When people ask me if my time with Peter was helpful, I just grin and
nod my head 'yes'. Honestly, his weekend retreats have been one of the
best things I've ever done for myself. Before my experience with Peter,
my world was gray. I hated to get up in the morning. For years, my life
was filled with anger and loneliness. I kept waiting for SOMETHING to
change.The turnaround came when I truly decided I had enough. I wanted
to LIVE. Through Peter's incredible wisdom and kindness, I was able to
unlock the cage I kept myself in for so long. It's not the world
against me anymore. I'm no longer an outsider. I can see beauty now.
Even rainy days are most wonderful. I have tremendous gratitude towards
Peter for helping me love life. Thank you for all you've done, Peter. I
love the gift of meditation and you helped bring that to me. You are
WoNdErFuL!! |
I wanted to thank you for the meditation workshop & retreat
you conducted on May 15th.
That experience has afforded me an opportunity to change much of
the way I choose to live my life,
for which I will be ever grateful.
One of the most significant changes is in my practice of
daily meditation, which started as
a discipline but is fast becoming a way of life. After my
experience of the week end, it finally
dawned on me that we were using walks, and massage, and Gestalt
techniques... as meditation. I
think I'm really starting to see how life is a meditation (should
we choose to be the "seer" vice the
"seen"). What started as a "got to" or a "should" is becoming a
"get to".
In correspondence, prior to your workshop, you helped me
establish some clarity about what
I would like to see unfold for me during the week end with great
elegance, love and caring. The
healing I sought, at the moment seemed quite urgent. On Sunday,
I realized what I had seen unfold
in my life was an appreciation for my own uniqueness and an
appreciation (and quest for) aloneness
that transcends the specific healing I sought. I had always
rejected the idea of aloneness, believing
it to be akin to that familiar feeling of loneliness. What I
have started to experience in that aloneness
is a level of self-acceptance and self-love that I never imagined
possible while maintaining some
level of humility.
I've been listening to a country song for a while and never
really heard the words before this
week. I think it's called "One Of These Days". Anyway, the song
starts out, "One of these days, I'm
gonna' love you..." (as from a man who is unable to express his
love to another); toward the end of
the song, the lyric subtly changes to "One of these days, I'm
gonna' love me". This "aloneness" stuff
is a major shift for me and I'm afraid. A few minutes ago, in
meditation, I realized how I have so
desperately avoided being alone all my life. Even today, there
are many things I do to numb-out
the loneliness I fear as a result of being alone. These are
things I get to change because they no
longer serve me.
Of course, when I am OK with me, I am OK with the rest of
the world. I am also more able
to genuinely accept whatever is going on around me... even
embrace that which I may otherwise
have found unpleasant, or frightening, or painful. Many years
ago, a man told me that "acceptance"
was the key to all my problems. A few years ago, another man
told me that what he saw in me was
this "begrudging acceptance" wherein there was no energy, no
life, no passion, and no vitality. My
experience of acceptance today has an element of faith never
before present; consequently it IS
accompanied by energy, life, passion, and vitality. While I have
intellectually believed and
encouraged others to believe that "it's ALL good", that phrase is
becoming more true for me.
Again Peter, thank you for continuing this work.
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