Share Some Tips For Returning From A Solo Retreat

[IsmaelMM]

Just arrived back home from a 7 day solo retreat! 

Anyone got some tips or wants to share their experience with being away from mainstream culture, internet and people etc. 

I kinda remember the lessons from Leo’s videos about “Egobacklash” & “How to deal with strong negative emotions”. Just would love to hear how you deal with your old environment upon returning. 

Ismael.

[molosku]

• Dont fall into obvious old bad habbits
• Dont fall into obvious ego backlashes. Really keep an eye on them creeping up. A backlash can manifest in so many ways, after my first (and only one so far) retreat I started to experience certain thought pattern immediately after leaving the retreat but I was lucky enough to notice them as they came and not react to them. A lot of interesting and important integration and processing happened on the following week after leaving. 
• Expect to think "where did all my tranquility/equanimity go after that retreat" quite soon
• Expect old thought patterns come up as "really important and valid thoughts" especially if they are negative in their tone
• Continue your daily practise as usual
• Expect to be overwhelmed
• Expect to feel sad/angsty. Not necessary but that might happen. 
• Try not to splurge on entertainment. Try to maintain even 5% of the distance to entertainment you gained on your retreat

A lot of the growth potential of retreats really actualize only after, then you can really tell if you grew or not. Watch your emotions, your thoughts, your reactions, observe as if you were someone else studying your behaviour. 

On your retreat you observed your raw direct experience/reality for 7 days. Your upcoming emotional ups and downs are made of that same exact reality, dont try to force yourself to feel or think anything particular. You probably did not try to do that on your retreat, so why start now? Your direct experience is always valid, try not to refer your time at the retreat as your "spiritual time" and your time after as "mundane time". Practise accepting anything that comes up, practise observing what ever comes up. 

If you (secretly) expected or wished "something to happen" but it didn't, watch your thoughts and emotions about that. Contemplate your expectations, what and why did you wish for something? What gain was there to have? What lack in your life could have been filles up, but it just didn't happen?

How did the retreat go, btw? 

Edited May 27, 2019 by molosku

[IsmaelMM]

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Edited May 27, 2019 by IsmaelMM

[IsmaelMM]

Thank you  @molosku for the detailed reply! This means a lot to me.

Reading this makes me realize that most of these points already started to kick in! Knowing these normalizes what’s happening and that’s so valuable right now, thanks again. 

Definitely caught myself dwelling on how much it’ll suck being back. This is my second time doing one, so I’m much more observant and accepting about what comes up then the first one.

I failed my first one miserably, but I’m sure that’s part of the process  (Wasn’t aware yet of the dangers and traps. Took my phone and had WiFi. So I distracted myself a ton. Learned the lesson ) 

This retreat was different. 

Rented out a cabin in the middle of the Forrest to heal, decompress and come up with a new chapter/ vision (like “Chapters & Phases” Video suggests). 

Upon watching the video, I knew this will be valuable, bc I’m struggling a lot with the “Life Purppse Course”. (Came back last year from a huge chapter; Traveling the world with an international performance & volunteering program for 1.5 y)

Not knowing about homeostasis and how one can get the best of ending a chapter, I fell into a long & deep rut of video games and porn. 

Got the course in December and took waaay too many notes on the theory part  (Took the 1st retreat).

And now this year tried to start a little YouTube channel, bc I wanted to just test and start taking action. (<- My biggest thing. Someone once asked me: “What are 12 new things that you’ve done bc of Self Help.” Realized I only consumed theory and distracted myself from the practice). 

Then I that I wasn’t authentic in my videos, copying a lot. So I needed to get the border of the puzzle first.

That’s where another long story of distraction and a lot of resistance starts. I just couldn’t figure out my values. I always tried to maintain all the habits suffested from the tons of theory I consume, but most of these are very passive and also couldn’t bc it was just too much.

So I wanted to get my values down so that I get away from all this complexity & confusion and start to make a clear path. 

Reatreat: 

•  Learned a lot for my next reatreats, feel really ready now. 

• This really describes what I learned: All of society is a game made up of thousands and thousands of other games. Be it governments, careers, relationships, status,... And you don't really have to play any of them... It seems to me that it made me more authentic. Like I'm fine not wearing all of my protective masks. Sice I came, home I've been feeling more at peace with... well... everything, especially myself. Everything seems to be going muuuuch more smoothly.

• Did 5 days of 4 x 1hr “Strong Determination Sitting” (No psychedelics. But I’m very excited for trying mushrooms for the 1st time this summer!! Would’ve fitted perfectly since I did so much reflection and was sour rounded by beautiful nature)

•  Started to finally really get  together a pretty representative list of top 10 values <3

• Doing this in nature (the cabin had no electricity) got me back in touch with this element of survival that we tend to totally get unaware of in the west. I saw a lot of reasons of why I and people around me get depressed and that just felt extremely good & eye opening! 

• Did some “Psycho Therapy” on myself through journaling  Was able to get over some events in the past by writing about them & using rational thinking on them. 

On day 3 I started to get these periods during SDS, where I would just laugh for like 15 min. Straight. 

Then on the 4th one of day 4. I was doing self inquiry and then bam. It was just pure love, no self & and gasping for air  

I’m so happy that happend again. ( Happend on the 1st one too. Back then I did know even less about meditation and what it could’ve been, so I just set the timer for another hour and it was no problem ) 

Mainly I learned how important inner peace and nature are to me from renting a cabin in the woods. 

Also I got this clear sense of how valuable spirituality, life purpose & self actualization are to me by finally implementing hardcore for 7 days straight!  

Now:

•  gotta be careful not to fall back into old habits & get sucked in by  strong negative emotions. 

• keep up my meditation

• keep up the reflection, as right now is where a lot of the power of a reatreat is at

• practice observing and accepting

• back home is made up of the exact same reality <3 

Wow.

All of this just poured out of me.  Really helped me get a clear mind though. Now that I already did some reflection by writing this comment! 

Have you ever had something similar happen to you while meditating? 

[Recursoinominado]

Thank you for your report, this is a nice thread. I am interested in doing something like a solo retreat (although short on money right now) for building a strong and compelling vision for my life purpose and self-inquiry.

[Nahm]

@molosku @IsmaelMM Great post.