Come As You Are and Bring Your Whole Self: An interview with Devin Berry
DVI Steering Committee member Jon Twersky had the pleasure of meeting with Devin Berry to discuss his daylong DVI retreat, Awakening the Heart (May 2025).
What advice do you have for people attending this retreat?
Come just as you are -- exhausted, overwhelmed, stressed. There’s no need to “pretty up” or perform what you think a meditation retreat should look like. My invitation is to bring your whole self to this experience. Use the teachings as a way to meet whatever arises with compassion and equanimity. This retreat is an opportunity to awaken the heart, to remember our deep interconnectedness, and to explore how we can stay tender and present, even in the midst of strong emotions like anger or sorrow, without shutting down or running away.
What helps you stay connected or deepen your practice when things get challenging?
One phrase I often return to is, “right now, it is like this.” It helps settle the nervous system and creates a mindful, reflective pause. So often, we’re tempted to bypass the discomfort, to move on quickly or find an immediate solution to the struggle. But this simple acknowledgment brings me back to the present moment.
Retreats offer a pause, a gathering of what has been scattered. We settle the body to allow space for fierce compassion and fierce tenderness to arise. It’s not about escape, but rather about meeting life as it is, and asking, “Who am I within this world, as it is?”
Practice gives us the chance to build our capacity for wonder, for connection, and for staying present, even when things get hard.
What do you find most helpful in reconnecting to mindfulness when the practice feels distant or unclear?
Doubt is a shared human experience. And while I do feel it at times, I also know what my mind is like without meditation. That contrast often reminds me why I continue to practice.
Mindfulness creates space to see my conditions with more clarity, to begin untangling karmic knots and relating to them with compassion and objectivity. Through practice, I’ve come to see many of these conditions not as something to be transformed, but as patterns that were transferred, not necessarily mine to carry forever. When I look deeply, I reconnect with my true nature, one that witnesses what is, embraces interconnectedness, and honors the shared human experience.
When doubt or distance arises, the practice doesn’t ask me to push it away, it invites me to lay down the protective armor and meet what’s here with tenderness and o