Retreat!

Well....I survived!  A weekend which involved long periods of complete silence!  Saturday morning  - 5 hours!  5 hours without uttering a word including a silent breakfast!  Have you ever tried to eat toast in silence?  In the end I had to suck it to avoid noise overload!  The indigestion afterwards!!!!! ! 

Still, it was a really interesting experiment.  You think you need words to get you through the day and to be honest you don't really.  A raised eyebrow can convey so much and the hand gestures for "would you mind awfully passing the butter" just speak for themselves.  So, I sat in silence, with my discomfort, various thoughts going through my head.  Should I get up and make toast or is there a cooked breakfast?   No-one to ask you see!  Perhaps I'll wait I thought, tapping my fingers nonchalantly, looking around to see if anyone else was moving.  Yep, someone's up at the toaster, so off I go, hand gesturing all the way, "no you have that piece, I insist!!  And then later, as I munched away, someone called order.  Well at least I thought that's what it was, until I noticed it was just someone cracking their boiled egg on the table.  You could definitely make a sitcom out of this!   

I guess what I'm trying to convey is that, yes, it was difficult at times.  Sometimes my own thoughts and insecurities roared inside my head and I had to slap them down to control them.  Occasionally, during the sitting meditations, I felt like I had Tourettes, compelled to twitch my aching limbs, shout a rude word to break the silence or just get up and leave but I did none of this and just sat with it.   Eventually, the discomfort passed and I realised that I had meditated for 3 hours (with breaks for a cup of tea of course) and I had done so admirably.  More importantly, I actually enjoyed watching my mind as it danced about, waving mad thoughts, worries and random ramblings at me as if to say..."see what you make of this??!!".  I also enjoyed the company of some great people who brought so much humour to the weekend.  Bet you never thought a silent retreat could be fun?  How wrong you are!

Would I do it again......definitely yes.  I spent the early morning lay in my bed watching the sun rise above a crescent moon, plane trails drifting across the sky.  I took time out to just sit and look at the landscape in front of me and it really was beautiful.   It was such a peaceful start to the day and that feeling of contentment stayed with me throughout the whole of weekend. I paid attention to the start of the day in all it's glory and I never said a word!

Now that doesn't happen everyday.......

Time to beat a hasty retreat!

Laters

Mindfulmissy xx