or implied, regarding the accuracy, adequacy, validity, reliability, availability or completeness of any information provided. The author disclaims any liability or responsibility to any person or organization for any loss, damage, expense, fine, injury, or penalty that may arise or result from the use of any information, ideas, opinions and/or errors on this website or in our articles. Any use of, or reliance on, information reflected on this website or its mobile application is solely the responsibility of the viewer.
As you can assume from the title, this is intense. If you’re not feeling going this deep into some heavy subjects check out my other blogs. You’ve been warned brah.
During the first couple of meditation sessions, I very quickly went into a state where I nearly felt drugged. I felt completely removed from my body in this area of complete darkness and void.
While in this place, my thoughts felt very slow, I felt as though I had lost all ties to bodily sensations.
There was a sort of ecstasy I achieved from this place. It felt like I had achieved nirvana, a removal from the aches of my body, from the chatter in my mind, from all the bullshit.
At one moment a thought gently arose in my mind that this was where I will go after I die. Complete darkness, void of all sensation.
I recall one moment right before going into this state.
I felt a pulling of my mind up into this darkness, and an equal pull from my body to keep me on earth. The pull from the darkness wasn’t scary though, it was welcoming, it was warm.
I spoke with the teacher, and she told me that that wasn’t where you go after death. That this was a way for my mind to avoid being present. Instead of allowing myself to sit in presence of my mind, it would prefer creating a sedated-like state to avoid analysis at all costs, and this happened quite a bit with men.
I do agree that this was a way for my mind to avoid being analyzed, but I do think that place resembles where I’ll go after death.
I know that I feel better thinking that’s where I’ll go after death, and if it helps with my anxiety toward death, I think I’ll hold onto it.
Thoughts On Death & Depression
While I’ve had death anxiety, I’ve also wrestled with what I would call depression since around the age of 22.
Around this time I was reading some journals from Leo Tolstoy who mentioned his struggles with depression and wanting to end his life.
He spent his young life struggling with depression, then he thought getting deeply religious would help, then that didn’t work, then he had children and thought that would fix it, and it didn’t. Then he finally came to the conclusion that he didn’t have it in him to kill himself, so he might as well get over it and move on.
My favorite portrait of Leo Tolstoy
So that’s what I did, from 23 until about 30. I wouldn’t give the thoughts the time of day, I would block them out.
I felt as though I was on a tightrope, completely surrounded by an endless dark abyss. The only way to overcome this is to focus on whatever goal I had ahead of me, that was the only thing that kept me from falling into that darkness.
Then at 30 I got deeper into therapy & understanding my needs.
In the last couple of years, I’ve tied my depression to lifestyle changes I need to make. It’s my lifestyle that isn’t allowing me to get my needs met, and since one of my needs isn’t being met that’s why I feel depressed.
My depression was due to feeling unstimulated, or not enough stability, or not having enough connection. So I’m just not enough regimen in my day, or too much regimen, being too isolated, not exercising enough, not eating well enough, being single, being in the wrong relationship, being in the wrong country, the list goes on and holy fuck is it exhausting trying to find the culprit for my depression and work to fix it.
I could always hastily find a new culprit to blame my existential dread on, and come up with a plan to combat it.
This sent me right back to the tightrope of “happiness” over the abyss of depression. Knees shaking, I struggled to find a new safe platform at the end of the rope.
I’m done with this, it’s exhausting. I have a desire to not live anymore. It has continued for years now, regardless of what I do, and I’m tired of running from it.
Maybe I could go to a Church and pray hard enough and it would go away. However, I have zero desire to dive into a religion and even if I did, just like Leo Tolstoy, I’m confident it would turn into another tightrope act.
“Sometimes you just have a bad day, and instead of sitting inside you need to force yourself to get outside.”
One of my best friends, Chaz
I remember talking to my buddy Chaz about this, and him telling me this. I think this quote holds the way forward.
Sometimes you just have a bad day, or a couple of bad days, or a bad week, etc.
I’ve been toying with these thoughts for a while now, in my article on the travel high wearing off, and maybe it’s just me. I feel like I’ve gained a deeper level of clarity now.
It’s just the way it is. While I don’t want to sit and wallow in that depression, I also don’t want to try to ignore it, or try to fix it with whatever my half-baked theory of the week is.
Acknowledge it’s there. Neither running from it, nor toward it. Feel it, acknowledge it, and let it be, life will move on from it.
While it will likely come in and out of my life until I do die, it won’t last forever, it will pass.
Disclaimer – If you or someone you know is experiencing suicidal thoughts or a crisis, please find immediate help, if you are in the United States reach out immediately to the Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-8255 or text HOME to the Crisis Text Line at 741741. These services are free and confidential. The contents of this website and its mobile application are for general informational purposes only, and are not intended to diagnose, treat, prevent, or cure any condition or disease or substitute for medical advice. Always seek the advice of your physician, mental health professional, or other qualified health care provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition or treatment and before starting or discontinuing treatment. All information on the website is provided in good faith, however we make no representation or warranty of any kind, express or implied, regarding the accuracy, adequacy, validity, reliability, availability or completeness of any information provided. The author disclaims any liability or responsibility to any person or organization for any loss, damage, expense, fine, injury, or penalty that may arise or result from the use of any information, ideas, opinions and/or errors on this website or in our articles. Any use of, or reliance on, information reflected on this website or its mobile application is solely the responsibility of the viewer.
🙋♀️ Want to stay up to date on my journey?
Follow Me On Instagram or Youtube – @officialdigitalnomadlifestyle