I am doing a 7day solo retreat in 2 weeks. Any tips?

[Rigel]

Unplugging internet & all distractions.

I’ll be sitting on a Swiss ball/cushion/kneeling/standing staring at the wall 12hrs a day.

Sleeping 8hrs so that’s 4hrs remaining for playing music, eating, exercising, showering & doing dishes. Of course I will be doing those as mindfully as possible.

My intention with all of this will be to purge some shadow material. I am not in it for mystical experiences although I’m open to it. I want clarity & emotional release. I want to know what I want out of the next decade of this life journey I’m on. I’ve been feeling confused & down for a while now & I need something radical to snap me out of my usual thought & behaviour patterns.

I expect this to be super difficult but my resolve is very strong. I’ve told this to my mom & cried over the phone with her for an hour earlier this week.

I may or may not have a trip in the middle of the retreat. We’ll see.

Any tips or things I should keep in mind going into this? Who’s done this in the past here? How did it go?

[Carl-Richard]

2 hours ago, Rigel said:

I may or may not have a trip in the middle of the retreat. We’ll see.

Either decide beforehand that you will 100% have a trip, or do one retreat without a trip and one with a trip. Your mind might want to treat it like an escape if you leave it as an option that you can take based on some impulse, and then you'll possibly avoid facing some really deep problem.

I generally recommend in spiritual practice to choose one practice at a time and focus all your attention on it for a while. When you leave your mind with too many options, too much uncertainty and complexity, your mind will take over and make it a game. Keep it simple, commit, stick with it and then maybe try something different later.

It's also just inefficient to switch between tasks too often. There is an analogy to government bodies (in democratic systems). An efficient government has a chief executive that makes decisions based on established laws approved by the legislature. If the laws are constantly questioned or re-written, you'll experience bureaucratic malaise and little gets done.

An efficient government divides the activities into separate bodies, allowing each body to focus on their own activity and limiting task-switching (task-switching from a simple cognitive standpoint is an inherently costly activity). So separating your activities into different clear-defined chunks and focusing on them separately will reduce task-switching and increase efficiency.

Edited February 14 by Carl-Richard

[Davino]

For me it's all about what occupies your mind space, it's important that you keep your mind working on that which is the focus of the week.

You'll see the mind has a tendency to divagate and get lost in trivia, you gotta take your mind like a naughty child and put it back into what is the focus of the week, again and again.

It's important to hold 24/7 such awareness, a good way to know you're doing things right is that you'll start having dreams on the topic because that's all you are concerned about. Don't be looking for such a thing but if it happens rest assured it's an extremely positive sign that you're marinating your mind properly in the quest.

Hope you have a very clarifying week and get to find the purpose of your life for the next decade.

Lots of love❤️

Edited February 14 by Davino

[Rigel]

11 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

Either decide beforehand that you will 100% have a trip, or do one retreat without a trip and one with a trip. Your mind might want to treat it like an escape if you leave it as an option that you can take based on some impulse, and then you'll possibly avoid facing some really deep problem.

I generally recommend in spiritual practice to choose one practice at a time and focus all your attention on it for a while. When you leave your mind with too many options, too much uncertainty and complexity, that is when your mind will take over and make it a game.

I didn’t think of it but it makes a lot of sense. I fully expect my mind to try every trick in the book to derail my efforts during the week. If I can remove all guess work before going into it & know exactly what I should be doing at any moment, it should make it easier to stick to it & not take my mind’s bullshit at face value.

Thank you for your perspective. I’ll contemplate whether I should trip or not during the retreat this week & put it (or not) in the schedule in black & white.

[Davino]

@Rigel I recommend you eagerly to trip, although that's something you'll have to decide for yourself.

[Rigel]

11 minutes ago, Davino said:

For me it's all about what occupies your mind space, it's important that you keep your mind working on that which is the focus of the week.

You'll see the mind has a tendency to divagate and get lost in trivia, you gotta take your mind like a naughty child and put it back into what is the focus of the week, again and again.

It's important to hold 24/7 such awareness, a good way to know you're doing things right is that you'll start having dreams on the topic because that's all you are concerned about. Don't be looking for such a thing but if it happens rest assured it's an extremely positive sign that you're marinating your mind properly in the quest.

Hope you have a very clarifying week and get to find the purpose of your life for the next decade.

Lots of love❤️

Thank you for your input Davino.

Reading your comment makes me want to boil down & distill my intent to its most simple formulation & make it a sort of mantra. Something I can repeat over & over when I find myself loosing focus.

Maybe write it down on a piece of paper & stick it to the wall where I’ll be doing the work.

[The Crocodile]

Get into contact with your soul and never let that genuineness leave you.

Also maybe experiment with some fire kasina.

[integration journey]

3 hours ago, The Crocodile said:

Get into contact with your soul and never let that genuineness leave you.

Also maybe experiment with some fire kasina.

So just stare into this thing for hours until something happens? 

[The Crocodile]

8 hours ago, integration journey said:

So just stare into this thing for hours until something happens? 

That would work.

Though a candle might work faster,

[Rigel]

@The Crocodile Thanks for the inspiration but I don’t want to fill up my apartment with candle fumes.

[Davino]

13 hours ago, Rigel said:

Reading your comment makes me want to boil down & distill my intent to its most simple formulation & make it a sort of mantra. Something I can repeat over & over when I find myself loosing focus.

Yes, that's a great idea!

13 hours ago, Rigel said:

Maybe write it down on a piece of paper & stick it to the wall where I’ll be doing the work.

Surely! You can also try to boil it down to non-linguistics: like an image, a feeling, a photo, an object, a symbol; that represents the week quest. 

The more, the better, and distribute them all over your apartment. It's good to get that omnipresence sense.

[The Crocodile]

@Rigel The yellow dot would work just fine

Or even an image of something you like

[gettoefl]

Did you try 1-day to ensure feasibility. My ego loves threads on 7-day alone retreats of silent sitting.

[Rigel]

3 hours ago, Davino said:

Yes, that's a great idea!

Surely! You can also try to boil it down to non-linguistics: like an image, a feeling, a photo, an object, a symbol; that represents the week quest. 

The more, the better, and distribute them all over your apartment. It's good to get that omnipresence sense.

Those are all great ideas thank you 🙏 

[Rigel]

50 minutes ago, gettoefl said:

Did you try 1-day to ensure feasibility. My ego loves threads on 7-day alone retreats of silent sitting.

Yes I did.

[Salvijus]

Going for a walk would help a lot to survive the week. 

[Rigel]

36 minutes ago, Salvijus said:

Going for a walk would help a lot to survive the week. 

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.

[Rigel]

On 2/14/2025 at 5:37 PM, Davino said:

@Rigel I recommend you eagerly to trip, although that's something you'll have to decide for yourself.

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.

[Salvijus]

If you do mushrooms on day 4, you won't be able to continue with your retreat soberly. Either you will start increasing doses or you will lose the energy and inspiration to continue the retreat altogether. Let me know if I was right when you're done. 👍

Edited Monday at 06:34 PM by Salvijus

[Sugarcoat]

Wow that you’re doing that. That must require crazy discipline. I’ve tried 3 hour meditations and I find that hard enough. Maybe if you face frustration and agitation from the boredom that will inevitably come, just know that it’s temporary and it’s like a wave that will pass, so if you pass that wave each time it’s like you go deeper and deeper. Your brain/mind getting more accustomed to the lack of stimuli, forcing it to rewire. I bet you’ll release a lot of emotion, anything that has been hidden has the opportunity to come up and be cleared out of your system. I bet it’s gonna do amazing things. You go man