What I Learned from a Silent Meditation Retreat (Vipassana)

 I signed up for a 5 day meditation retreat close to Chiang Mai in the north of Thailand. I already knew that meditation was very beneficial from the yoga teacher training in India I did. In India, I felt the power of meditation for inner peace, manifestation, being present and learning more about yourself. Our meditation teacher taught us about Vipassana, which means to see clearly. It's normally ten days of silence, no distractions and basically just meditation. At the time this idea scared me. I was afraid that there was something dark inside of me that I couldn't face. 

Throughout my months of traveling through South East Asia I met many people who did Vipassana and they all had a transformative experience. I thought meeting all these people was a sign from the universe, that I too should challenge myself and do Vipassana. As I was finalizing my trip, I realized the best way to end this 6 months in Asia was to do Vipassana. I decided to book just 5 days, as 10 felt too overwhelming for me at the time. I had a lot of anxiety leading up to it. I feared facing some darkness within me all on my own. I always used my phone, watching tv or movies, reading, talking as distractions from uncomfortable feelings. Could I make it even 5 days without my phone?

There were a lot of rules for the retreat. No reading, writing, no using your phone, watching tv/ movies, listening to music, no exercising (even stretching and yoga), no talking unless necessary, no jewelry or makeup. Wake up was at 4am, breakfast at 6am, lunch at 12pm and no solid food after noon. We were allowed some things after noon like milk, yogurt or ice cream. So the rules added to my anxiety, it triggered me to school when we had to follow all the rules or we would be punished. Yet, part of me was excited for the challenge. I wanted to reduce my phone usage, to learn to be present and most importantly to be able to face everything within me, even the dark parts, all on my own. I hoped the retreat could help me to process everything I had been though traveling the last 6 months in Asia. I also hoped it could help give me clarity on my future because I had so many ideas but wasn't settled on one.

The universe was giving me other signs that this was the right path for me. It turns out a girl that I met in the airport when I first arrived in India 6 months ago, was coincidentally doing the same retreat as me, starting the same day and we lived in the same house! What are the odds. Her being there with me, although we couldn't talk, made me feel some comfort that I wasn't alone. When we arrived to the mediation center they taught us the mediation that we would be practicing. It was mindfulness mediation which I had never practiced before, I had only done concentration. Knowing I couldn't practice the mediation I was familiar with also caused me some anxiety. This type of mediation was about always acknowledging the 6 senses. If we were thinking, feeling, smelling, tasting, hearing or seeing we would have to acknowledge that in our minds three times. 

The first 2 days were hardest for me. I was always in my head bringing myself into a negative spiral. I was crying all the time, feeling shame for crying, feeling irritated, impatient and afraid of the anxiety I felt within me. When I spoke with my teacher, something she said really clicked with me. She said it's the story that we attach to the emotions that causes the suffering. I couldn't stop crying that day because I was attaching to trauma that I had experienced in the past and I thought this is why i'm like this, this is why I have anxiety and i'm crying all the time. Of course the story is important to what happened to me in the past, but its not important for me in the moment. I can acknowledge this feeling and remembering this story and then let it go. 

This was a huge lesson for me. I don't need to completely understand why I'm crying, I can just cry and move on. I had a big realization from this, that there is not some dark force inside me. I cannot hurt myself. I have trauma and I have faced a lot of adversity in my life but I realized that I had mostly processed it all. Of course, I had moments of sadness and pain from my past but it was nothing I hadn't seen before. This was a big breakthrough for me, to realize I can be there for myself without anyone else to depend on because there was nothing within we that I couldn't face. The fear coming into the retreat was due to a lack of trust and believing in myself. I've always struggled with confidence issues. But there I finally felt like I trust and believe in myself and everything will be okay. 

I quickly realized we are ever changing, from one second to the next. We cannot possibly be defined by our past or even the last hour. When we make rules for ourselves such as 'I'm an anxious person' our mind believes it and we become stuck in that narrative.  Once I realized this a wave of peacefulness came over me. Even when I told my teacher this she said to acknowledge that feeling because you don't want to get attached to it. We usually see feelings of anger, guilt, sadness, and frustration as bad and feelings of peacefulness, happiness and excitement as good. The idea is to see all emotions as neutral to teach ourselves that these are all normal human emotions and its okay to feel any of the above. The reason why we tend to cling onto negative emotions is because we shame ourselves for feeling this way and end up in a downward spiral of negativity and judgement. We are just human and any emotion we feel is natural. 

I gained so much wisdom and insight during this time. The realization that we are constantly changing was an important one. One moment I would be admiring the flowers and thinking how grateful I was for the beauty of nature and the next moment I would be feeling impatient and frustrated. We judge ourselves for this and think we are crazy or Bipolar but its actually human nature to experience a wide range of emotions during the day. We don't realize this because we usually suppress our emotions through distractions. With this new acceptance of every feeling, I started to feel so grateful for life and very much in the present moment. I hadn't felt this present probably since I was a child. I saw things that I would've never seen before, even the smallest detail on a fence, I could see the little beauty in everything.

 I began to understand the importance of patience. Our day consisted of mediation and taking short brakes in between where we would just walk or sit. Before this, trying to mediate for just 10 minutes felt like a feat. We had to do a walking meditation where we would slowly acknowledge every step of the movement. Then, if we had any thought, feeling, seeing, hearing, or smelling, we had to stop and acknowledge it. The purpose of this exercise was building patience for our sitting mediation. Sometimes I would be standing there for minutes because there was so much going on in my mind. But once you have patience you can achieve anything. In todays society we're always anxious for whats next, always waiting to do something. What are we waiting for? If we are completely present in what we are doing in the moment we can accomplish it without any barriers. 

Another important yet simple concept I realized is to not take life too seriously. In the beginning of the retreat, I looked at all the rules and felt triggered back to elementary school, maybe I would be punished if I didn't follow them all to a T. I quickly realized no one is following all the rules, I heard people talking to each other and even on the phone. I doubt everyone was waking up at 4am. Even my teacher said try to not take everything too seriously. If I remember how I was as a child, my friends and I would do the weirdest stuff, but we had so much fun doing it. We didn't care about judgement we were just enjoying ourselves. It's that simple. Laugh and enjoy the little pleasures, its really not as serious as we make it out to be. Sometimes I would be sitting in the mediation hall laughing or smiling at some funny memories from my childhood. The way I think about it is, whoever created us is up there laughing at us making big deals out of small details. If you look at the big picture, do these things really matter? 

During my mediations I had a lot of memories from the past come to me, both good and bad. I was able to see these memories and have more clarity on those situations. I could see that other person was hurting a lot inside and thats why they said these hurtful things to me. Their inner child responded to something that I subconsciously triggered within them. I feel more empathy for them, we all have our inner child hurting within us. 

We are all just humans and we share the same struggles. I also came to this conclusion when I started to compare myself to the other mediators in the mediation hall. Maybe they were having perfect mediations without distractions. I noticed most of them were sitting with good posture while I was always slouched during my sitting mediations. Sometimes I though are we just all robots following the rules, mediating perfectly. Then one day I came into the meditation hall and saw that the air conditioning was only put on one side and everyone was crowded to that side mediating. I laughed to myself and remembered yeah, we are all humans who just want some air conditioning. 

I could write endlessly on what I learned from this meditation retreat but I'll keep it at that. It was one of the most beneficial and transformational things i've done for myself. The valuable wisdom I gained, I will carry with me throughout my life. Since the retreat, I've been mediating every morning and trying to be mindful as much as I can. Although its not easy in a world full of distractions, I continue to try. I would recommend everyone to do this meditation retreat, normally it is donation based so money should not be an obstacle. I'm forever grateful for this experience and will definitely be participating in another in the future, next time for 10 days, because I know I can do it.