It’s our last day at the Chopra Center tomorrow. It’s been a really great weekend so far and has felt like I’ve been gone longer than 2 days. I still have a day and a half left!!
My flights to San Diego involved a bit of a cluster including delayed flights (thankfully there was a later flight from San Francisco to San Diego), a smaller than usual airplane (we had to check our carry on bags), an air conditioning system that didn’t work (I was ok, but there were a lot of hot, grumpy people), and a flight that ran out of water half way to its destination (huh?) I was supposed to get to San Diego just after 10:30PM. I arrived around 1:30AM. I got to go somewhere, and I arrived at my destination, so for me it was all good.
The next day we hopped on a train (my first time on the Amtrak) and headed for Carlsbad. We assumed there would be taxis at the train station, but of course there weren’t, but since Americans are so super friendly (and I’m not being sarcastic with this statement) the sheriff helped us call a cab to get us to where we needed to go.
The resort is very nice with lots of greenery and the smell of flowers everywhere. Resort travel isn’t the route I often tend to go and in some ways it makes me uncomfortable, but it’s an interesting change and it makes a difference to me that I am here focused on a program.
We’ve met a lot of interesting people, and it is nice to be here with my mom. I tend to do stuff like this on my own, so it’s a nice change to have some company and to share this experience with someone. It’s my mom’s first experience with meditation, and so far she seems to be enjoying it.
Yesterday we learned about the meditation technique they teach here, we received our personal mantras to work with, and we’ve been doing a lot of work with that throughout the weekend. Today we had talks by Deepak, Dr. Daniel Siegal (a neuroscientist), a sharing session and then some laughter yoga. Surprisingly my highlight of the day was the talk by Dr. Siegel (fascinating!!), followed closely by the sharing session!! This isn’t the first time I’ve tried laughter yoga, and though I definitely see the benefit of it, it’s something that I just can’t get into. My mom seemed to have the same sentiments.
Half day tomorrow and then off to San Diego. I’ll tell you more later … right now I’m off to meditate : )
Yeah!! New experience.
View from the train … all that beach with no one to share it with!!
The Sheriff is off calling us a cab right now. He was the world’s friendliest police officer (no offense Nes!)
My mom was in love with all of the flowers here.
Crappy pic (it’s from my phone … what do you expect). We were having supper on Friday when we looked up to see the “moon rise.” I totally forgot about the full moon. It was pretty incredible.
Afternoon yoga. I love practicing outside.
Getting ready for our sessions.
Dr. Daniel Siegal, Dr. Deepak Chopra and Gordon (our MC for the weekend)
Our laughter yoga session.
We had to have a glass of wine after that to recover!!