Going onto my first meditation retreat I didn’t know what to expect. Probably because I hadn’t really comprehended what I had signed up to. I’d joined an online meditation retreat that was 4 days long. Didn’t sound that hard so hadn’t give it a second thought until the first day arrived.
The ‘arrival’ was a zoom meeting on the Thursday evening. The joining instructions delivered beforehand mentioned the difficulty of amalgamating that ‘retreat feel’ whilst being stuck at home. It recommended keeping a candle burning for the duration of the retreat. So I was sat waiting for the speaker in my mood lit room, with some incense burning having hastily said goodbye to my partner on the phone as a last minute realisation that I won’t be able to talk to him for 4 days.
The welcoming was warm but incredibly slow. Whilst this was a totally new thing and thus my attention was wholly invested in what the teachers had to say it seemed to take a life time for a sentence to evolve from them. Everything said was so considered, calm and contemplated, the exact opposite environment I was used to. Immediately, this got my back up as someone who is orientated around fast paced achievement and efficiency. I went to bed glad it was only an hour session and I could go to sleep.
- We resist that we don’t want to experience. (Spoilers: resistance causes inner turmoil.)
The next day I rose at my usual time, 0530 to get in some extra meditation and yoga — this was encouraged as something we could do in our spare time. By the time the first group meditation came at 0730 I felt like I had already achieved something and was on a roll to tick off more things. The first meditation went well and I really enjoyed the guided teachings. However, we were then left until 0930 for the next meditation. A whole hour and a half, with no instruction other than ‘just be with what is.’
Being left with nothing to do, nothing to achieve, nothing to think about, no-one to talk to, nothing to distract myself with became incredibly vexing. I sat brooding all morning, feeling a raging fire within me as I grew more frustrated by the minute. This was exacerbated by the second and third meditation of the day that repeated this mantra “lean into what is.”
At this point I was questioning why I decided to join a course entitled “settling with what is.”
That evening I went to bed feeling I was gaining very little.
The next day I awakened feeling incredibly sensitive and washed with a tinge of sadness. My chest felt incredibly tight and it was as if there was a swollen balloon of emotion on the edge of bursting, wobbling within me. During meditation, gentle tears rolled down my face as the teacher encouraged us to carefully touch the painful area around the heart with kind awareness.
I realised in the short period I had been on retreat, I had slowed down enough to hear the pain I was avoiding day-to-day and with no access to distractions I had to listen to it.
The teacher spoke of typical retreat behaviour, feeling incredibly resistant on the first day and incredibly sensitive on the next. I realised the anger, frustration and snobbery were forms of resistance — resistance to being shown something within that I did not like or want.
2. The body contains unresolved trauma, issues, emotions and requires careful and loving attention.
At this point we were introduced to the concept of body focusing. This is the technique used to understand what the body is telling us about our general wellbeing by carefully investigating areas of pain and tightness in the torso. The aim of the game to feel and accept the sensation in its entirety and then name the feeling associated with the sensation. For example, grief, loneliness, confusion, depression etc.
In a single day using this technique, I realised 16 issues that were unresolved or unnoticed that were causing inner turmoil. The issues arising were varied from realising I don’t want the career I am in, to, realising I want to have a baby (I’d been 100% dead-set on never ever having children for as long as I may live.) Each realisation came with a bitter-sweet release of emotion and physical tension making me feel lighter, calmer, freer.
With this deeper understanding of the harmonious relationship between mind and body I was becoming more aware of tension and ways my body was trying to communicate with me.
In this time I was also becoming more aware of my stream of thoughts and judgements and their consequent effects if unrecognised.
3. Judgements and belief systems cause us pain and suffering over perfectly normal thoughts and behaviours.
I was finding myself caught on the bait of a tempting thought that dragged me out of the present. And encouraged me to dance with it until all my energy was entangled on a completely made up situation in my head. When I recognised this had happened, I was placing incredibly harsh judgements on myself about how ‘I couldn’t even do a simple task’ or ‘ couldn’t do anything right.’
These judgements made me jump and splutter at first because I had never consciously been aware of them before. I hadn’t realised I was capable of being so misunderstanding to myself and saw that these judgements were probably responsible for some inner turmoil and suffering.
Before, I was able to see thoughts come — usually get tangled up in them — and then go. But what I was witnessing now was like meta thinking. Thinking disapprovingly about thoughts and that was making me feel even worse.
With this new awareness the teacher encouraged us to practice noting to start with. Identifying when a judgement is present and labelling it as such, with no other investment or additional judgement. (But if there was then accepting that it is present and also gently noting it.)
From there, an investigative approach was suggested. From a place of curiosity, putting some interested questions out there: where has this judgement or belief served me in the past? Or Where has this been heard in the past? Using a loving, accepting mental state to uncover the truth of these mental phenomenons. For me, I recognised criticisms from my childhood were reverberating around my head in the present.
With so much uncovering taking place I had never felt so still and calm and contented.
I felt like I had uncovered the secret to living contently and courageously and was destined to handle anything thrown at me, somewhat missing the point of staying with the present. Regardless, by the last day I was excited to be exiting retreat and putting my new found skills and knowledge to the test with the wider world.
My enthusiasm was not shared by the group. Many struggled with the idea of having to speed up again to survive the outside world, replacing layers of defence to hide the vulnerable selves we discovered deep down. We had created such a sanctuary as a family, filled with peace, love and understanding — traits often overlooked in wider society.
There was an overwhelming sense of being in a secure, protected, loving hiding place where we were safe from the outside thunderstorm that had battered us down and drenched us when we first arrived. But now we were being forced out into the rain again and naturally people were apprehensive. I felt loss since I knew once we left we couldn’t go back to the same sanctuary if the storm proved too much but I also felt confident that I was newly armed with a waterproof jacket and some sturdy wellies and maybe this time I’ll be able to jump in the puddles from time to time, rather than worry about getting wet.
4. Are we really infallible? Maybe we got things a bit wrong…
Since leaving the retreat I have realised the real path to contentment is to see mental phenomenon for their true nature: substance less. Thoughts are emergent objects from consciousness, they arise and then they dissipate, same with feelings. You can’t really control them, but you can choose to observe them from a space of awareness. Beliefs and judgements are usually founded to protect us as children and serve no purpose to us now and thus we can try to let go of them. The thing these three phenomenons have in common is that they aren’t really founded in reality. They try to model reality and project onto it but really the best way to experience truth is to step back into awareness and observe the world for what it is rather than what is looks like through layers of mental activity.
By releasing our grip on our mental states, trusting our thoughts, beliefs, sensations, feelings a little less — not taking them as gospel and instead, placing more emphasis on being guided by the perceptions of our hearts. From here, we can start to see the ridiculous nature of the human being, incessantly declaring infallibility and running around trying to control everything.
That is not to say mental experience doesn’t exist or have real effects but they are just sort of occurrences that lead us away from the true reality. Staying with true reality I think involves understanding how little is in our control really, and taking our consciousness a bit less seriously. By doing this, we can see more detail in daily situations, respond with composure and space and appreciate our place amongst this world.
Closing remarks
The amount I learnt in such a short period time has been profound. Daily meditation is one thing but setting aside sufficient time to really slow down and just exist and learn to love yourself as an existing, rather than doing being opens so many doors for meaningful introspection. I cannot recommend taking this time enough. It is so easy to get swept up by modern life’s expectations and blame ourselves for feeling lost, numb, or out of place.
Online retreats are incredibly useful. I was worried that I would not be able to switch off properly whilst locked in my usual environment or that I would feel isolated and miss out on a sense of community that would be expected at an in person retreat. Neither of these worries materialised. Firstly, integrating back into ‘normal life’ has been aided by the knowledge that I have sanctuary in myself and my room when required. I don’t associate a beautiful house in Devon as my sanctuary (as I may well have done if I went in person) I recognise sanctuary is within myself.
Secondly, the sense of community online was palpable. Seeing the same faces on my screen each day created a sort of bond that was strengthened as we shared experiences, realisations and questions with each other each evening.
Overwhelmingly I feel everyone should take the time to pause, reconnect with themselves, listen to their bodies and reassess their certainties and grip on the world. I think if everyone did that the world would be a kinder, more understanding and contented place.
Lots of love and warmth,
The Existing Human ❤
