I had dreams of people visiting me in the forest and feeling like, “Oh no, I broke the rules,” and they were trying to tempt me to come back to society. But it was one of the most beautiful, profound, enlightening experiences of my life that I would never trade for anything.

When I was a kid, I remember hearing that Jesus of Nazareth went into the desert for 40 days and came back Jesus Christ — transformed, ready to take on the Roman army and be a source of love in the world.

Then, a little later, maybe when I was in high school or college, I heard that the Buddha sat under a tree for 49 days and obtained supreme enlightenment. And when I heard such a similar story the second time, it struck me that maybe there’s something to this. Maybe it’s not just a story of these gentlemen, but it is a prescription for becoming our strongest, healthiest, and happiest selves.

So this little voice in my head got in there, and it never left. And it was like this curiosity and this drive to discover if 40 or 49 days would bring about some kind of lasting, permanent, dramatic change in my mind and how I think and relate with the world around me.

I decided I am going to save up enough, I am going to quit my job, get rid of my apartment and all my stuff, and learn all of the different meditation techniques and other spiritual practices that I could learn to spend 50 days by myself in the middle of a forest — and see what kind of change could take place.

So I looked around the world and I decided that New Zealand has no bears, no tigers, no wolves, no poisonous spiders or snakes. And it seemed like the perfect place to do this, where I would be in the least danger. So that if something bad happened on day 10, I wouldn’t have to wait 40 days for someone to come rescue me. Also, it’s a very safe country. They have forests and national parks pretty much everywhere.

I headed to New Zealand after spending a lot of time living with monks and gurus, and shamans, learning all of the wisdom and practices that I could take with me. And when I got to New Zealand, I found a place. I headed to the nearest camping store from that place, a couple of hours away, which I later found out was a very sacred forest to the Indigenous people of New Zealand.

I hiked for about 4 days into the forest, stayed there meditating all day, doing some yoga and a few other practices, chopping wood, and cooking some basic food. It was very difficult. I had dreams of people visiting me in the forest and feeling like, “Oh no, I broke the rules,” and they were trying to tempt me to come back to society. It was like the Jesus-Buddha story of the devil tempting Jesus. And the Buddha had demons tempting him to leave his tree with promises of women and gold.

It was very tough, and many times I thought I was crazy — this is definitely the craziest thing anybody’s ever done. This is probably pointless. What am I even doing? But the more I stayed out there, the more that voice in my head got quieter and quieter, until I was in a totally new state of being that was very strange, very unfamiliar, very disturbing at first, because I couldn’t hear my thoughts anymore. I wasn’t even sure if they were quiet or gone.

As that feeling went away and I was able to peacefully sit in that space, I reached a place where I never even wanted to leave the forest. It was such a deep peace. But I was running out of food. So I made it 50 days, and I really was craving at that point some cooked, fresh food.

That feeling of gratitude, when you have become accustomed to nothing, everything is a blessing, everything is a gift.

When you have sat for 50 days, one of the biggest shifts for me, especially from being a New Yorker where everything is in a New York minute and everyone is always rushing around, I had a patience that was completely transforming for me.

When we become calm and have some clarity, what we will find is that we don’t become the bigger person to appease someone who wronged us. We simply realize that being the bigger person is how we take back our peace. That is the greatest gift we give to ourselves.

In Buddhism, they don’t drink, don’t smoke, don’t lie, and practice nonviolence — not because it’s disadvantageous for them, but better for someone else. They do it because this is how we can get the most peace in our lives. This is how we can have the least inner conflict. And this is how we can be totally free from stress, worry, doubt, the ups and downs of all that drama.

Simply forgiving from a distance and accepting what has happened and making peace with that is the most selfish thing we can do. And what is beautiful is that in this world, the most selfless thing we can do is the most selfish.

By getting out of our own pain and our own shame and our own trauma, we become free from it. And we can finally start a life that is peaceful, and where we can focus on those loving, kind people instead of those people who don’t share our values.

As I learned at a Buddhist monastery, they always have a saying that is: continuity is the key to success. And it doesn’t matter if you do 10 days, 50 days, or 3 years — if you don’t continue a daily practice, if you go back to your old habits and your old lifestyle, it’s very easy for all of that great work to slip away.

And we still can have some benefits, because every great experience lives with us in some way.

Truly, spirituality is about what we can do in our lives, not by leaving our lives. For me, this was a journey of curiosity and discovery, which I wanted to share with everybody so that they don’t have to go do it.

The deep realizations and the deep insights have still never left, and I don’t think they ever will. Because when we have a genuine awakening, an insight gained from our own introspection — instead of being told or reading about it — that’s permanent change.

At the time, sometimes in the forest, I was feeling like I was banging my head against the wall. And coming out was like the peace from stopping banging our head against the wall, I don’t know if it was the relief or if it was the immense peace that was developed in that space. But when we go through something like that, it does change us.

We don’t all have to do that. And we won’t all do that. And we all shouldn’t do that. We have roles and responsibilities. I was very lucky at the time because that was available to me.

We can all transform our lives. We can all shift from consuming mental junk food to more enlightening things. We can shift from constant consumption and filling our mind with information — we can slowly start to shift to that life we want to create, which is one of spaciousness, one where we feel at home wherever we are, because we are restful within.

And we can be very active and engaged in the world, but we can do so with peace, because we have created an environment for peace. That is what I learned by going deep into the forest and into that space of peace. And we all have that space within us.