Aaron Rodgers apparently inspires Rudy Gobert.
Following a trying first year with the Timberwolves, Minnesota’s defensive stalwart reached out to the Jets quarterback last offseason regarding darkness retreats, according to ESPN.
Rodgers revealed last year how he completed a four-day darkness retreat at Sky Cave in Oregon.
“We are so distracted by everything that’s been thrown at us,” Gobert told ESPN. “Everything that we hear, we watch, we see on the phone, we listen to. So we don’t get to sometimes really be alone with ourselves.”
Gobert, a three-time Defensive Player of the Year, reportedly had long been intrigued by the idea of a darkness retreat.
A darkness retreat is a meditation practice where an individual stays in a place without light.
“The reasons for doing this range from people wanting to know themselves more, to people who want to rest, reset and relax, to those who want to explore consciousness and deepen their meditation practice,” Scott Berman, owner of Sky Cave Retreats, told CNN last year.
“When someone goes into the darkness, all these things that were important to them like money, fame, power, status, being worthy – they all become insignificant and meaningless in the dark. In the dark, all you have is the present moment which reveals what is truly meaningful – whether it’s love, forgiveness, peace – and it begins to transform you as you truly authentically touch what is most important to you.”
Gobert told ESPN he viewed external noise, both from the media and players as “the false narrative” and he sought a place free of those distractions.
He booked his stay last May, prior to the start of Team France’s World Cup training camp, and spent 64 hours in his dark room.
Gobert told ESPN he did push-ups and squats for exercise and called it “meditation times a thousand.”
“It was a very powerful experience,” Gobert told ESPN. “It felt like a huge reset and also a powerful checkpoint. I had a lot of gratitude. I went back into all the things that I’ve experienced up to this point, and all the things that I’ve been through and all the great people that I have around me. I realized that I was exactly where I was supposed to be in my journey. …
“When you’re in the dark, it shows the things that are inside of you. If you’re negative, you see negative things. And if you’re positive, you see positive things. So you realize that at the end of the day, you create your own reality.”
As Gobert spoke positively of the experience, he improved in his season with the Timberwolves while helping them to the No. 3 seed in the Western Conference.
Gobert averaged 14 points, 12.9 rebounds and 2.1 blocks during the regular season, all increases from his 2022-23 averages.
He totaled 14 points and 16 rebounds in Minnesota’s 120-95 win over Phoenix in Game 1 of their first-round playoff series.
That provided a stark contrast to Rodgers, whose inaugural Jets season lasted four plays as he tore his Achilles in Week 1.
