I also attended a 10-day silent meditation retreat (the Goenka one) three years ago. I'm an atheist. I learned a crucial life skill at the retreat: awareness

I also attended a 10-day silent meditation retreat (the Goenka one) three years ago. I'm an atheist. I learned a crucial life skill at the retreat: awareness of my mood and thoughts. It's like adding realtime metrics to my emotional core and consciousness core. My state became observable. Since then, I've built a habit of checking those metrics and taking actions to improve my wellbeing. My life has gotten a lot better.