I first met Suryacitta on an 8-week mindfulness course almost five years ago. I arrived at the first session in the Kuti (meditation room) feeling depressed, angry, anxious, miserable and as though I was crazy.  

I left that first session thinking that actually, he was the crazy one. I could not get my head around anything he said. He spoke of the ‘jewel in the ice’ – that ultimate happiness or contentment we all strive  

for but rarely find, and suggested most of our problems are in our heads…that my well-used defence for being ‘mental’ (“It’s just the way I am”) wasn’t true and that any genetic or physical predisposition to mood issues didn’t have to determine my emotions, feelings or behaviours. 

 

 

Our meditation retreats UK seem to becoming very popular. More and more people seem interested in attending either a meditation day retreat, a weekend meditation retreat or longer, perhaps a seven day mindfulness meditation retreat. 

 

But what is a meditation retreat? Normally our attention in life goes onto the people and things in our life. We have responsibilites; dogs need walking, dinner needs cooking, meetings take place, phone calls to do and so on. In all of thise activity is can be difficult to sense who we are and what we really want in our lives. A meditation retreat is a time and place where we take our attention away from the external responsibilites and to begin to pay attention to ourselves.