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Summer holidays are over and it’s back to work. This year I was determined to not be left feeling like I needed a holiday from my holiday. I decided to have a different type of a break and booked myself onto a 6 day immersive spiritual retreat at a self sustainable temple community in Hungary. I returned feeling renewed and transformed. And it also shed light on what I was trying to get away from. The place was stunning - 270 hectares of lush green countryside with awesome weather, tranquil meditation space and delicious food but what affected me the most about this place was the collective consciousness of Trust. I find in developed countries we have a strong culture of fear based living; if I just look at my life right now, in the last 20-years I think I have accumulated more types of insurance than I've ever had before. There is a ‘just in case’ plan for everything! This is fuelled further by the constant stream of distressing news reminding us of how loss and grief are just around the corner. Often our modern life is centred around protecting ourselves from the things we fear losing the most and we may then end up in a situation where the majority of our happiness boils down to feeling relieved at the absence of misery. In the Srimad Bhagavatam One of the core Vedic texts, it is said that fear is at the root of greed, anger, envy, lust, madness and illusion - the six enemies of the mind. Krishna also tells Arjuna at the end of the Bhagavad Gita to give up fear because fear can make us do all sorts of irrational things. What I found on this Retreat was everyone and in particular the residents, had an innate very grounded sense of trust: trust in themselves, in others and trust that they were and will be looked after. This meant that despite having very active busy and productive lives they were peaceful, grounded and happy in a very content way. This was born out of feeling connected in themselves, with the world and to Krishna. For myself, I found my mind became very clear, I had more energy than usual and even my sleep was a lot more restful. Now, I appreciate that other components would have contributed to this but I really do think this consciousness of trust gave me a break from the onslaught of the collective consciousness of fear. What I brought back from this trip was that whilst engaging daily in my relationship with divinity helps me to create a deep rooted sense of trust in the microcosm of my life - I think if more of us could look at the different ways this can be achieved for us as a society then perhaps we can move from a heavy mistrusting climate to the lightness and freedom that comes with a community centred around trust.