Baby steps in meditation
While we have been travelling Thailand we have been to our first meditation retreat. "To learn how to meditate" was on my bucket list for our world trip. I heard so many good things about meditation from my colleagues and friends that I definitely wanted to try it out. A lot of times I bothered Frank with this topic but he wasn't really passionate about it 😅.
Once I finally got him to have a look at the program and the rules of a meditation class in a Buddhist centre it got him interested 👏🏻...but it seemed also too strict to him 😣. When entering a Buddhist centre for a vipassana retreat you should be sure about it, good meditation takes a lot of effort and mental strength for at least 14 days. The rules in the Buddhist centres are normally very strict and you should better follow them or you are asked to leave.
Of course I wanted directly to go all in... but Frank reminded me that we should better have a try first. See if it's something for us. Then we looked for a 5-day retreat in combination with yoga classes. We found one on Phuket, Thailand. That was definitely a very good decision!
It was a perfect "interested beginners class" especially recommended for people like us, who are a little bit sceptic...
We stayed in a nice hotel and get up early every day to get on our morning excursions to have our first guided meditation of the day in a beautiful natural scenery. On the first day of the retreat we decided to follow the teachers advice and from that day on we kept away from everything electronical and even books 😉. Actually it was quite a nice feeling, we enjoyed it much more than we thought we would, no craving luckily as well 😅.
After the guided morning meditation there was a teaching and some time to ask questions. Then we had a healthy and delicious breakfast in the hotel. The time between breakfast and yoga class in the afternoon was reserved for self practising meditation or whatever felt good for us. We always tried to meditate for ourselves, went for a mindful swim, did some sport or simply had a nap 😊.
In the afternoon we had a yoga class especially designed to help us to cope with our meditation position and the pain in the back. After a break we had another guided meditation with a teaching afterwards.
At the end of the day and an amazing dinner with the group sharing our experiences we always tried our best one more time before went to sleep. Sometimes crazy dreams later we woke up very early again for the next round.
Struggles
In the beginning we were struggling quite a lot. We had heavy back pain! Our backs are just not used to sitting upright for about an hour, that's actually a quite disappointing thing to notice 🙁.
In addition of that it was so difficult for us "to let go"...oh my good! You have no idea how crazy your mind gets when you are trying "to let go" 😅, it's frustrating!
Pain, itch, noisy surroundings, things as simple as a fly flying around your head and you shouldn't move... makes you think about "when is this going to end?!"....
The "why am I doing this question" was also a quite interesting thing to mention 😅...in the preparations you just can't imagine how hard meditation is. Actually when I told my parents of my experiences after the retreat they said to me "what?! You've been only sitting around the last few days...how can that be hard 🤔?!" 😤
Until now we have had no idea how hard it is and now the people meditating regularly have our deep respect!
so worth it!
Then out of a sudden it happens...just a very short moment that makes you speechless...you have no idea how this just happened but it's there...and it only lasts for a moment 😯. Could be a sudden movement or a feeling of the body, an emotion, something you see, you never know what's coming up...but it's great! These single moments are worth all the effort...they let you meditate more, meditate again and again and you learn to live, breath and sit through the pain! This actually makes you feel more relaxed every time you meditate and with every practise "the moments" arise easier and more often.
You learn that you can't control your body or your mind and that there is an "ego" inside of you, ruling your life you never recognised that consciously. You learn to recognise that, to question it and to get to know yourself (not the ego) a little bit more. It's quite fascinating!
Only 5 days of meditation and we are highly attracted... even Frank, the mathematician 😜! We can highly recommend you to try it! Our goal is to meditate every day from now on and take the chance to get back to a rehearsal retreat in November or December. Practising on your own is hard...but we are very sure, it's worth it!
Share your thoughts and experiences with us! We are also pleased with advice or ideas for practising on your own and maybe for a Buddhist Centre in the future 😉!
Have a look at our Psychology posts as well:
Psychology for Dummies #1: Overcoming fears
Psychology for Dummies #2: Logic of fear
Psychology for Dummies #3: Camouflage of fear
Psychology for Dummies #4: Feeling insufficient