extraordinary, profound, magical.

The following words can not do justice to what is mostly an experience of the heart for me. I feel like for a week I've vanished from daily life, in another space almost sitting in the clouds with no place to be, no place to go. The location is so peaceful and beautiful surrounded by and with nature.

Experiences are different for everyone but I can only comment that the experience has been truly profound and unexpected. I came with no expectations but with an open mind.

Sitting with my mind brought new revelations, day after day. Slowly each day came an unexpected release of emotions and a realization that I've been holding on to a lot of past events. For the last 8/9 years, I've been living with shoulder pain, with each day came a realization and release that would physically release my shoulders further. Inspired by Hamid's Dharma talks and soothed by Helen's wonderful Yoga. I can not speak highly enough of these wonderful angels I was lucky to meet.

I have had anxiety since school which got to the state of social phobia, which is basically a massive injection of adrenaline that makes me shake and makes interactions with new people difficult whilst my conscious mind tries to reduce the outward symptoms.

With the lessons I have learned from sitting with my mind, I stopped fighting my anxiety and accepted it and finally accepted who I am and realized part of my anxiety was due to not being able to open and share my heart. With the wonderful, beautiful, and supporting people I shared the time with my heart started to open and with it a lot of emotions. As a man, you are taught not to cry but I realized this is why I had trapped emotions and decided to let myself be vulnerable from now on.

On the last day when we broke the silence, I did not recognize my voice and realized I was not the same person I came in as. I felt physically younger and all my muscles relaxed and my anxiety and tremors dropped to the point that either they were no longer there or not noticeable to me. I feel the anxiety stopping is a miracle and even if it was to return it has given me such hope and acceptance that I've learned to love myself again and be the person I was meant to be.

I can truly say I have never loved a group of people who I've only known for one week more in my life, they will always stay in my heart.

Just sit.