Silent Retreat - Before

Tomorrow I will be attending my first ever silent retreat and quite frankly it is causing me a huge amount of anxiety.

I have practiced mindful meditation almost every day for the past four years and still I can’t quiet my mind over my feelings of worry about tomorrow. I say this to show that even as a generally mindful person I still suffer from anxiety over some things.

I believe the main reason for this is that my anxiety is very deep routed. Some of you may know my story but for those that don’t 6 years ago I had one of my vocal chords removed. Ignoring the trauma of the many surgeries that resulted from this and a year spent in and out of hospital my main issue is that I couldn’t speak for six weeks and as I learnt to talk again I could only manage a very quiet whisper. I talked with this whisper for 2 years. For those 2 years I barely used the telephone as many people couldn’t hear me and those that could either claimed there was a problem with the line or assumed that I must be very ill. I also have a few people who thought it was amazingly funny to whisper back at me. 

I did have a large number of friends and supporters who helped me through but the brain remembers the bad a lot more than it remembers the good.


So if this is such an issue why go through this and go to a silent retreat?


Mainly because of the amount of people who have told me how beneficial and life affirming a retreat can be really makes me want to experience that euphoria.

I should say tomorrow’s retreat is only 3 hours long and is virtual so at any time I can close zoom and run back to my nice noisy life but I don’t want to do that.

Based on how simple this should be I have been amazed by the anxiety this has caused me.


I think the other problem might be stepping into the unknown. I like to know exactly what is going to happen and when. I love a deadline. But all I know about tomorrow is I need to be there by 9.30 and we will finish about 12.30.

The longest I have ever meditated for is 45 minutes and I am fairly sure that we won’t just be sitting for 3 hours in silence not moving but what if we are?


This is a huge challenge for me but in a way I am excited to try something new but so scared.


Have any of you been to a retreat? How did you feel the first time?

What is it really like?

What else have you done that has pushed you out of your comfort zone? and have you felt the benefits after?


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