Setting Foot on the Path

The journey likely started before I went to my first mindfulness retreat, really. And maybe this speaks more to my unspoken, unsought journey of spirituality. As a little girl, I was very quiet, and often had a lot of thoughts going through my head about things I had observed going on around me. It wasn’t until I set foot at my first mindfulness retreat that everything began to make sense. For the first time I felt the depth of life I was seeking.

I didn’t realize it then, but I had constantly felt a void inside of me — that nothing in my immediate environment at the time felt fulfilling. I was always searching for more and searching outside of myself. As a quiet girl, I never shared this experience with anyone, and actually those who know me now might say that I’m still on the reserved side. But regardless, I would try to figure things out on my own.

I was 10 when I experienced my first mindfulness retreat. It was a whole different world to me entering a monastery that had Buddhist monks and nuns living peacefully and happily. It was the first time I felt that my nervous system relaxed completely and I could be myself. Being myself in this sense didn’t mean that I would come out of my quiet-girl shell and be louder. It simply meant that I could rest in my true nature. My experience at the retreat would then become the foundation for my many contemplations and decisions going forward.

As I had mentioned though, the journey likely started even before this trip. I was constantly observing my surroundings and questioning things. I often didn’t feel I belonged to the systems, environment and people I was surrounding myself. Somehow at the age of 7, I already knew there was a lot of suffering around me. I’m sure this is the case for many reading this post, too. Or at least, something felt off and we weren’t sure what. I would try to understand the causes and conditions for things that happened. I wanted to get to the root and understand the truth beneath.

Of course, I didn’t figure everything out and possibly my relationship to things changed as I began to understand more, but what I discovered for myself was a path. A path that would help me each time I encountered a challenge or difficulty in my life that I could turn toward. Something that would make me feel safe and protected. And so I did, and my only hope now is that with the little that I’ve learned and experienced on this path, and perhaps even the mere fact that I’ve even set foot on this path in the first place, that it could offer something to someone else as well.