When most people think of a silent retreat, they picture a Buddhist monk in a Tibetan monastery, a hermit sitting on top of a mountain with his eyes closed, a person walking alone on a remote beach, or a monk in a monastery. Very few know or understand what a silent retreat is.
For thousands of years, the silence was considered reserved for those who lived secluded lives in remote cloisters and practiced silence and solitude. Something for those who have taken a vow of detachment and have separated themselves from the common beliefs and ways of life of society. In short, something far removed from ordinary life.
However, nowadays taking a silent retreat is a luxury. In a world where we live bombarded by a constant flow of noise, information, stress, anxiety, rush, daily life and work demands that the desire to have some precious moments to stop. Taking refuge in silence has become an essential necessity in today’s chaotic world.
In recent years, more and more people are opting for silence tourism, to spend time in silence to rest, recharge, connect and align their mind, body, and soul. Oftentimes, these silent retreats involve some dedicated yoga and meditation sessions, mindfulness walks, or talks around spiritual issues and consciousness, while the rest of the time people simply spend time in silence and solitude in a place far from the cities and populations.
I have been attending and organizing silent retreats for years and I can assure you that they are transformative. It is not about standing all day without doing anything, the key is to stop, avoid the noise to connect with your interior.
For example, in silent retreats:
- You will enhance your self-knowledge and inner reset, with the coaching of qualified teachers
- You will learn to live with other people who also seek their silence
- You will enjoy mindfulness hiking practices, in silence, with full attention to your connection with nature
- You will learn with Ayurveda, to become aware of your diet, making one meal a day in silence
- You will deepen your meditation practice, learn to meditate and make meditating a daily habit in your life
- You will rest and sleep soundly with daily practices of yoga nidra (the yoga of sleep)
It is important to recognize that although practicing silence is part of religions such as Hinduism, Buddhism, Sufism, and Catholicism, you do not have to be a religious person to embrace and benefit from the power and depth of silence. Silence is today an essential mindfulness practice to remain calm in the stress of everyday life.
Holidays today are no longer about leaving your busy self behind to forget about the world and your problems. The new trend of silent retreats offers something even more substantial: the possibility of immersing yourself in yourself, escaping from the world by finding your inner world.
Here are eight amazing benefits of doing a silent retreat:
1. Quiet the busyness of your mind
Does it often happen to you that your mind jumps uncontrollably from thought to thought? That’s exactly what is called “monkey mind”: your mind darts you from one side to another like a monkey jumping from branch to branch.
The monkey mind makes you go from one thought to another without stopping. Even just trying to silence your thoughts can get out of control. It takes about 24 hours of silence for your mind to settle down and thoughts settle down, but once they do, you’ll know the peace of mind like never before.
Experiencing silence and solitude at first triggers a part of our brain called the monkey mind. An area of the brain that, in the absence of external stimuli, switches from thoughts to thoughts like a monkey jumping from one branch to another.
When you experience a silent retreat your mind calms down. And it is that, our monkey mind only has a limited lifespan. In the silence, your thoughts begin to settle down and rest, after which a deep sense of calm appears within you. In this state, many of us have a very high level of spiritual, emotional, and physical awareness.
2. Listen to your inner self
When your mind calms down, clearer thoughts and a greater focus on our inner being arise. This is when the journey of self-inquiry really begins. When you can’t communicate verbally with others, you begin to “talk” to your inner self and, most importantly, listen to your inner monologue to understand who you are and how you feel about who you are.
In silence you redirect the energy inward. With considerably less energy used for external communication, silent retreats redirect our energy for internal communication.When we are silent on the outside, the conserved energy is used to tune us inside, which often goes unnoticed.
With a lot of energy directed inward, being in an environment with minimal distractions and essentially nowhere to run, silent retreats force us to acknowledge and process our thoughts and feelings. The seventh chakra is activated and we connect with our higher self.When we look within, clarity in thoughts begins to emerge, which is a crucial element required to live a happy and fulfilling life.
3. Heal your emotions
In a silent retreat you will become more aware of your emotional state. You will find that being silent brings out emotions that you may have stored away, and guess what? Finally, you can deal with them, manage them, or even befriend them as a self-healing process.Your imagination will also come alive in silence: you will develop a curiosity about what is going on in your mind, body and environment.
Being able to be with our thoughts and feelings is a crucial life skill that helps us uncover our deep emotional states, one of the most fundamental building blocks of the self-healing process.
It is this awareness that often sparks the motivation to go within and find the root cause of our sufferings. We then connect with our third eye, in the sixth chakra. Only then, can we resolve and take steps to replace our negative emotions with positive ones.
4. Eat more mindfully
Your mother was right when she said you shouldn’t talk with your mouth full: being quiet during meals improves digestion.Doing some silent eating practices will make you savor your food and bring more awareness to the energy you receive through your food.Healthy cooking is a big part of the focus of most silent retreats. Many, as in our cases.
When you focus on your food and chew it well, you eat more slowly and mindfully. And when you eat more slowly, you tend to eat less, because your stomach has time to process the food and tell your brain when you’re full.
5. Rest from noise, stress, anxiety
The stress, the noise, the anxiety, the rush, especially if we live in big cities, bombards us so much every day, that we don’t seem to realize it until it finally disappears. Noise causes us stress that is actually a form of pollution, which takes a toll on our physical and mental health.A silent retreat is the perfect opportunity to rest from the effects of stress on all parts of our body.
On a silent retreat, especially if you have access to meditation and yoga nidra techniques, you will sleep better, think more clearly and, above all, return home with a new energy, calmer and restored, after a few days of silence.
6. Get clarity in your life
There is no doubt that eating mindfully, having calmer thoughts, listening to our inner selves, learning to live with rest will only lead to a new and better you.You’ll get a little insight into what’s really important in life. You’ll better understand when your body is really hungry (instead of just craving a tasty meal), and you’ll feel more comfortable in your own company.
A silent retreat will build a clearer mind and your newfound sense of grounding will make you more capable of facing whatever life throws your way.Silent retreats can often act as a tremendous source for gaining a new perspective on life. Being quiet and away from the daily hustle eliminates the constant influence of the external world.
Having the freedom to be ourselves without fearing the judgment of the outside world allows us to discover and, above all, be reborn in a new world, in what truly brings joy and satisfaction to our lives.
7. Generate compassion
In silent retreats, we learn to live with our interior. As we spend time with ourselves, we begin to see that our inner landscape has peaks and valleys. We learn to surrender to the rhythm of life, to flow and to understand that everything passes.
This simple acknowledgment that we are not perfect and the acknowledgment of our shortcomings generates an incomparable power of compassion within us.It increases our ability to connect on a deeper and spiritual level with others and also with ourselves.We seek to understand rather than judge. We practice compassion with ourselves and with others as a way to be happier.
8. Promote mindfulness, full attention
Despite being fully aware of the scientifically proven spiritual, emotional, and health benefits of practicing mindfulness, the vast majority of us do not practice it. The most cited reason behind this deficiency is that “I want to practice mindfulness, but my life is too busy with demands that need my immediate attention.”
Away from the hustle and bustle of the daily hustle and bustle of life, the time we spend in a silent retreat creates a space for us to observe what is happening in the current moment and be mindful.
On silent retreats it is relatively easier to learn and/or strengthen the practice of mindfulness away from the crowds and daily noise. These focused periods of mindfulness can help us discover our innately joyous nature and balance, which through practice and sincere efforts, can be maintained after the silent retreat ends.
9. Learn to meditate or deepen our meditation practice
A silent retreat is a unique opportunity to deepen your meditation. When you meditate, you are the observer, you are the silent one and you are the peace and joy that arise in you for the simple fact of being. You activate the seventh chakra and enter into connection with everything, your God, your Universe.
If you want to learn to meditate or deepen your practice, a silent retreat will help you. In our silent retreats, we offer meditation training that you can then continue advancing at home.
To conclude
Silent Retreats not only offer a much-needed break from the endless stream of noise and daily hustle and bustle, they also offer something even more significant: the chance to enter a higher paradigm of consciousness and immerse yourself in our inner world to discover our real self and live a happy and fulfilling life for a long time.
