Satyam Community Retreat

20 & 22 of December 2025
Mai Shahin

I wanted to share a few impressions with you from our Satyam retreat that ended today. I’m still carrying the echo of these days in my body — the stillness, the tears, the truth-telling, the breath returning to places where it had been missing.

We held NVC trainings, empathy circles, and grief rituals that opened something essential in people — especially those who were experiencing this kind of togetherness for the very first time. You could almost see it happen in real time: shoulders slowly dropping, eyes softening, voices trembling into honesty. Many came with old armors, with stories that were never held, with grief that had never been witnessed.

And then — the room shifted.

A circle of strangers began to breathe as one.

There is something almost sacred about watching people discover,q maybe for the first time in their lives, that they don’t have to carry everything alone. To see them realize that connection is not a luxury — it’s a birthright. That listening is a form of love. That grief, when shared, becomes something that can move, soften, transform.

These last days were a reminder of why we do this work: because when human beings are given a space of safety, presence, and dignity, something ancient in them remembers. Remembers how to feel. How to be held. How to return home to themselves and to each other.

I leave this retreat deeply grateful — for the courage in the room, for the willingness to stay with what hurts, for the beauty of voices speaking truth without fear. And grateful for you, David, and for all the ways you continue to support this path we are building.

Togetherness is not just a practice. It is a revolution.

And this week, we witnessed it begin in so many new hearts.