Rigel

Hi forum people. Took me way more time to bounce back from & make sense of what happened to me than I was expecting. I am still piecing this together actually. Anyhow, I’ll break down my report in 3 parts: Retreat, Post-retreat ego backlash & snapping out of ego backlash. Retreat: It was pretty difficult. Extra difficult. In fact I wasn’t able to do the full 7 days. I did 4 days. First two days I was only playing pretend. I thought I was doing serious work but I wasn’t. I was being intellectual. Trying to formulate what it is I was seeking into linguistic constructs. That was valuable in a way but I still felt lacking & fundamentally unsatisfied with what my mind was coming up with. I went over my values & solidified them. That was good. Day one felt like good old rest & recovery more than deep inner work. I had small clues where I would get inspired by one of my intellectualisations & where I would crack a tear but my mind was so dense that I wasn’t able to go into it fully & get a good taste of it. Ex. I started balling when I asked myself “what do I want?” & came up with “I want to see beauty everywhere, all the time.” Which made me realize how far from that vision I am. How much I am not embodying it at all in my day to day. That was sad but fleeting. Day 3 I started to experience pretty intense withdrawal symptoms & suffering. I started to get kundalini activations at night & I had a very hard time to handle them. As soon as I laid down it would explode & get stuck in the gut, heart, throat & forehead. I tried to let go & allow it to happen but I wasn’t able to. The only way I could manage it is either shake like I am having a seizure or squeeze every muscle I know while flooding my system with rage. Didn’t sleep more than 40min at a time that night. I was thinking of my insights from the first two days & realized it’s all stuff I was already thinking. Thoughts I’ve been thinking for a long time. Thoughts that formed in light of change of consciousness using psychedelics. Thoughts that point to an actual change in state. Thoughts that are not that state. I felt like a rat spinning in a hamster wheel. See what I really want is transformation at the level of state but it feels like there’s a gigantic mountain of suffering in front of it. Becoming that means that the way I am right now will cease to be & I am terrified to let it go. Day 4 I suffered more & had a low dose mushrooms trip. At this point I pretty much stopped trying to inquire & contemplate. I was suffering. My mind was just spewing nonsense so I just decided to do absolutely nothing about it. I would cry & then close my apathetic shell again. Took the mushrooms pretty early I had periods of inspiration where all my visions of this fully alive being I would be if I dropped all of my pretending were right here & were me. But then I would close up, look back up on it from memory & feel like I was still faking & pretending because I am not like this. I am a dysfunctional, addicted, unwise, flawed human. My mind just would not be satisfied. It all felt pointless. I wasn’t resolving anything. Too much suffering. I gave up. I needed something to stand in the way. A distraction. A numbing agent. A vice. That’s the retreat part. It sounds pretty awful when I read it back but there is a silver lining. I’ll write it later in the rest of my report. I have a school assignment due in 2 hrs I gotta go.

This is it. I am unplugging my router in a few hours, going to sleep & starting my retreat tomorrow morning. see y’all on the other side👋 I’ll write a report in the following week. Would have never grown the balls to do this or even thought of it as a possibility without Leo & this community. Thanks !

Those sandals are terrible for your biomechanics. You can’t clench your big toe & walk properly. It trickles up the chain into the knees, hips & shoulders. Terrible for your health.

Great food for thought! Thanks A lot of what I had in mind aligns with what is in your doc. 5 days before my retreat. I have trepidations & excitement. I am running over my intent again & again. I am also in the process of preparing food for 7days. No cooking at all during the retreat.

Such a rewarding process! Are you using agar or liquid culture to isolate genetics or just going straight to grain with the spores?

Cheers! And use a scale. It’s impossible to eyeball mushrooms accurately. Some are more or less dense. Anyone who pretends to know the weight of what’s in your bag from the picture is full of doodoo & shouldn’t be trusted.

I always end up removing the blindfold when it becomes wet from my tears. It’s annoying to have that soaked fabric over my face at some point.

Yes I am a Jazz Major nerd 🤓

I won’t be. I’ll be playing 2hrs a day to maintain the stuff I gotta play for my finals. I am doing this during spring break. Gotta keep in mind that uni starts again after my retreat. It’s still 12hrs of pure silent inner work. I’ve thought this through mate.

I won’t take your word for it to avoid weakening my intent but I’ll be open about it & admit you were right if that’s the case.

That’s exactly what I am going for. I feel like I am about to go to war. I am prepping for & anticipating war. Catharsis is the right word I think. definition: “the process of releasing, and thereby providing relief from, strong or repressed emotions.” Purging is a good one too. Thanks for hyping me. I’ve told too many people to back off now lol. Time to put my money where my mouth is.

I decided to trip on day 4 from 10am onwards. I’ll do a moderate dose of mushrooms. I am expecting it to feel way different & deeper after 3 full days of emotional work/meditation.

Yeah I think seeing the sun everyday would do me some good. I was planning on going for a light run as part of my 1hour exercise routine.

Yes I did.

Those are all great ideas thank you 🙏