Guest Post - Meditation Retreat

This is a guest post, written by Kelly Sheets, a friend of mine.  Last year Kelly went on a week-long meditation retreat and kindly agreed to write a post talking about the experience.  I was really moved by the honesty of her post - I hope you enjoy it too. 

I’ve resisted the idea of going to a silent retreat for around 9 years. I was determined that I would go one day, but, at the same time I was scared to death. I felt so much fear that until this past summer I had told only one other person about my desire to go on a retreat.  I felt that if I didn’t speak it out loud then no one could hold me accountable and ask me why I had not yet committed. That simple yet powerful word: commitment.

I’ve been told so many times in my life by people around me that I could not commit. The small commitments?  Sure, no problem.  But, to things like relationship, marriage, children, a home...(you know, all of the big things!)... well, I was seen as a commitment-phobe.

Perhaps there’s been truth to that. But I decided this year after a nine-year, very committed, relationship that I needed some serious rewiring in my mind. I needed to re-evaluate why I was working so hard to commit to something that really was not working so well.

At about the same time I met a man who told me about a silent retreat at a Buddhist monastery not so far from where I was staying in Bali.  I wasn’t working at the time and could no longer find any logical reason not to attend a retreat.  Even as the last moments to back out approached I sat through my fears and got on a bus to the monastery chanting my new mantra all the way - 'I can leave any time I choose'.

That week of silence was the most profound week of my life. It was a week of hearing my true self and connecting within to that which I somehow thought was outside of myself. It was a test of my faith in myself to endure painful and scary feelings and sit through them. It challenged me to watch my ceaseless stream of thoughts and to observe how they are not actually me. I realised that I’m free in a most blissful kind of way when I don’t attach my identity to every thought that passes.

 It was amazing to be aware of the physical pain that I felt in response to my emotions and that when I held on even tighter to my feelings my pain became more and more intense. My first day and the next morning were brutal. I was so physically affected by my fears that I had nausea and diarrhoea. I cried intensely out of the fear that was eating up my core.

And then it was amazing. I realized that I felt safe in that monastery; safer in fact than I may have ever felt in my whole life. All of my needs were taken care of. I was surrounded by people who understood my need for silence and all of the difficulties that come with that silence, and I felt loved just for being there and trying to see life in a new way.

I saw that holding all these years of emotions and judgments about myself was causing me pain - lots of emotional pain which was becoming physical pain. I realised I had to stop stuffing in what I was feeling. As I realized that, I started to have profoundly clear moments of gratitude and love for life. I let myself off the hook and let go of some of my judgments. I allowed myself to see that I do not want children and that I didn’t want my relationship any longer - and those choices were both OK. Those were major blocks for me and commitments I do not need in my life.

 So here I am, back in my real - and sometimes perceived to be 'unsafe' - world. I’ve had to challenge myself endlessly since I came home to go into my emotions and to make a choice not to allow my fear and resistance to mask my real desires and needs. I’ve had to put voice to my feelings when I could easily stuff them inside. To simply recognize that I am having an emotion is an achievement for me at moments. Lately, I can see that I’ve allowed others people's opinions of me to become part of my identity and that by allowing that I have been suffering.

I’m working on feeling what works for me - how much emotion to put voice to, how much is
 mine to keep, and mostly, how the emotion feels in my body. I ask myself - where is my pain? Where is my discomfort? What is it that I am feeling there? Then, how can I acknowledge it and let it go?

If you are interested in doing a silent meditation retreat in Bali (or other parts of Indonesia) this website gives information about the teaching style and the schedules. 

The Brahma Vihara Monastery - in tropical Bali

Image from  http://www.bali3d.com/buddhist-temple.php