Coming Home Retreat – [Camila Nunes Teixeira]

Hi dearest Jenny and Barret,

I would say I have no words to describe this experience. The desire I have is to be able to take this to everyone, but I also know that at the right time everyone will be able to experience it in their own way.

For many years I cultivated patterns of self-perception and self-concept from which I believed it was not possible to get rid of due to strong identification with this character.

I was used to feeling undeserving of good feelings, or of simply being happy. I often felt excluded, like I was wrong about everything – the wrong person, in the wrong place, at the wrong time. As if my presence didn’t do anyone any good.

I was abandoned by my mother, who later died and had an extremely absent father. I always felt very alone. I had many examples of relationships being synonymous with conflict and after years of being in a conflicting relationship, I couldn’t open myself up to it anymore. I was lonely on this journey with only a few friends.

But today I know that these stories are only in my mind, cultivated by myself to keep me in a very small state. Today I even realise the arrogance of wanting to keep myself in this place, because with every step I take in this undoing, this intruder who inhabits my mind becomes more uncomfortable.

Living in the community during this retreat showed me that there are no mistakes. Everyone is a key piece. The presence of each one is a gift. My presence was very noticed, enjoyed and I fully realised that I am not anywhere by chance.

I don’t know if I’d say I quit, but at least I’ve reduced the feeling that I’m not important. I understood how people-pleasing imprisons us in a small place which wants to assure us that we don’t have a Provider Father. I understood that there is another way of looking at each scene, at each word a brother speaks to you. If it came to me, I can use it to heal my mind that is already more awake to doubt what the world tells us.

The desire I have is to receive more examples of how to enjoy each moment; each simple contact with someone, with anyone. From taking something really useful, to increasingly changing the focus of my mind. along with everyone else.

What would I feel if I were more identified with God than with this intruder in my mind? What sensations could I experience in my days? How to live longer with this inspiration?

Sometimes during the meditations I felt my mind experiencing the emptiness of just being, being and observing that I was thinking, but that I was not the thoughts. Wow! What a relief to know this place exists!

Now I know in my heart that there is a real function to the world. I saw it, I lived it, so now I can’t fool myself without at least knowing I’m wrong.

I feel as if my mind has expanded to receive a new path.

It’s okay not to know, just follow your heart or intuition and it’s okay not to know what each moment is for or what the next step is. Just pray, believe and follow.

There is no other comfort like being free. Free from our strong beliefs, free from our own prisons of judging concepts of right, wrong, good, evil… it’s okay!

Now I can see that there is a beautiful gift in any scene, in any image, just waiting for a little space for it to be given to you.

I can have my mind changed… I can just let the past go and see what’s here now.

There are no losses, there is nothing against me, it’s all in my favour and in God’s favour.

I love your devotion, commitment and strength.

I love you