Three Days of Silence

Learnings from my first silent meditation retreat

In a few weeks, I’ll drive to a remote Massachusetts town, turn off my cell phone (and Apple watch and Airpods etc.), and sit in silence with hundreds of people for five days.

No, I’m not joining a cult - I’m headed to my second silent meditation retreat. My first retreat was earlier this year - though slightly shorter - so I could ease my way into the whole doing-nothing thing.

I’ve practiced meditation for the last ten years. As is likely evident from my previous posts, I’ve always been a worrier, and I spend a lot of time trying to predict and plan for the future. While it’s tempting to do this, I’ve learned time and time again that these behaviors only intensify my anxiety and keep me from missing the beauty of the present moment. 

My dad was always a proponent of meditation and we regularly discussed the benefits and related philosophies when I was younger. When a therapist recommended meditation to 22-year-old, ball-of-anxiety, college-graduate me on the cusp of my entry into “real world,” I was finally ready to give it a try.

I immediately saw the impacts - I would go on walks and be shocked to notice trees, houses, and signs that I’d never seen before despite them being there all along. I was more able to bring myself back to the present moment when a worry about the future or remorse about the past pulled me into a dark thought spiral (a very frequent occurrence).

Meditation is really hard, don’t get me wrong. Ten years later, I still struggle with staying present, during meditation practice and in life overall. I get about two or three breaths in before I find myself replaying a conversation with my boss or thinking about what to make for lunch.

But that struggle is all part of the practice, and the benefits compelled me to keep at it. So a year ago I did some research, found a three-day silent retreat, and booked it before I could talk myself out of it.

As the event approached, I started to regret my decision. There was another covid surge at the time, and I found myself partially wishing I would get sick so I had an excuse to stay home. This is going to be so hard, I thought. And so boring. What am I going to do sitting in silence for three whole days?!

As fate would have it, I remained healthy and went to the retreat. And in just three days, I came face-to-face with the realities of my thoughts and how much they impact my daily life.

Before I get into the learnings, I’ll share a few logistics on how these retreats work for those who are curious. There’s some variation in the schedule and protocols depending on the retreat and type of meditation practiced, but here’s how it works overall:

1. The retreat is completely silent. There is no speaking at any time, except for the teachers. If you have an emergency of course you can speak, but other than that you are expected to zip it.

2. No outside distractions are allowed. No phones, no music, no reading, even no writing - though I’ll admit I kept a notebook just to write down very high-level thoughts and learnings that I didn’t want to forget.

3. Wake-up call was at 5:30am, and the last session ended around 9:30pm. 

4. The daily itinerary cycles between sitting and walking meditation sessions, with three meals in between.

So that’s what I did for three days. I learned a lot, but the biggest learning was that the majority of my thoughts fall into two categories:

1. What if?

and

2. What’s next?

---

Thought Path #1: “What If?”

This is going to suck. 

This will be terrible. 

I’ll be too cold.

My knees will hurt.

My back will hurt.

The food will be bad.

There won’t be enough food.

I won’t be able to fall asleep.

I won’t be able to wake up at 5am. 

These are just a few of my thoughts leading up to and during the retreat. And on and on goes the voice in my head. 

I have a long-standing habit of always expecting and preparing for the worst. I never want to be caught off guard or be ill-equipped to respond to whatever this unpredictable life throws at me. This is clearly a protective mechanism - if I expect things to go poorly, then I won’t be shocked, disappointed, or unprepared if that happens. Worst case scenario, my expectations get met, and best case, they’re exceeded. Honestly, it’s a logical strategy when you look at it this way.

I do this with everything. Any time I have a big trip coming up I tell myself the traveling will knock me out and I’ll be too tired to enjoy the trip. I never go into a work meeting without considering all potential questions I might be asked and over-preparing because I’m convinced I’ll get caught fumbling or look stupid. And when I have a big event coming up that I’m looking forward to, I tell myself not to get too excited because it’s almost guaranteed that something will go wrong. 

Not only does this approach turn me into a real-life Eeyore - it also keeps me unnecessarily busy and exhausted. I wear myself out running around in circles trying to prepare for an unpredictable (though in all likelihood much less dire than anticipated) future. By telling myself that bad times are ahead, I’m not only stuck in the negative, but I’m completely wasting the present moment. My well-intentioned yet deeply misguided attempt at self preservation is actually completely self-defeating. 

And when I fact-checked myself on the retreat, I realized that all of my expectations were worse than reality. Despite my premonitions, my knees felt fine, I was not bored, and the food was great.

Thought Path #2: “What’s Next?”

I wonder what they’re serving for lunch today.

Soup? Soup would be nice. But what if they have soup for dinner too? I can’t have soup for lunch AND dinner! Hm, this is a predicament. When should I have my soup? Are they even serving soup?!

How should I sit during the next seated session? Cushion? Stool? Chair? 

The next session is a walking session. Should I walk in the basement? In the great hall? Outside? Maybe outside. If I go outside I’ll need to get my boots first. Oh if I get my boots I can stop in the kitchen and grab a tea. What kind of tea? Should I put honey in it?

Yes, I want to walk outside. That sounds really nice. When will this session end? Are they ringing the bell soon? Oh, I heard a sound. Are they reaching for the bell? Bell, where are you?!

Man, my “What’s Next” mind is relentless. I find myself asking “What’s Next?” more times in each day than I can count. And despite the fixed schedule of the retreat (sit, walk, sit, lunch, sit, walk, sit, walk, dinner, sit), I still found a way to obsess over each next step and how I could best optimize it.

The pitfalls of this mindset are similar to those of my “What If” mind (i.e. missing out on the present, pessimism). But another repercussion is that it actually limits my future potential. If I’m always planning my next steps and have specific expectations for the future, it’s impossible to go with the flow of life and be open to new surprises and adventures. It adds a certain rigidity to my days, which can be quite boring and uninspiring.

I think I always had a sense that my mind worked in this way, but with nothing to distract me, it really smacked me in the face. It felt like an “aha” moment, and I actually laughed out loud (silently, of course) when it came to me.

Driving home from the retreat, I felt lighter. Small arguments with my partner seemed less like the end of the world, an upcoming job search felt more approachable, even, I realized as I pulled away from the center, the long drive home probably wouldn’t be as torturous as I was telling myself it would be. While it’s tempting to plan for and guard myself against the future, it turns out that not worrying twelve steps in advance makes life feel much more manageable and interesting.

All that said, I am human. Despite this revelation, I still gravitate to these two tracks more often than I’d like. And I still have some apprehensions about my upcoming retreat. But I now know that I can choose whether or not to believe them. And I know the next retreat will be better than I can imagine.