A 10-day silent Vipassana Meditation retreat in the middle of Sweden. My experience at Dhamma Sobhana.
I'm coming out of hibernation from one of the most intense experiences of my life!
From May 24-June 4, I attended a 10-day silent vipassana retreat in the middle of Sweden. We were meditating for 10 hours a day for 10 days straight. No speaking(except to talk to the mediation teacher), no touching other participants, no electronics, no books, no journals, and no distractions. Just you and your mind. Wake-up time is 4 am with a gong, our first mediation began at 4:30 am, and our last mediation ended around 9 pm, with small breaks for meals and rest.
This experience was more difficult than all 10 ayahuasca journeys I've experienced in the last 8 years.
I cried every day. Mostly tears of gratitude for my life, for people who love me unconditionally, for living so courageously, and for living with an open heart despite everything I've been thru. For not being afraid of doing things differently. For always following my intuition. But I also cried for friends and family I've lost due to the Jehovah's Witnesses. I cried for the pain I see in my family members who put on a mask to the world. I see right thru them. I cried from frustration cause life is difficult.
A lot of things come up when you have zero distractions and meditate for 10 hours a day for 10 days.
I spent 3/4 of my life in a religion that prohibited meditation, saying that demons can come in when you open your mind. Actually, when you open your mind, I believe, you realize that religion creates a fear-based mindset to control those in it.
The retreat itself was a total of 12 days. I arrived at the retreat center around 3 pm on the first day, handed in my phone and wallet immediately, and was not given them back until the morning of day 12. I had never gone for 12 days with no distractions like this.
Someone told me, "I hope you get what you want from this". The thing is, I was not even sure what I wanted, but I knew I needed to be here. A Vipassana retreat had been calling me since last summer. I always follow my intuition, sometimes not knowing why, just knowing it's what I need to do at that time. I was curious about how my mind and body would respond to this experience.
Before this experience, I didn't have a daily meditation practice. But I would mediate off and on, sometimes for 10 minutes, a lot of times an hour. At the beginning of my meditation practice about 4 years ago, I could barely sit for 10 minutes.
Maybe my main intention for this trip is a TRUE digital detox. I feel, as a whole, we are so disconnected from ourselves because of the little screen we hold in our hands. And we are bombarded by external information and stimulation.
This course was in English and Farsi. It consisted of around 140 people. An equal amount of men and women from all over the world. Around 100 Farsi speakers and 40 English. People come from all over the world for this experience. Ages were from the early '20s to 70's, with an average age of around 40. The men and women stayed in different living quarters and mediated on opposite ends of the mediation hall.
We had a male and female meditation teacher. Both were Farsi and English-speaking.
I shared a small room with four women. The room consisted of 2 twin beds and a bunk bed. I slept on the bottom of the bunk bed with an English-speaking girl in her early 20s above me and 2 Persian women, probably in their 50s, in the twin beds.
Wake up gong was at 4 am. And our first mediation began at 4:30 am. We started and ended each mediation with a pre-recording from a teacher named S.N. Goenka.
After the hour-long group meditation at 6:30 pm each day, we watched a video from Goenka about the technique and how we were, most likely, responding to the experience as a whole.
The technique is all about observing the sensations in your body and viewing them objectively. "Move your attention systematically from head to feet and from feet to head, observing in order each and every part of the body by feeling all the sensations that you come across. Observe objectively; that is, remain equanimous with all the sensations you experience, whether pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral, by appreciating their impermanent nature. Keep your attention moving. Never stay for more than a few minutes at any one place. Do not allow the practice to become mechanical. Work in different ways according to the type of sensations you experience. Areas of the body having different gross sensations should be observed separately by moving the attention part by part. Symmetrical critical parts, such as both arms or both legs, having similar subtle sensations, may be observed together simultaneously. If you experience subtle sensations throughout the physical structure, you may at times sweep the entire body and then again work part by part."
After handing in my valuables the day of arrival, we had a light dinner at 5:30 pm, and our first hour-long meditation started.
For the first three days, we focused just on the sensation of our breath and the sensations in the small area under the nostrils to the top of the lips. This was to calm down our "monkey mind" and allow us to become supersensitive to situations we are experiencing. I seemed to do ok in the first hour long sitting we had in the morning, but after that, I was so antsy during the first few days. I always got up and went to the bathroom 30-45 minutes into our hour-long sittings and moved around a lot cause my knee or hip would start hurting.
On day 2, I felt solemn. An overall feeling of no emotions, which felt depressing and numbing. Of course, everyone was going through their own stuff, but we were told to keep our heads down and not try to make eye contact. This helps everyone to focus on themselves. Although there were 3 out of the about 70 women in the group, I knew would smile back to me if I made eye contact with them. I needed that some days more than others.
I also have to admit on day 2 I was starting to get cult vibes. Void of emotions and not the typical 8-9 hours of sleep i was used to got me feeling all kinds of ways. But then I realized the purpose of this was to look inward—that's not what cults are about. I should know, lol; I was in one.
Then came day 4 with a new rule that was written on the board: Try not to move during our 3-hour long sittings. Stillness for a full hour. This was also the day when we started practicing full-body scans. The message was to observe whatever sensations you were having. Everything rises and passes. If you are feeling an unpleasant sensation, view it objectively and observe the sensation instead of viewing it as bad or good.
Day 4, mid-day, is when I started having a physical response to all this. I started feeling really sick. I was congested, coughing, runny nose, and my body started aching. I am one of those people that rarely get sick. In fact, I had not been sick like this in at least four years! I missed one of the mediations cause I was resting in my room, but I came to the next one. I was asked by the teacher's assistant to speak to the meditation teacher. She told me she noticed my absence and asked if this was allergies. I said no. I told her I had some internal bleeding, which had happened before but not for many years. I was feeling sick and weak and needed to rest. As I told her this, I felt like a little girl speaking to her mom, holding back tears. She told me to take care of myself and rest when I felt for it, but she also said this was my body's way of healing, experiencing, and being with something difficult that's coming up. She said although she understood I wanted to rest, she encouraged me to come to the group sittings if I could; otherwise, it would be the same if I was at home doing this.
Her words and energy felt so compassionate. I thanked her and rested for the rest of that day.
All days were challenging for me in different ways. Day 5 and 6, my flu-like symptoms had gotten worse, my nose was constantly running, and I was coughing a lot with a lot of congestion, tired eyes, and an achy body. But something magical happened when I would sit with the group and mediate. I would scan my body and just observe and stay with my body's sensations. I did not identify them as "bad." Just how they felt in the present moment. I had heat running through my body, tingling, pulsing, tickling, itching, numbing, tight, cold sensations all over my body. I did not feel sick; I enjoyed analyzing these sensations as I did a full-body scan while trying to sit still for the whole hour.
Day 5 and 6, the teacher and the teacher's assistant asked how I was feeling. I would say the same for the most part. She would nod her head.
On day 7, the teacher's assistant came to me and told me that the teacher thought it would be best if I had my own room to heal properly. I had been coughing a lot at night and immediately thought one of my roommates had complained about me and asked if I could be transferred to another room. The assistant assured me that was not the case, and the teacher told me I needed my own space to heal.
Day 8 and forward, it began to be easy to sit for an hour without moving.
On day 9 we ended each mediation with what is called Metta. Letting go of any negativity, hatred, or envy toward anyone and wishing all beings peace and real love. This was special and beautiful!
We broke our silence after the morning meditation on day 10. We could now practice "noble speech." We were still not allowed to touch anyone. So no hugging, which made me realize how touching, for me is such an important way of connecting to others.
The assistant had told me she was so proud of me for coming to the mediation and that when I responded to her the way I did about getting my own room, she said to me that response was from past programming. When she said that, I could feel the tears well up in my eyes. She was right. I felt like I had gotten in trouble for taking up space and disturbing others. Crying even writing this now. I'm a work in progress. I think we all are.
Speaking to the other women brought me so much joy. I had immense appreciation just to be able to talk.
The night of day 10, it was hard for me to fall asleep! My whole body was buzzing from all the energy I got from the other women in the retreat.
We got our phones back on the morning of day 12. I felt like it was a fungus! I wanted nothing to do with it. However, I did turn it on to take a picture of myself for my social media content. I really wanted to stay present with what was happening in the present moment.
On the 2-hour train ride heading home, I felt very motion sick and overstimulated. Babies were crying and running around; people were lost in their phones and the smells. I could feel an anxiety attack coming! I put my hood from my hoodie on, closed my eyes, focused on my breath and body sensations, and calmed myself down.
I could write a whole other long blog post on the incredible things I've gotten out of this humbling experience.
I've learned from this experience that I sometimes don't say what I really want to say to not hurt someone's feelings. To stay present with how I'm feeling in the present moment and not react to something from old programming but respond in the present moment. To slow down. Mindfulness and self-awareness.
I've been back for a week now, keeping an hour of meditation practice each morning. I used to listen to music or guided meditations, but since I've been back, I realized how I wouldn't say I like to listen to anything. I can feel my thoughts slowing down, usually 30 minutes into my practice. I also don't touch my phone for at least 2 hours after I wake up. Although I've tried doing this before, this time, I have a whole new mentality around it, thanks to this experience. My relationship with my phone all together has shifted!
2 weeks after getting sick and I'm finally feeling 100% normal again :)
I'm BEYOND grateful for this life-changing experience and would recommend it to anyone who feels called to it!
I am hoping to attend one every year!
