I Am a Silent Meditation Retreat Drop-Out, and I'm Better for It

Hi. Welcome to Bloom Anywhere. I'm Gwen Moran, a writer, editor, author, and problem-solver. My goal is to share information, ideas, and resources to help you overcome obstacles, reach your goals, and find more joy in life, even when things are messy. Thanks for joining me. (If you got this from a friend, subscribe here.) I'd love your feedback and suggestions for future topics. Please send me an email: connect@bloomanywhere.com.

On Sunday, I attended my first sound bath. It was offered for free at the gym where I swim. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I was pleasantly surprised.

If you’re not familiar with a sound bath, it’s a meditation session where participants lie down or sit and listen to sounds from instruments like crystal bowls, gongs, or chimes. We sat poolside on a cool evening listening to the leader calmly talk us through setting intentions for the session. Birds sang around us, as if they were participating. After it was over, I asked Jonathan, the leader, a few questions. I thanked him for the relaxing session, and he gave me a hug.

There are a few things that I feel that I’m reasonably good at in my life. Meditation is not one of them. In fact, it has gone epically bad for me in the past. Years ago, I had been reading about the benefits of meditation and mindfulness—stress reduction, lower blood pressure, and greater mental clarity, among others—but I struggle with it. How can you be “in the moment” with a demanding career and a house, family, friends, and pets? How do you quiet a mind that races faster than Usain Bolt on his best day?

So, when I got a beautiful, glossy course catalog from a retreat center offering a weekend of silent meditation, it seemed like a perfect solution. Go big or go home, right? When I brought up the possibility to my husband and daughter, they all but pushed me out the door.

“Seriously, Mom. Go,” my daughter said. “Relax,” she added with emphasis.

A retreat, but no surrender

It didn’t start well. I was late to the first session. I took off my shoes as the sign outside indicated and, when I walked into the room, the instructor paused his introduction while I scurried to find an open spot, rolled out my yoga mat, and sat on the floor.

Off to a great start, I thought.

To my left was a blonde woman dressed head-to-toe in yellow—including her Keds, which were still on her feet. She introduced herself as Barbara. To my right was a long-haired man who wore a brown, fringed, suede jacket, despite the heat.

We began the meditation, following the instructor’s prompts to breathe and quiet our minds. Those few minutes felt like an eternity. When we were done, the instructor asked if we had any questions. I raised my hand.

“I wasn’t sure if I was doing it right. I mean, I think I was. I felt lost in it for a few minutes. But how do I keep my mind from wandering?” I asked.

He looked at me for a beat. Then, he said, “There’s a lot of ‘I’ in that question,” he said. “Think less about the ‘I.” Then he turned to the next student.

It didn’t get better after that. My thoughts kept getting in the way, mostly worrying about whether I was meditating right. Before I felt like I “got it,” we were done for the evening.
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“Go get a good night’s sleep,” the instructor said. “The real work begins tomorrow.”

When I returned the next morning, Barbara had saved a spot for me. She was still wearing her Keds.

“How’d ya sleep, hon?” she asked.

“Fine. It was a little warm, but once I got the fan right, I got used to it. How about you?”

But I noticed that she was looking forward. I turned and, once again, saw the instructor looking at me, waiting for me to remember the “silent” part about the silent retreat.

“Sorry,” I mumbled once again.

Along came a spider

That morning, we were to begin moving meditation. Eyes closed, we reached up to the sky, then down to the ground. Over and over, breathing in and out with the movement of our bodies. After a few repetitions, I felt something on my foot. I looked down and saw a green spider near my big toe. Memories of a bad spider bite came flooding back, and I did what felt like the reasonable thing to do in that situation: I screamed and shook it off my foot.

At that point, I think I broke the instructor. He whipped around and snapped, “What is it NOW?”
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The brown jacket dude said, condescendingly, “It’s a bug.”
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“It’s a spider,” I replied.

“Oh, honey. I’ll get it,” Barbara said. She took off her yellow Ked and with three loud “thwaps,” she ground the unlucky arachnid into my mat.

I heard a few gasps and looked around. Several students were staring at us, horrified. Brown jacket dude picked up the spider remains with his fingers and took them outside. Barbara retrieved a tissue out of her purse and proceeded to wipe off her shoe and my mat.

The instructor then announced we were taking a break. I suspect he needed it most of all.

A lesson learned

As I sat in the cabin waiting for the others to return, I felt the sting of tears. This wasn’t at all what I was supposed to be feeling. I wondered what my husband and daughter were doing and looked at my watch. They were likely at her soccer game; then they would probably go out to lunch and maybe for a bike ride later. As I thought about being with them, I felt the calm that I had hoped meditation would give me.

Then, it hit me. I didn’t need to sit in silence with strangers to find peace. I could find it in the sound of my daughter’s laughter or watching a Monarch butterfly flit around our flowers. I could find it in the sound of breaking waves or riding my bike along a wooded path.

I stood up, rolled my yoga mat, and headed back to my room, where I threw my clothes in the suitcase haphazardly. I walked down the steep hill to my car. I got on the highway, heading south toward home, and a Springsteen song came on the radio. I opened the windows and turned it up loud.

I'd love to hear about how you find peace. Let me know at: connect@bloomanywhere.com.