Contemplative Transformation

Below, Jodie Lea shares her experiences over the course of two years as a full-time contemplative at the CCR.

Around a year ago, I completed a two-year intensive meditation retreat at the CCR in Crestone, Colorado under the guidance of Dr. B. Alan Wallace. As a student of Dr. Wallace for nearly fifteen years, I had been preparing to enter long-term retreat since I first heard Dr. Wallace speak about his vision to build Contemplative Research Observatories around the world. I felt inspired to participate in this groundbreaking vision, and fortunately I was able to join the first cohort of contemplatives to enter full-time retreat in December, 2020.

I arrived in long-term retreat after raising a family and developing a career as a counseling psychologist, yoga instructor, and student of Tibetan Buddhism. Beginning when I was a teen, I developed an interest in meditation, and throughout my career sought to understand the causes and solutions for the mental health crisis facing humanity during my lifetime. Following Dr. Wallace’s guidance, I had long been asking myself the questions: “What is the source of genuine well-being? And how can I be of greatest service in the world to help bring about greater human flourishing?” After many years helping others in the nonprofit, clinical, and educational fields, I decided I could also be of service by examining the depths of my own mind and the sources of my own suffering, and by healing my mind and cultivating greater compassion and lovingkindness.

During the two years I spent in solitary retreat at the CCR, I meditated for 7–10 hours per day, while also journaling and engaging in interviews with my teachers. I balanced my days by walking, light chores, cooking, yoga, and textual study. Two years of solitude and meditation gave me the priceless gift of time and the skill it takes to sift through and digest a lifetime of experience in a way I never dreamed possible.

Before I went into retreat, I considered myself to be a generally happy and high-functioning individual with a pretty good meditation practice. But I soon realized that having lived a very full and busy life had left me little time to process and integrate much of my life experience. I recognized that I still harbored a lot of emotional, mental, and spiritual “unfinished business.” This “unfinished business” gradually surfaced in meditation, and I used the metacognitive skill of observing the contents of the mind to witness unresolved feelings about my divorce, recurrent memories of trauma, and unprocessed feelings of grief over the loss of loved ones arise and pass over time. Weeks and months of meditation brought about a natural mental and emotional healing process that Dr. Wallace calls “dredging the psyche.” To my surprise, I also came to appreciate that many small life experiences, like long-forgotten events from childhood and adolescence, also rose to awareness to be reflected upon and understood.

During retreat, the combined gifts of time and practice allowed me to withdraw from the pressures of daily living and what Henry David Thoreau called the resulting life of “quiet desperation.” I had the time and space to probe deeper into the very nature of existence and escape from the feeling that I was simply treading water on the surface of life. This brought about joy and relief discovering for myself a deeper and more reliable level of inner sanity. Through the resolution of “unfinished business,” inner conflicts diminished. Not only did my mind become more calm and clear, and my senses more acute, but chronic joint pain caused by years of inflammation disappeared. Eventually my body became pain-free.

Retreat was not all smooth sailing, though. Sitting in meditation during the emotional upheavals that arise when unpleasant and repressed memories emerge took courage and fortitude. Retreat also forced me to confront intense periods of loneliness, grief, boredom, frustration, laziness, mental chatter, heat, cold, insects, mice, and so on. Over time, I learned that I could make peace with these upheavals, though not prevent them from occurring.

The weathering of emotional upheavals brought about the most fascinating outcome of retreat: that is, the emergence of a whole new level of energy, curiosity, imagination, and fascination with life itself. I realized that energy that had once gone toward inner conflict could now be diverted toward helping others. I experienced firsthand the truth that as individuals we can only be of service to others to the level that we have healed ourselves. I knew that when I completed my two-year retreat, I wanted to dedicate the next phase of my life to working with the CCR and helping make it possible for many more people to benefit from the discoveries full-time contemplatives make in retreat.

Finally, I wish to add that during my retreat, I meditated daily with gratitude for the kindness and generosity of the CCR community and supporters. I can tell you that I longed to be able to find the opportunity to express my heartfelt appreciation for that support. In the spirit of reciprocity, I hope that I may repay your generosity by offering my best toward serving the CCR and moving us closer and closer to “Fathoming the mind, and healing the world.”