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Deepak Chopra and Patrick Flannagan

What do you get when you put 350 of your closest meditating friends in an awe-inspiring setting called The Enchantment Resort in Sedona? Add in daily hikes and outdoor yoga sessions amidst the majestic red rocks and wise teachings by Deepak Chopra. The Chopra Center calls this “Seduction of Spirit,” one of their signature meditation retreats. I had the privilege of attending this spiritual retreat a couple of weeks ago and found the experience to be renewing and simply divine.

We started each day with a sunrise group meditation followed by a yoga session or hike through Boynton Canyon. The days activities included instruction by Deepak Chopra on the Spiritual Laws of Success. Each day’s lunch was Ayurvedic. We’d wind the day down with another yoga session or hike and then the evening finished with optional activities or time to process it all.

I was doubly blessed because I also got to spend some of the week with my favorite meditation instructor, Sarah McLean, and her husband Marty.  They are my true teachers and dear friends.  In addition, I was able to see Sarah’s friend Brent BecVar who is an incredible Vedic astrologer who I adore and highly recommend.  Here are their sites: http://sedonameditation.com/ and http://www.brentbecvar.com/.

The key points I took away from the week, which I have affectionately been calling “The Journey to Well being” include:

1. Meditation and yoga are valuable tools for quieting the mind. And once your mind is quiet, creativity arises (among other things such as innate wisdom about your life).
2. Ayurveda, the Science of Life, as it’s called in India, is a practical and insightful tool for living a better life.
3. Awareness, presence and consciousness (Iiving in the present moment) are portals to magical events, serendipity, synchronicity and the perfect unfolding of life.
4. Nature is healing.
5. Deepak Chopra is a physician and an instrument who is conveying ancient Vedic Wisdom.  (And we love him because he is really a sweet, Kapha Grandfather:)

As we all get busy with our everyday lives, we forget that simple shifts can help us realign with the source of our being. Taking time to meditate or spend in nature allows us to simply be and enjoy our nature as human beings not human do-ings.  The more we align with our true nature, the more we experience well being or bliss, our real selves.

Here’s to our Journey to Well being.  May we all choose bliss.