Day 9: Lessons from a Not-so-Vipassana Retreat

Trusting my Intuition and Coming back to Belonging

I am not on my Vipassana.

Today is supposed to be day two, of what was my Vipassana. I planned this out about six months ago, and marked off the dates on my calendar, telling everyone I work with that I’d be unreachable during this time. But, I am not on my Vipassana.

(What is Vipassana, you ask? Lol. If you’re in the wellness world, you may have heard of it. If not, I’ll tell you about it. Vipassana is when you sit, silently, without speaking, for ten days straight. You meditate for about eleven hours a day, alternating between being seated by yourself, and seated in groups. You are learning a technique that derives from the Buddhist lineage, inviting you to see things as they really are through insight meditation.)

So why am I not on my Vipassana? There are two reasons.

1. Leaning Into Belonging

The first, is that last weekend, when I travelled down to Uluwatu, which is the surf town near to me where I teach yoga, I felt like myself again for the first time in a really long time. Uluwatu for me is abundant with friends. I also love teaching yoga there. I didn’t plan any get togethers, and yet my days naturally filled up - between the four drop-in classes I taught at the yoga studio where I teach, I was getting coffee, lunch, and having conversations with friends, students, and other yoga teachers. I kept bumping into people I knew.

I knew from the moment when I arrived and was having a coffee, and bumped into my friend Phil (who got me the job in the first place at this studio). When I hugged him, I thought - man - I need to move down here to Uluwatu. I feel so good. Like I belong.

Belonging has been something that has been a theme for me the past few months - where do I feel a sense of belonging? I’m not sure that I ever felt it here, in the real world, in Ubud where I live. I cultivated a sense of belonging on Instagram, with my community, and I cultivated a sense of belonging in sober Facebook groups, to which I owe my recovery, and I cultivate a sense of belongings on retreats and trainings that I lead. But did I ever really feel a sense of belonging here, beyond that, in Ubud?

When I told one of my friends yesterday I was thinking of moving to Uluwatu, he said to me, “Alex - you are always talking about moving somewhere new. Costa Rica, Uluwatu….” I said to him, “yes. And the common thread in all of that is that I am not happy in Ubud.”

Johan Hari famously said that the opposite of addiction is connection. So feeling this sense of belonging, I really wanted to lean into it. I started thinking, “What if instead of my Vipassana, I just came down here to Uluwatu for ten days and just experienced life, and see if I want to move here?” Yoga isn’t just about asana. It’s about finding a sangha, a community, where your heart feels at home.

2. What is the Best Practice for Recovery?

Then, as my time off Instagram and all social media progressed, I started to realize: “Man - it feels like I am getting sober all over again.” Emotions I’d been suppressing are rising to the surface. I am having realizations about my identity, choices, and relationships. I want to make amends, simplify my life, and realign with what matters.

Vipassana felt counterintuitive to that process. Would I recommend someone newly sober from alcohol isolate themselves for ten days of silence? Probably not. Sobriety, like yoga, thrives in connection. The yama of ahimsa (non-harm) teaches us to be non-harming with ourselves and non-harming with others. For me, the right path was not retreating inward but engaging outward—with people, emotions, and the world.

My teachers, Anvita and Rolf, supported this choice, which surprised me. I thought that Rolf, who is a dedicated meditator (we did two hours a day in Costa Rica last month!) was going to encourage me to go to the retreat in the end. But he actually just told me to trust my intuition. He reminded me of a big belief in yoga - that the ultimate guru is within each of us. Yoga Sutra 1.24 is about this. Klesa karma vipaka asayiah aparamtrstah purusa visea isvarah. "Causes, reactions, pain or actions, do not reflect in the consciousness of god." Basically - there is no guru outside of us, so we need to stop searching for external sources. The guru is within. When we realize that the guru was never outside ourselves, but within us all along, and we surrender to this, then that is the quickest way to reach samadhi, or enlightenment. Stillness of the mind is a necessary practice to realize this.

The Vipassana organization were very gracious even though I cancelled literally the night before, and wouldn’t even accept a financial donation to apologize for this, which moved me to tears. This is the practice of ahimsa, non-violence. I keep seeing every day examples of standing in spirituality and leading with love, and thinking, “This is how I want to live.”

Something Rolf said to me at the start of the week is, “How you organize your day is what you bow down to.” I’ve been thinking a lot about this this week. My schedule ever since I moved to Bali, has been about accommodating everyone else’s timezones. Bali is 16 Hours from California and 13 hours from Toronto. It means, I either work late nights, or early mornings. Sometimes I work as early as 6am and sometimes as late as 11pm. Yesterday, I did a whole flip of and restructuring of my day. There are a few late calls that I just cannot eliminate at this point (courses I’ve committed to - leading one Sutra Study and one Entrepreneur group at 10pm each week) - but I will just ride them out until they finish, and everything new that gets scheduled has to be between the hours of 7:30am and 7:30pm.

Yesterday another realization hit me hard - as I cultivate awareness on how much my relationships have drifted in my six years of sobriety. Posting videos and photos daily created a one-sided intimacy. Some of my close family and friends felt connected to me, because they could see my daily updates - but I didn’t feel connected to them. True connection requires more than likes and comments—it needs presence. I’ve committed to start to change that and actively schedule standing calls in my weekly schedule with people that are important to me.

How will I connect with new yoga students, post-Instagram?
I’ve been thinking a lot about this, and yesterday I started working on some new networking ideas which I want to share. Usually at the end of class, I invite people to scan my Instagram code, which was the background of my phone for a long time. That no longer felt right anymore, so I changed my phone background to a beautiful photo of my niece, my sister, my Nana and my mom that I took when I was home at Christmas.

I started making these business cards, and intentionally writing down my favourite quotes on the back. In each class, I’m going to let my students choose their favourite quote, and keep it. The QR code will connect them here, to the Daily Dharma. This is the new Instagram (y’all heard it here first, lol). I’m excited about it. (I am aware that pretty soon, I probably won’t be able to handwrite all the notes, since I teach a lot of yoga classes each weekend. But, for now, I’m enjoying the practice of intention it brings to my life. I like imagining that I’ve written a specific quote, for a specfic person, that is meant to read that exact quote, on that day. I also love rereading things that have inspired me.

While collecting favourite quotes of mine, I want to share one quote I came across, from Meditations from the Mat, which I think is beautiful. This is my favourite, favourite book, but I haven’t read it in years (I need to order a new one again and read it!)

“The solution is two fold. To begin with, we have to stop whatever it is we are doing that creates imbalance. When you are stuck in a hole, stop digging. The second step is to examine the beliefs that drive us to intemperance in the first place. Brahmacarya concerns the first step, summoning the courage to step away from the downward spiral. We discover that there is a power in not doing. As we practice moderation, a wind begins to fill our sails. We find that the ever-present anxiety that accompanies immoderation evaporates. We realize that our fear, which grew out of a specific behavior, has contaminated every aspect of our lives. And as we finally walk away from the food, the sex, the alcohol, the debt, the fill-in-the-blank, we leave our fear behind as well. Suddenly we can begin to meet people’s eyes again. We are no longer making up excuses for our reality. The colors of our lives become brighter and bolder. We find that when we do right, we fear no man.” - Rolf Gates

The last thing I want to share, is that I made a brand new yoga playlist, for the first time in YEARS. I used to love making yoga playlists, but it is a pretty time consuming craft. You have to listen to the music, and feel the music in your body, and understand where it would fit in the arc of a practice. The beginning, the middle, the end. These past few days, I created a playlist called “There is Freedom in Letting Go” which I want to share with you, which I created for a 90 minute Vinyasa practice. If you are a yoga teacher, I hope it serves and benefits you.

Happy Thursday.

In service, and gratitude.

Alexandra