I’ve been going on retreat for as long as I can remember, around 20 years, but never before have I left EARLY until now. Usually my experience is quite the opposite, of not wanting to go home and back to my ‘normal’ life. But what happens when you have created the most beautiful, and abundant in every way, ‘normal’ life that you simply do not want to run from?

Well, you run away from the retreat! 

And it felt like that
Naughty
I packed excitedly
Cancelled my planned ticket home and purchased another one
Told no one what was happening
And then just disappeared

I didn’t need to talk to anyone about what was going on internally
For it was no one else’s business
I just knew
It was time
I HAD to go

Compare this to ten or 15 years ago, when I used to cry when I left a retreat; knowing that I was returning to a life of excessive drinking, desperate loneliness, and the search to find my true self.

The retreat always gave this to me; an insight into who I could become
But how long could I keep it up when I got home?
Before my ‘real’ life caught hold again
And this really is the essence of our spiritual journey
The pull back and forwards
To who you are becoming, and then back to who you’ve always been
Like a swing taking you into two different worlds

What happened this time was epic
I suddenly realised that I was ALREADY who I wanted to ‘be’
And didn’t need to go frigging anywhere to live that life
As these thoughts crossed my mind like clouds across the sky
They parted completely, revealing pure heaven
Yet this wasn’t the heaven I’d been taught throughout my life that was ‘up there’
This was heaven that was within
Permanent

AND NOW

I had to get out of the retreat
For there was no more searching
In fact, I was calling the search party off
As Bentinho Massaro says, and I shared recently,

“Once your inner teacher has been activated by your outer teachers, and your ability to discern through the mist of your own ignorance has been regained, you don’t need anyone else but you to take you higher into Self-Realisation.”

This resonates so much
It’s so clear to me now
And I couldn’t get back quick enough
As the train inched closer to home I got more and more excited about my return
For it truly felt like a ‘coming home’
A full circle
I categorically knew I didn’t need to go anywhere else to find me

Once home
Everything had changed
Like I was seeing my life through new eyes
Grateful for every single morsel that is my life
Realising that so much of the stuff I had been yearning for, just didn’t matter
So much has dropped

I feel new
Yet at home
Just born
Yet wise
And everything has simplified

This is heaven on earth
And once you touch in on this it can never leave you
You get it
And you’ll never go back to a life of struggle and despair
The search is now over
You found what you were looking for
And it was within all along

BUT

You do need to go through the process
And 20 years of going on retreats taught me the journey inward
Over and over again
Looking within
Finding external teachers who could unlock my inner teacher
Until I could call the search party off
And this is destined for you too
Just by reading this
Something will be triggered
You now know that what you have been searching for yourself
IS possible
Because I did it
So now you can too…