My Asian Retreat and How I Obtained My New Self

If you are depressed for some reason, you should not give up. For all those who want to change something in their lives read my post to see that there is always a way out and a horizon of endless opportunities. One should be ready to meet a proper person at a proper moment.

For many years I’ve been sitting in the office in the surrounding of piles of numbers and tables. I used to be an accountant manager in one financial company and I thought that it was the best thing that I deserved. Every day passed according to the same pattern: morning procedures, two hour journey to work, eight hour working day and road back home. For the first year it seemed to feel quite comfortable. The salary was rather decent and I thought that nothing could be better.

I got married at the age of 24, a year after I graduated from the university. He appeared to be everything that I needed in this life. My man was the prettiest, the kindest and the smartest person in the whole world. You know, for a lady in love everything looks in totally different colors. It seemed that our honey moon would last forever. Unfortunately, after two years of life together he became colder to me and started coming home late after midnight. You know how that happens…

At first I was angry, later on I became depressed, but I couldn’t find what was wrong about me. I wanted to talk to him but he was constantly avoiding these talks under the most hilarious reasons. One day he just said that we need to get divorced and telling the truth it was not a surprise.

I became burned-out. I understood that the beloved person was the thing that helped me working day by day and when he left I just lost the reason for the work. The greyness of routine started slowly to consume me. After several futile attempts to add some colors, I got discouraged, almost at a nervous breakdown. That was when I met my old friend Susan. She works at Madestones  and I was really surprised about that as she used to love writing poems but not prose. We were very close friends but for some reason, I can’t even remember it, we stopped communicating. 

In her face I found my savior and advisor who listened to me and tried to bring common sense into my depressed mind. She said that during her work, she found an interesting retreat program that included a two month stay in Chinese mountain village far away from civilization. At first it seemed to be a real oddity – life without work, shops and items of comfort. However, the more I thought about it, the more appealing this idea seemed to me, especially after every working day.

My first week at this remote village seemed to me a real hell. There was nothing I got used to. We slept on the floors and ate mainly vegetable food. All this was conducted under the guidance of Mr. Zhao, a Buddhist monk, who coordinated all the process. He talked individually with each member of our small group of five people and together we all practiced meditation and Tai Chi techniques.

Very slowly I started to understand that everything that I was worrying about was senseless. As our teacher said: “Things become problems when you pay attention to them. Look at the water – it doesn’t have problems because it flows around them. Just do what your heart feels appropriate. It knows best.”

Clean nature and the scenery around became so attractive that it was really hard for me to leave that place. Yes, I stayed there and became an English language teacher as I’ve got two educational degrees. I’m working with children and it brings me plenty of joy. Now I’m dating with one of the locals and I feel like a totally new person. Sometimes one needs to start anew to find happiness.

• 0