Planning my first solo retreat - Tips?

[cle103]

It's on the calendar, I've taken the time off and I'm both dreading and looking forward to this haha 

My plan is to do 6 days at home with the main goal not being awakening but rather...

• a deepening of my life purpose and direction
• emotional release
• authenticity
• creativity

Therefore I'm thinking of doing 4 days of full on meditation and leaving the last 2 days to be more open for journaling, planning and creating. 

Here's the daily schedule I'm aiming for (day 1-4): 

• 8h sleep
• 1h exercice/Yoga/stretching
• 1h walk 
• 2h eating 
• 11h meditation (labeling, do nothing, breathwork) 
• 1h misc. 

One thing I'm worried about (apart from the severe boredom I'm about to face) is handling a spiritual emergency like weird Kundalini energy or mind unraveling. I'm pretty sure the likelihood of this happening is low but if anyone has a good default plan to deal with such things, let me know! 

Would also love to hear what kind of practices/tips/... work well for ya'll. Or maybe there's something I'm overlooking?

Cheers! 

[Jordan]

I am also considering a solo meditation retreat. I was thinking 30 days 10 hours+ per day with some stretching and walking. It might be a challenge being approved at work but I am ok with losing my job if I don't have enough freedom for something like this. I never tried one before so maybe I could do a 2 day trial run on the weekend sometime.

I would:

-Plan out the food

-Make sure your house is spotlessly clean before starting

-Make sure the place has fresh air

-Define the exact meditation technique you will use and be determined to stick with it without changing it. Include any preparation or what to do if body/emotional pain comes up.

-Have a journal to jot down insights that come up when taking a break.

-Visualize your plan day by day and how you will deal with issues that could come up then confirm that is what you want to do.

[cle103]

Thanks for the input!

30 days is wild! What techniques are you planning on using? 

[Jordan]

I will probably mostly do mindfulness meditation with labeling as described in Leo’s video. I have a breathing technique I like to do to enter a meditative state before meditating. I also like to forget all concepts for a while like in the guided exercise for realizing you are god video then continuing with meditating. See concepts as oversimplified models of reality and not important. What type do you plan to do?

[cle103]

Sounds good! I'm mostly planning labeling, do nothing and some holotropic breathwork. Also wanted to re-watch Leos most recent video on meditation. Curious what kind of breathing technique are you doing prior to meditation? 

[Jordan]

This seems to work well for me. Breath in slowly focusing on your third eye chakra for 5 heartbeats, then move on to your throat, heart, solar plexus, sacral and root chakra for 5 heartbeats each. Next exhale starting at your tail bone and moving up your spine stopping at each spot at the spine that is in line with a chakra. 5 heartbeats each until you reach the top of your spine. Continue repeating the process around 10 times until uou notice a state change. If you can’t do 5 heart beats, then start with 4 or 3. It should be a bit of a struggle and like you are out of air. I have a video saved somewhere with similar instructions I can add later when I am on my computer.

edit: He explains it here at around 1:52:00

 

Edited April 19 by Jordan

[cle103]

Awesome, thanks!