The Dream Changed Shape

A couple of weeks from now, I'll be boarding a plane to Nicaragua with a group of people from the Sit.Feel.Heal. community. We'll spend our days in practice. Silent mornings, meditation, reflection, movement, and time in nature. We'll surf, walk through the jungle, sit together at sunset, and hopefully slow down enough to hear ourselves again. The retreat is full! And if I'm being honest, I'm still a little surprised. Not because people signed up, but because this retreat represents a dream that I thought had disappeared years ago. When I first got involved in mindfulness and meditation, I spent a lot of time on retreat. For years, I was what I jokingly call a meditation roadie. I rang bells, set up cushions, volunteered, washed dishes, and slept on floors, couches, and the occasional yurt closet just to be able to attend retreats that felt meaningful and important to me. Those retreats changed my life. They offered something I didn't know I was looking for. A chance to slow down. To be with myself. To connect with people who were asking some of the same questions I was asking. At some point, that experience planted a seed. I started imagining what it would be like to offer retreats myself someday. Not alone, but with friends. Friends I practiced with. Friends I admired. Friends who had helped shape my path. Years ago, while traveling through India with a few close friends, we spent hours talking about practice, service, and what it means to dedicate your life to helping others suffer a little less. At the time, those friends were already established teachers. I wasn't. I was mostly curious. Part of me just wanted to learn enough so I could stay connected to people I admired and loved. The idea of offering retreats together someday felt exciting. Possible. Maybe even inevitable. For a while, it looked like that dream might actually happen. We talked about offering retreats together. Traveling. Sharing practice. Building something meaningful with people I loved and respected. At one point, we even had a retreat scheduled. I was going to assist. It would have been the first one.  Then everything fell apart. The community that had become my spiritual home imploded. People I loved and respected no longer saw eye to eye. Friends who had inspired me. Friends I had traveled the world with. Friends I imagined teaching alongside for years to come. Almost overnight, it felt like everyone was being asked to choose a side. I couldn't. Maybe that sounds naive. Maybe it sounds cowardly to some people. But I couldn't bring myself to reduce decades of friendship and complexity into a team sport.  So I stepped back. And honestly, it hurt.The retreats we had dreamed about offering together disappeared. Relationships changed. Trust was broken. Not only trust in teachers and communities, but at times trust in the whole thing. There were moments when I found myself questioning parts of the very path that had helped shape my life. For years afterward, that experience stayed with me. It still shows up sometimes when I teach. Am I saying too much? Not enough? Will people misunderstand what I'm trying to share? Will I? But somewhere inside that heartbreak was also an invitation. If I wasn't going to follow the path I imagined, I would have to find my own.  So I started building. One group. One conversation. One practice. One relationship at a time. I found myself facilitating groups in juvenile halls, recovery centers, treatment programs, church basements, and community rooms. Anywhere people were willing to gather. I spent years driving all over the Bay Area. Santa Cruz. San Jose. Oakland. Sometimes all in the same day. Back then, I was still carrying a lot of imposter syndrome. I never felt like I knew enough. I was constantly worried someone would discover that I wasn't a "real teacher." What surprised me was that people weren't looking for a teacher. They were looking for presence. They wanted honesty. They wanted connection. They wanted someone willing to meet them where they were. In many ways, that's where my teaching actually began. Not through having answers. But through learning how to be with people. Over time, something started becoming clear. The most meaningful moments weren't happening because I had mastered some spiritual system. They were happening because people felt seen. Because they felt less alone. Because together we were creating enough space for curiosity and compassion to emerge. Eventually, that work led to the Santa Cruz Meditation Group. Then somehow it led to the Sit.Feel.Heal. Meditation Center. And what has happened since still leaves me in awe. The growth isn't what inspires me most. It's the depth, The relationships, The willingness of people to keep showing up, To practice, To be honest, To support one another, To learn how to meet life with a little more presence and a little more care. As the community grew, something else started happening. The old retreat dream began knocking on the door again. Not the dream I originally had, a different one. .For years, I had missed retreat practice myself. The silence. The simplicity. The opportunity to step away from the noise of everyday life long enough to hear what was actually happening inside. I wanted that again. And I wanted to share that experience with this community. The community that had grown right in front of me while I was busy grieving the one I thought I had lost. A friend had been encouraging me for years to check out Costa Dulce in Nicaragua as a possible retreat location. I kept putting it off. Eventually, I visited. The moment I arrived, something clicked. It felt accessible, Grounded, Beautiful, Not perfect. Just right. The vision became clear. What if we created something that honored the silence and depth of traditional retreat practice while also making room for relationship, play, connection, and rest? Silent mornings - Meditation - Reflection. Afternoons spent in the ocean, on jungle trails, in hammocks, or connecting with one another. A retreat that honored both stillness and relationship. Traditional practice and lived experience. Something that felt true to the Sit.Feel.Heal. approach. Something that felt like our own.  So we booked it. I honestly expected just a small handful of people. And then…The retreat filled! And maybe one of the most meaningful parts of this story is that some of the people whose hearts were broken by that community implosion years ago have started finding their way back into practice too. A few have walked through the doors of the Sit.Feel.Heal. Meditation Center.  One of them recently signed up for our Nicaragua retreat. When we talked about it, we realized something. For both of us, this will be the first meditation retreat we've attended since all of that happened. There was something deeply touching about that realization. Not because the wound disappeared. Not because everything got resolved. But because healing doesn't always look like moving on. Sometimes it looks like finding the courage to begin again. And now, in a couple of weeks, we're heading to Nicaragua together. Some of the people joining have been sitting with our community for years. Others are newer. All of them are helping shape what this community is becoming. I feel grateful. Excited. A little nervous, And deeply humbled. Mostly because this retreat reminds me of something I've learned again and again. Sometimes dreams don't come true. At least not in the way we imagined. Sometimes they fall apart. Sometimes they disappear entirely. And sometimes, years later, they return wearing different clothes. What I wanted years ago was to travel and teach retreats with a community. What I didn't realize was that I was already building one.  As we prepare to head south, my hope isn't that Sit.Feel.Heal. becomes bigger. My hope is that it becomes deeper. That people continue discovering their own capacity for presence, curiosity, compassion, and healing. And that whatever goodness comes from our practice ripples outward. Into our families. Our friendships. Our workplaces. Our neighborhoods. Into traffic on Highway 1. Into grocery store lines. Into difficult conversations. Into ordinary life. Because ultimately, that's what practice has always been about for me. Not escaping the world - Learning how to meet it.  In the Buddhist tradition, many groups close by sharing merit. It's a reminder that we don't practice only for ourselves. We practice for one another.  So whatever goodness is cultivated through our practice, may it benefit all beings. May we all be at ease. May we all be at peace. May we all know freedom -inwardly and outwardly.