As my fabulous MBSR course begins to wind down, all of the participants were expected to take part in a day-long retreat today at Copper Beech Institute. This day was highly anticipated by me, as I was ready to top off a long week of study in Massachusetts, preceded by the highly stressful week of being in the hospital with infection. Finally a day of rest, relaxation and getting to know my fellow MBSRers over Chi tea and a light dinner. Not.
Somehow, I lost in translation somewhere, that this was to be a SILENT retreat...oops.
I was a bit off-kilter even leading up to the retreat today. I made the mistake of opening up my calendar for next week while having coffee this morning and quickly watched the empty spaces of each day get filled in with different colors representing different obligations. "Maybe I should just stay home and get caught up on things" and similar thoughts started floating around in my head. "I'll go for a while and leave at dinner" was the idea I was going with as Ken dropped me off.
Up until this time, I still didn't realize it was a silent retreat. To be fair to myself, I was unable to attend the class leading up to the retreat due to being out of town, where I am sure it was discussed in detail. So I was chatting away to (not with, now I get it!) the person next to me while everyone filed in and sat quietly awaiting our instructor, Kate. Needless to say, I was quite surprised when Kate reminded the group that there would be no talking. At all. All day. Even dinner!
During our initial sitting meditation my mind was all over the place. My mind usually is all over the place during sitting meditation, but today even more so. I kept thinking to myself that I basically just came off of a five day silent retreat while I was away at my conference. For the first two days, I barely spoke to anyone except for common courtesies. I had my own dorm room, sat alone at meals, walked to and from classes alone, until I thought I would pop! I finally chummed up with a gal from my floor and at least had meals with someone. So today, I really wasn't too excited about being quiet again...so I thought.
While still in the seated meditation, I tried to concentrate on my breathing and clearing my mind. After several minutes, I was still mentally bouncing around so I took another route - I prayed.
I prayed for acceptance of where I was at that moment. I prayed that I would be able to accept this gift of self-love for myself that the day afforded. Most of all, I prayed for God to help keep my mouth shut for the next 7.5 hours, so as not to mess up the other participant's silence! As they always do, my prayers worked.
I finally began to relax and my breathing settled into a steady in and out. My mind quieted so that I could finally hear what I had been apprehensive about: silence. Just quiet... and peace.
My day was filled with seated meditation and lying down meditation. We silently perused the campus during our walking meditation. We scurried like little mice into the dining room and ate in silence, then quietly scattered around the grounds for personal meditation. At one point, we filed out of the building and down the wooded path to the Labyrinth. We were so quiet that I think that we actually startled some of the wildlife by sneaking up on them. Around the labyrinth we silently stepped, ever mindful of our feet on the earth. I noticed someone watching our group and then writing in his notebook. We must have looked like zombies from the movies, as we slowly made our way through the maze.
As our day began coming to a close, Kate informed us that we would be gently breaking our silence by breaking up into pairs for quite reflection. She shared that often people that are engaged in a silent retreat don't want to break their silence quite yet. She asked that if that applied to any of us to raise our hand and we could remain silent. Unbelievably, my hand went up!
Somehow, during the course of the day, my imposed silence became my desired silence. The wired up chatter that was in my head at the beginning of the day, had been replaced with a calm inner voice that I actually began to like hearing. I was calm, I was confident and I had achieved a big dose of inner peace.
I am home at my computer and the dogs are barking, the Cavs are playing on TV, and my phone is ringing. All the normal sounds of home which now seem just a tad too loud. A five day silent retreat for me? I'm not sure...but I think for now I'll just sneak upstairs and seek out my quiet space.
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