Shape of Awake Weekthun

Last week I completed my first 7-day meditation retreat. It was a Hope Martin program called Shape of Awake held at the Atlanta Shambhala Center. I thought this would be a great first one because it was local, I had heard great things about it, and Hope works with your posture. I have generally thought even weekend retreats were exhausting so I had some definite apprehension about doing a week. I think the fact that it was local actually made it more difficult. It was hard to relax into it and "just be" because I had to go home every night and deal with home stuff and some work emails before going to bed. There was definitely some long  days for me and there were times I thought I would never do one of these again. Some days were a mental struggle while other were physical (upper or lower back pain). But once I accomplished it, I looked back at it much more favorably. Isn't that always the way it happens. I definitely learned a lot from Hope and will definitely continue to use the tools she taught us to work with my posture. And I really enjoyed the Pema Chodron lecture on Shenpa. I had more difficulty with some of the more abstract stuff like Self Sensing. I think I will definitely at least try one more weekthun before I make any final decisions - most likely Enlightened Society at the Mountain Center in CO or Karme Choling in VT.

The feast and graduation after 7 days

Getting certificate from Hope