07/15/2025
【The Fourth of July in the Bay: More Than Just BBQ and Fireworks】
During the holiday, a special group of people in the Bay Area chose to give themselves a meaningful gift: 8 days without distant travel or phone scrolling, dedicating time instead to a retreat focused on nurturing their mental, emotional, and physical health.🧘♀️
There were programmers, stay-at-home moms, students, entrepreneurs, and retirees. People from different cultures speaking different languages, yet united by the same wish: to relieve years of insomnia, anxiety, back and leg pain, emotional struggles, and family conflicts, and to reclaim a more empowered version of themselves.
Some who were initially shy and timid learned to express themselves more freely during these 8 days; others experienced for the first time that it wasn't just their muscles relaxing, but their hearts as well.
🌺 J: Emerging from the Darkness of Heartbreak, Replace Resentment with Compassion and Welcome New Hope🌟
Recently I had ended a six-year relationship. I had always wanted children, but she ultimately decided she didn't want them. So we broke up in March this year.
After the breakup, I was heartbroken and depressed, crying every day. I started seeing a therapist, who introduced me to meditation, which led me to join this Health and Fitness Retreat.
During these eight days, I released all the emotions I had been suppressing: anger, sadness, and unwillingness to accept what happened. Everything came pouring out. But after learning about compassion, I began to see her from a different perspective, choosing to bless her with compassion and release the resentment in my heart.❤️
On the sixth day, during the energy blessing session, something truly magical happened. I actually saw my future. I had children and a new partner. I saw my future wife with dark hair, and that vision filled me with hope for the future for the first time.🌈
There was also a small surprise: I regularly do strength training at the gym, and my hands have always been quite rough. During the retreat, I suddenly discovered that my hands had become smoother than ever before!
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🌸A: A New Mom on the Brink of Breakdown Finds Inner Peace and Joy❤️
I’m a marketing manager in a top semiconductor company. Life should be good but in reality I was struggling with depression and burnout while raising my stubborn and demanding 2.5-year-old daughter. Her tantrums, screaming, hitting, and rolling on the floor, left me overwhelmed and drained. I often questioned whether I was failing as a mother. Though I had been taking antidepressants for over a year, they had little effect. Meditation apps didn’t help either. I felt stuck.
Coming from an engineering background with a Masters degree, I’m naturally skeptical and analytical. But I took a leap of faith and joined the 8-Day Health & Happiness Retreat at Bodhi Meditation. The teachings and documentaries made meditation feel practical and powerful and for the first time, real transformation felt possible.
Chanting was a breakthrough. Although I had chanted before, it had always been mechanical. Here, I experienced a deep emotional release. Guilt, love, and gratitude all came pouring out. I felt truly connected, spiritually and emotionally, for the first time.
The more I practiced, the more peace I felt. By Day 5, I felt lighter and genuinely happy from within. I returned home with a calm energy, and miraculously, my daughter’s tantrums stopped during that time. I felt more harmony in my relationships with my kid and my husband. Without even trying, I lost 6 lbs in 10 just days, and my appetite naturally settled.
What touched me most is the people. I’ve often felt lonely, disconnected from old friends and worn out by a world focused on status and money. But here at Bodhi, I feel like I’ve found a true community since I’m surrounded by kind, warm-hearted people who care deeply. I smiled from the inside out. I immediately volunteered, because I want others, especially those silently suffering, to find this path too.
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🌳J: Healing the Father-Son Bond, A Journey of Physical, Mental, and Spiritual Healing and Reconciliation
About ten months ago, I experienced something extremely painful, the passing of my father. I was with him in the hospital at the time, desperately trying to save him. He had been strong his whole life, but he was so weak and suffering before his death, which I found hard to accept. I even tried to "force" him to pull himself together during his final moments. This incident has haunted me ever since, filling my heart with regret. I kept thinking: if I could have done more at that time, would the outcome have been different?
I also carried another burden in my heart: ever since I was young, I had never truly forgiven my father for his harsh treatment of me, both physically and emotionally.
During this retreat, when we chanted the 6-syllable mantra for our fathers, I suddenly felt that knot in my heart loosen. I became grateful to him because his strictness taught me how to have the strength to face life's difficulties and challenges. I also sincerely apologized to him in my heart. This was a tremendous release and reconciliation within me.🙏
I truly wish that when he was still alive, I could have done better and been a better son. But I also feel fortunate that at least during the final stretch of his life, I was there by his side to take care of him.❤️
I am deeply grateful that through this meditation retreat, I was able to release all those emotions that had been weighing on my heart for so long. This means everything to me. My physical pain has improved by 90%, with only the tiniest bit remaining. This isn't just physical improvement, but a deep healing of body, mind, and spirit.
Coming here, I deeply felt that being able to give and forgive is truly a great blessing.❤️
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🌺R: I Can Sleep Through the Night Now!
I worked night shifts as a nurse in the hospital for 45 years, which caused me to have very poor sleep. For many years, I never slept for more than two hours at a time. It was always fragmented, and my total sleep time per day never exceeded four to five hours.
But during this 8-day Health and Happiness Retreat, I was actually able to sleep for a full seven hours straight! This is a huge change for me!👍
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☘️H: Miraculous Correction of Uneven Shoulders, Positive Energy Brings Job Promotion
Many unexpected good things happened to me during this 8-day Health and Happiness Retreat.
My shoulders had been uneven for several years. It's very noticeable. My neck was fine turning left, but turning right caused severe pain, which made me very self-conscious. I had tried many methods over the past six months but couldn't correct it. After attending a Stress Relief class last time, it improved slightly.
On the day of the energy blessing during the retreat, a miracle happened! During the blessing, my shoulders started shifting on their own. Although it was very painful, I knew something was changing inside. After the blessing ended, I discovered that my shoulders were actually even now. I looked completely normal! Previously, my neck would hurt whenever I turned right, but now it hardly hurts at all. I also became more upright and confident.
Even more miraculous was that I had been working hard for a promotion for a year and a half, always falling just short, as if I were stuck in place. Then on the third day of the retreat (June 30th), I received the promotion notification I had been dreaming of! I believe it was this abundant positive energy that brought me good luck.
Actually, there's another piece of good news: on June 12th, exactly one month after I came to Bodhi Meditation, my patent application that I had submitted was also successfully approved by the company and could be officially filed!
I'm truly grateful and really want to volunteer here to continue spreading this positive energy to more people!
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💐H's wife also attended the retreat together, and she felt that she became happier and more relaxed.🥰She said: "Before, we would often argue for two or three hours over trivial matters. But now, I can clearly feel that we've had great improvements physically, mentally, and even spiritually. We've become more understanding of each other, and there's much more tolerance and gentleness between us as husband and wife.❤️
On the Fourth of July, while many people went to see fireworks, our students here ignited the light within their hearts. 🥰
Thank you to every student who participated wholeheartedly. May you carry this sense of ease and courage back into your daily lives and your homes.🌈
