What I Learned on a Week-Long Meditation Retreat

This summer I spent a week in a meditation and wellness retreat. It’s the first time I’ve ever taken a week off to do something like that. I had heard amazing things about this retreat, so decided to try it myself. 

The spiritual leader who led the retreat was a man named Leo Cordova. Leo comes from a long lineage of spiritual leaders dating back nearly 5,000 years. I couldn’t really understand what that meant…until Leo started teaching us. The first thing to notice about Leo was despite his power, he had a very kind and lighthearted demeanor. He was gentle and his smile said, “Everything is going to be okay.” 

When he spoke, I witnessed the true power of his decades of daily meditation and a collective 5,000 years of wisdom and study passed down over the generations. I felt like I was listening to the Michael Jordan / Warren Buffett / Steve Jobs of spiritual leaders. It was a life-changing experience.

I have included three of the most powerful passages from my time with him. I was not allowed to record Leo, so the passages below may not match exactly what Leo said, but they are pretty close. I hope you enjoy them as much as I did!

Excessive thinking is unnecessary and causes suffering

Leo said, “Life is quite simple if we allow it to be. The thing that complicates our lives is excessive thinking. I will save you the time of discovering this yourself. Excessive thinking is a waste of time. It’s a waste of our energy. Suffering is needed until we realize suffering is no longer needed. Nearly all our suffering is our excessive thinking.”

This was the most impactful thing I learned from Leo. I realized that most of my stress comes when I let my mind go wild and create some story about how things are going to unfold, what people are going to think, or what is going to go wrong. That story is what Leo calls “excessive thinking.” After 20+ years of meditating, Leo concluded that excessive thinking was a waste of time and energy and worse, keeps us from enjoying life.

Our life happens in this moment, but we often live elsewhere

“Thinking keeps us out of the present. Thinking is about the past and about the future. The past is your destiny. Whatever happened in the past is the only way it could have happened. It is what brought you to where you are. Which is right where you need to be right now. The present. You can plan for the future, but don’t live there. Live here. Live right now. When you start thinking that a future moment is more important than this moment, you are wishing away time. You are missing life.”

Since being home, I’ve really tried to relax into the present moment. It is truly amazing how energizing and freeing it is to just allow myself to enjoy this moment right now and not use this moment to judge, worry, or plan for the future. I realize how much of a habit I had of living in the future or worrying about it and how much lighter I feel letting go of that tendency.

There will be problems, and the biggest challenges are internal

“Life is a challenge. There are always problems. That is the way it is supposed to be. Life is an adventure. And without challenges, there is no adventure. The biggest challenges are internal. Life’s real work is internal. Most progress in this world is a function of faith and optimism.”  

As enlightened as Leo is, he doesn’t sit around meditating all day. He goes out into the world and helps people. Just like all of us, he encounters challenges and problems. But unlike us, he doesn’t attach to these issues. When we were together, I described a very difficult issue I was having. Leo listened patiently and then he said, “You are attaching to the problem and you are reacting. Let go. See the problem for what it is with no attachment or judgment and then decide what to do.” 

The biggest impact of my session with Leo was the ability to enjoy the present moment without allowing my thoughts to run away with “excessive thinking,” as Leo calls it. My previous framework was that my excessive thinking was saving me. It was keeping me on track and helping me. But in the month since I’ve been back, I have realized that the excessive thinking was nearly all a waste of time. And living here now works just fine. I’ve been able to give myself permission to be in the present moment and to surrender to where that moment is taking me. I stopped trying to control things or will events to work out to some predetermined outcome. I am better at just letting go. 

I hope you enjoyed Leo’s words as much as I have. Let me know which passage was your favorite. 

Good luck!