"
Doing a retreat with Pete is the BEST decision I ever made in my life. Really, I am not just saying it to say it! When I came to Portugal for the first time in November of 2020 I was feeling completely lost, without any purpose, no energy to live, no enthusiasm to be in in this world. My life was pretty good though, I had a lot of good friends and a very beautiful and loving girlfriend. I had just finished my university course, with a pretty good results and there were also many other reasons to be happy and satisfied. But I couldn't enjoy all of that. Something was missing. I've never been very into what conventional life has to offer, deep down in my heart I felt there should be something more than just having a career, a family, work and die. So I decided to take my backpack and start traveling, looking for alternative lifestyles and for some mysterious reason I ended up in a small community in the middle of Portugal, with people who are part of the Awakened Life Project. So I decided to go to my first retreat over New Year. And it totally blew me away!

The power of Pete's transmission was just speaking directly to my heart, while I was realising that I finally found what I have been searching for my entire life, without even be aware of it. The teachings were so simple and down to earth, everybody in the room could relate to them with their own experience and we were able to feel ourselves being guided in a collective process, in which all our apparently individual questions or issues were actually seen as completely impersonal. And all of them were answered, by the powerful revelation of Freedom, here and now. Nothing to seek, we are always already happy and free! And this existence is a process of constant recognition of that truth and a process of learning how to express that recognition in every single moment of our daily lives.

I remember feeling like falling in love for the first time, realising that I want to give my life to this process. Sometime later I eventually joined the Awakened Life Sangha (the committed spiritual community of Pete and Cynthia's students). And I made many other amazing choices, which continue to change my life, every day. But all of that would have never been possible, without making that one choice, of joining a retreat with Pete.

And almost two years after, I am writing this testimonial with the same passion I felt in that occasion, but with much more understanding and appreciation for what happened in that retreat and what incredible job Pete is doing with is work. And I am tremendously grateful to him for that. Thank you Pete, I love you.