A guest post by Eden Ariel — writer, traveller, and New Paradigm alumna.
I spent two weeks at a mental health retreat in Chiang Mai, Thailand this August, and while I'm in the middle of a much longer and more personal post about it, I wanted to take some time to simplify some of the biggest things I learned there, just in case they can help other people as much as they're helping me.
New Paradigm is a unique mental health retreat. There were only three of us there, and it's all led by one therapist, the singular Dirk Lambert, who — prior to becoming a therapist — was a military sergeant, an IT company founder, and a twice-ordained Buddhist monk.
We did everything from EMDR to workshops on the Law of Attraction, and while I'd heard about most of what we'd been taught, it helped me immensely to be forced to put it all into practice in a supportive and structured environment. None of these tactics work, after all, unless you actually implement them, and structure is vital for any kind of success.
But reading can be a great place to start, and there were a few truly novel ideas that Dirk presented that I know I'll be carrying with me for the rest of my life. I hope they can help someone else, too. Here they are.
1. A sleep schedule is critical and non-negotiable
Before our first therapy session, I presented Dirk with a long document about my life and the problems I've been facing. After reading it, he had one takeaway: it sounded to him like my biggest problem was fatigue and exhaustion.
At first I was surprised to hear this. I knew I was tired all the time, but I figured that was a byproduct of my depression, and it seemed to pale in comparison to other issues. But actually, Dirk helped me realize that the fatigue was likely causing a lot of the issues I was having, from my forgetfulness to my low self-esteem.
A really life-changing moment happened when I started talking about how I saw myself as a lazy vat of unfulfilled potential, and Dirk said: "I really don't see you as lazy. I just think you've been really tired."
That honestly blew my mind, because I'd been calling myself lazy in my head for so long without even thinking about the fact that when I have energy and when I'm feeling good about myself I'm actually kind of an amazingly creative powerhouse. It's the fatigue, I realized, not some fundamental lack of willpower, that often keeps me from fully engaging with life.
Well, after New Paradigm, all that is in the past. Dirk told me that without a sleep schedule, everything else goes out the window. At one point, he told all of us that if we were taking great care of our sleep and nutrition and were still having mental health issues, he'd let us come back to New Paradigm for free.
Every day at New Paradigm, we woke up at 5:20 in the morning, and while at first I was exhausted — especially because we weren't allowed any coffee!! — by the end I was falling asleep at 8:30 or earlier, and was feeling so much less tired than I had in such a long time, without coffee. Now, I've frequently found myself waking up at 6 even without an alarm.
Dirk also taught us two key tips for easing insomnia and winding down before bed: diaphragmatic breathing (breathing in for four counts and out for four counts, for at least five minutes) and progressive relaxation (tightening parts of your body for fifteen seconds and releasing for thirty seconds — apparently developed for soldiers to fall asleep anywhere).
He also told us it's extremely important to think something positive in the first few moments after waking up. Every morning when he wakes up, he imagines shaking off any negative feelings, and then fills his mind with positive affirmations, like the word GREAT!
Right after you get up, he said, do some form of physical activity — a walk, a short yoga class, anything. Every morning we went for a 30-minute power walk and while it was so hard at first, I grew to love the ritual. Nutrition, he reminded us, goes hand-in-hand with sleep: always eat nutritious meals at the same hours each day.
This is probably the top thing I learned at New Paradigm and if you take one thing away from this article, let it be this: Have a sleep schedule.
Key Takeaways:
- Have a consistent sleep schedule no matter what
- Wake up early even if you had trouble sleeping the night before
- Think something positive right when you wake up
- Do some form of movement immediately after getting up
- Stick to a consistent schedule for meals
2. Self-love is the key to everything, and affirmations are the way to get there
I know self-love is critical. I'd known it for many years. But my time at New Paradigm really showed me just how absolutely non-negotiable it is for recovery from mental illness.
I read two of the books Dirk recommended: Louise Hay's You Can Heal Your Life and Susan Jeffers's Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway, both of which are passionate diatribes on the importance of affirmations and positive thinking, and by the end of the retreat I was sold.
Before this year, I spent so much of my life being incredibly mean to myself. Feeling guilty for what I had. Feeling guilty for what I hadn't done. Feeling so much shame. I was my own worst enemy. I never would have tolerated anyone else saying a fraction of what I used to say to myself every single day.
And yet I was trying to use self-hatred as a way to motivate myself to change my life, which was never going to work. If we try to heal from a place of lack, we'll always wind up back where we started. But if we try to heal from a place of fullness and actual self-love, that's when healing actually happens.
So I've started doing daily affirmations, saying "I love and accept you as you are" to myself at least a few times every day while looking in the mirror. Saying "I love you" to yourself can feel weird at first, but now I can't believe I ever went so long without telling myself that. It felt odd in the beginning, but now I really do feel it.
I can honestly say that I actually do love myself, and it feels amazing.
Louise Hay also suggests saying "I approve of myself" in your head a few hundred times each day for a month. Imagine if you could replace your inner monkey mind's prattling with those four words — how would your entire worldview shift?
To make affirmations work for real, you have to start strong and go all-out and deal with the discomfort that's going to come with this practice. I said affirmations to myself and read about the importance of them for two hours a day every day for 14 days, and I think it takes at least that long to get a new habit ingrained into your mind.
Dirk also suggested that when the self-critical voice does come up, it's better to gently guide it away like you would an errant child rather than attacking it. Self-love is so hard for so many reasons, especially when you're feeling emotional, so be gentle with yourself during this process.
Takeaways:
- Never criticize yourself
- Invest serious time and energy into repeating positive affirmations while looking at yourself in the mirror
- Say "I approve of myself" as many times as you can each day and see what happens
3. When it comes to handling emotions, practice radical compassion and embrace the cactus
One of the first things Dirk shared with us was a masterclass led by Tara Brach called Radical Compassion, which I'd highly recommend to everyone. In it, she talks about the extraordinary importance of self-compassion, and she teaches a mindfulness technique called RAIN meant to help process emotions in a healthy way.
RAIN stands for:
- R — Recognize: What are you feeling?
- A — Allow: Can you allow and make space for the feeling?
- I — Investigate: Where does this feeling come from? What is it trying to say? What patterns are contributing to it?
- N — Nurture: What do you need? What is the feeling asking for?
When I told Dirk about a deep well of emotional pain I'd discovered during a previous silent retreat, I expected to spend the whole session unpacking it, but he seemed unconcerned and took about five minutes to give me a key takeaway.
"Embrace the cactus. When the discomfort comes — and it's really just discomfort, not pain — you just have to embrace it. Just greet it with love." — Dirk Lambert
The key is to not reject the negative emotions, but also not to let them overstay their welcome. I think the cactus idea and RAIN are two of the most helpful tactics for handling emotions that I've ever come across. I hope they help you too.
4. Emotional binding is critical, for both gratitude and manifestation
I know gratitude is important, and I'd been doing a gratitude practice for nearly a year before New Paradigm, but it really didn't seem to be helping me at all. I think that's because I wasn't emotionally binding to the gratitude. I was just writing down gratitudes while still feeling exactly the same.
But, as I learned in Tamara Levitt's gratitude masterclass, when you're writing down gratitudes, take a minute to actually feel grateful for what you're writing. It's as simple as that. She also suggests ten gratitudes each day, kept specific so you don't repeat the same ones over and over. Now I'm actually excited to practice gratitude each evening, because it actually makes me feel grateful.
Emotional binding is also a critical piece of manifestation, which Dirk taught us in a separate class. For example, if you're manifesting a new relationship, you have to actually allow yourself to feel like you already have an extraordinary new relationship. What would it feel like? Real love and security? Feel it. Find it in yourself.
The universe responds to vibrations and gives us more of the energy we're putting out. So if we're always desperately wishing for something, instead of acting and feeling like someone who already has it, we stay stuck in a place of lack.
Takeaways:
- When practicing gratitude, actually feel the gratitude — don't just go through the motions
- When practicing manifestation, believe and feel that what you want is already yours
5. We all need a higher power — but don't overthink it
Dirk was very clear about the importance of a higher power, which he said can look like anything — but no matter what form it takes, it's key for any kind of healing, particularly from mental illness.
I consider myself a very spiritual person and most certainly believe in energy and magic, but I'd been wrestling with the concept of a benevolent god. How could that god allow all this suffering?
"Don't overthink it," he told me.
"I want to believe," I said.
"Don't want," he said. "Just believe."
And so, I believe. Because it's better to believe. Because I have so much evidence in my life that there have always been forces looking out for me. Because I've learned so much even from my greatest struggles. Because the world itself is a miracle.
Susan Jeffers puts it beautifully: the universe is an energetic force that responds to what we put out. So if we believe there's a loving, benevolent force guiding and protecting us, that's what will show up in our life. Pretty simple and pretty powerful stuff. Might as well give it a shot.
6. Don't dwell excessively on negativity — what we focus on always grows
This is connected to the last point. One of the more thought-provoking things Dirk talked about was how talk therapy can sometimes be damaging, as it can lead people to ruminate and focus on negativity over and over — and since what we pay attention to grows, this can keep people stuck. While I'd never want to discourage someone from going to therapy, I actually do agree with this.
During our sessions at New Paradigm, we spent very little time talking about problems and focused much more on solutions. The only time we really dove into big issues or traumas was during EMDR, which was very helpful, and even that required only two sessions.
He also encouraged us not to look at the news too much and to protect ourselves from overexposure to world disasters. If you can't personally help, he advised, then don't engage. Go to protests. Volunteer. Donate. Engage with world events if you have the ability to be an active participant in making them better. Otherwise, you're simply marinating in exhausting negativity.
We can and should share our struggles — but in a way that's productive. Either in a way that makes people feel less alone, or paired with lessons or at least some kind of optimistic outlook. Simply sitting and marinating in negativity over and over, without it going anywhere, is generally not healing at all.
7. Less is more — and though there will always be suffering, healing doesn't need to be painful
We stuck to a regimented schedule during the retreat: waking up at 5:20, walking three kilometres each morning, daily yoga and Muay Thai, daily therapy, and daily sauna and ice bath sessions. But the Muay Thai and yoga were both pretty gentle — lots of breaks and relaxing stretches — and all of this fits into Dirk's less-is-more philosophy.
A huge mistake I often make when trying to heal is trying to change my whole life and implement dozens of new habits at once, which always leads to burnout. The key is always to start small, with manageable changes, and build from there so the habits actually stick.
Essentially, healing is hard work and requires discipline, but it shouldn't be painful or ultra unpleasant. At New Paradigm, we did a variety of short, guided meditations each morning, which I enjoyed far more than the intense silent practices I'd tried before. They actually helped me relax instead of getting more tensed up.
"We can either suffer while we're in recovery, or suffer much more out of it." — Dirk Lambert
That's true. We'll always suffer in this life. But we have control over how we react, and with the help of our higher power and our hearts, we have control over how we structure our lives — and we can live in a way that makes all of it so much easier to bear.
Because the truth is, I am living my dream. I'd felt so guilty for feeling depressed while travelling all summer, but now that I've decided to stop criticising myself and feeling ashamed, that weight has lifted. I'm less depressed. I'm more grateful. I'm less tired. I'm more in tune with my emotions and sensitivity, which means I feel a lot, all the time — but I'm better equipped to deal with those feelings.
I am embracing the cactus. Just as I embrace the universe's abundance and creativity, and know I'm in flow with it.
Did anything in here resonate with you? Sending lots of love your way. I hope you can give some of it back to yourself. You deserve it.
— Eden Ariel