(#62) My Experience of Silence in Bali part 1

When you think about retreats held in Bali, you no doubt think of the delicious food, yoga classes, massages and spending time chilling around a pool.

Well, have you ever thought what it might like to go on a retreat where you leave your device in the Hand Phone Hotel and spend the next 7 days in silence?

In episode #62 of Alchemy Mindset with Anna Hastie, I share My Experience of Silence in Bali.

This retreat was ultimately my reward to myself after a busy and successful quarter 1 of business. It also became dubbed as my Mumma Moon. My week away from my family to just be by myself, have time for reflection, do some inner healing that had been sitting on my mind for awhile and enjoy not only doing nothing mixed with meditation, reading, eating, journaling, sleeping on repeat.

Having this time and space to do all those things was solid gold. I found this experience so rewarding that I had to share it on my podcast!

I hope you find this truly inspiring and it would encourage you to also, be brave, lock that phone away, and sit in a space of silence for 7 days.

In Part 1, I share with you:

2 pre-retreat voice notes describing:
🙏 My intention for the whole trip
🌸 What I am hoping to experience

 Days 1 - 3

🤔 Initial thoughts around being silent

📵 Saying goodbye to my phone

🌿 Settling in to silence and letting go of the busyness energy

❓ Struggling with my ideas of am I doing this right?

💭 My Day 3 thoughts and questionnaire to myself.

💖 Healing what I needed to heal.

 Continue the journey with me in Episode 63 part 2 of my Experience of Silence in Bali.

🍲 Start with the FOOD

🌾 Rice field walks.

💡  My BIG AH HA! moment under a water meditation

🔊 Integrating my voice back into the real world

Bali Silent Retreat:

📆FREE Business Mindset Subliminal Meditation📆

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I acknowledge & pay my respects to the Traditional owners, the Yawuru People of the land and waters of Rubibi (Broome) where this Podcast is recorded, and all Aboriginal Elders, past, present & emerging.

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Transcript

0:01

Hello, hello, and welcome to Alchemy Mindset. I'm your host, Anna Hasty, business mindset coach for women and a sound healer. If you are ready to become the most aligned, magnetic, and confident business woman you are worthy and deserving of being, visit Then this show is for you. This is where I share everything from mindset, energy, and spirituality, and how to embody your future self in business and life. Sprinkle that with deeply relaxing sound healings and meditations, and you have the Alchemy Mindset podcast. Hit subscribe so you always get the latest episode. Now let's begin. It's day one of the silent retreat. I'm currently in Kuta. I got up early and just went for a walk after breakfast and just sitting here at the beach. It's actually quite a sight to see how much rubbish is on the beach and gosh, this makes me realize how blessed we are in Australia and in Broome to have such pristine and clean beaches. So, sharp note to anybody who travels overseas, just take care of your rubbish. Take care of your belongings. Don't be lazy. Find bins. And if you don't find a bin, just take it with you. We'll find a bin later and take care of our environment in Australia as well. Anyway, side note on that. So yeah, it's kind of day one. I arrived last night. I went straight to the hotel that I had booked, which is literally two minutes from the airport. Such a blessing because my flight was delayed. Good old Jetstar, but that was okay. Everything's being organized and planned. So yeah, on a reflection of my travels here, I was thinking about, I was like, I had this sort of weird anxiety about what it would be like at the airport and would everything work out and would I be okay? And. Getting through like the visa line and having the right money and all of that kind of stuff. And I don't know why, because I've traveled before in my early twenties and thirties, and I've never had this kind of feeling, but I guess it's because I've never really traveled through Asian countries, and this is actually my second time in Bali. So while people say, Oh, you'll be fine. And this is what you do and everything, and you take the instructions and you have a little bit of preparation in your mind, I'm still like, I still don't know what to expect or how it's going to be. And then I also had that thought of, well, I feel, and I am always confident to travel in Europe. I don't ask me why. I mean, there's plenty of countries in Europe that I don't speak the language, but I don't know, I'm feeling more comfortable traveling Europe than I do. Traveling Asia, that could be just it. So, yes. So I arrived last night and here I am and I thought, Oh, I better start voice noting some of my thoughts and you know, what I'm expecting or what am I anticipating or my thoughts and even just around why I want to do this? Because So the next seven days I'm not talking, so you're not going to really hear me voice note this until the end. I do plan on doing a daily little sort of journaling reflection on things each day so I can share with you. I do plan on sharing my experience in as much depth and detail that I'm open to share. Yeah, I think I will do the next little recording when I get back to the hotel room. I need to go find a raincoat or an umbrella before I check out because it is quite stormy and raining here. It just feels like Bing and Broom really. But I do want a little raincoat or an umbrella if I'm walking around the complex at the retreat. Yeah. So obviously I don't get wet. I don't even know if we have an umbrella at home and I was very conscious of my luggage allowance flying over. So going to go find an umbrella or find a plastic poncho and then get back to the room, get organized, get checked out and I'll do a little voice note update there. So the next question is why Bali? Why a silent retreat? Why? I mean, when you think of someone going to Bali or even your own thoughts of going to Bali, usually it's because. You want to go on a holiday somewhere. You want to sit maybe by a pool or the beach and just relax, have massages, eat great food, have that kind of experience. Well, in all honesty, I could do that back in Broome. We have plenty of beautiful resorts and places to stay, but I don't know where it came from, but I've only been to Bali once and that was a few years ago and I've never really had that big burning desire to go back again. But somewhere last year, I think my sister was asking what Ava wanted for Christmas and what she should get her. And I said, Oh, you mean an all expenses paid retreat to Bali for her mum? It's like, where did this come from? Why am I suddenly thinking of Bali and saying just with automatically, if someone said to me like, Oh, where would you like to go? I'm like, I think I want to go to Bali. I don't know where it came from, but for some reason it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, Just come about that I'm going to Bali and then having Francois have his long service leave for term one, I guess there's multiple reasons why I wanted to come to Bali and have a retreat experience, a solo personal retreat. So firstly, I wanted to give myself a reward for my quarter one for my first few months of this year, where I just went all in, worked my ass off, achieved all these amazing goals and. That I wanted to do, knowing that I had the time to do it. Francois has had long service leave for term one of school. And I just said to him, all right, if you have term one, I know we want to do a lot of home projects and we're not planning on traveling or anything right now. I want this time to work a bit more in my business. I really have this feeling at this drive and I need to honor that. So you get to be with Ava and do more daddy daycare, which is kind of what he was hoping for as well, because. You know, since she was born, he's been at work full time. So he sees us on weekends or after school. And I just wanted to give him that time where he could be with her and do all those like fun activities with her and experience that with her. And he's just loved it. They've both loved it. It's been such a beautiful experience. The other reason was I also wanted to have a little exit plan. If breastfeeding hadn't finished with Ava before this retreat, which thankfully it finished in January and it just finished just one day. It just stopped. It just happened. Although I did say to a friend, this whole holiday would be around Ava going cold Turkey. And she said, you should write a story book about that. And I'm like, Hmm, I could actually, Ava goes cold Turkey, but that just eased and finished all on its own accord. And so it's like, okay, well, this is still happening. It's not that this was my only reason for going and I'm not canceling this trip. So my intention for Bali, it was like, what do I want to do apart from just celebrate the fact that I've worked really hard and make this a little reward for myself? What is it that I want to experience and do on this retreat? And I'm going to be honest with you. It's to have solo time, yes, solo time, because Franca and I are planning on doing another round of IVF because we do have one embryo left in the freezer, as I say, and we do, we do want to try for another baby. So knowing that as well, this is my last part of some freedom solo time before I go through IVF, maybe nine months of pregnancy, and then at least 18 months of solid. You could say parenting, so to speak, before baby number two is a bit more in the stage where Ava is now where they are still reliant on you, but they're not like, you know, I may have finished breastfeeding by then and they're eating solids. And so my time, maybe where I could go away or do something on my own, there's more flexibility within that. So tuning into what I wanted to experience, I thought, well, yes, I could go to a resort and sit by a pool and sip. Mocktails because I'm a non drinker, or, you know, I could go to Ubud and stay at a place where I do lots of yoga and detoxing and all of that kind of thing and sound baths and I don't know, aerial stuff. And I'm like, well, I can do that in Broome and that's what I do as a job. So I don't really feel like I want to learn anything new. I don't really want to make friends or meet people. I don't want to share my story and I don't want to tell people what I do or where I come from or why I'm there. I just want to be on my own and I don't want to talk to anybody. I want inner reflection time. I want time where I can just tune into myself again and listen to my inner guidance and wisdom. Whatever needs to come through right now, this is my time. Now for some of you might think, Okay. So you're going to go do a silent retreat? That's, wow. Can you do that, Anna? Are you going to be okay not talking for a while? I'm going to tell you something. I can talk on this microphone. I can talk in a podcast. I can talk in a masterclass. I can talk in front of a soundbar feeling, but I can actually also be happily silent and not say anything. And pre AVA, Often I'd be at home by myself all day and I just wouldn't be saying anything and I can be in silence. I don't need background music on. I don't need exterior noise. But what I do want to do is just be away from technology, away from my day to day, away from distractions. So I can come back to being in tune with. Myself and my inner being, my spirit, and just, I guess, have this experience. Like how many times a day or a year or a month or whatever, do you actually get to sit and just be silent for a while without distractions and just be with your thoughts as they come out, recognize them, acknowledge them, and then. Come back to a meditation process or a focal point or whatever it is. Like, how often do you do that? I mean, here in Bali, as I was booking all this flights and accommodation, they kept saying, just be aware that there is a national day of silence. And on that day, you're not allowed to leave your hotel room. And I'm like, that is incredible. A national day of silence. Is that like where everybody just stands still for a moment and they just, you know, to have some inner reflection time or whatever it is or whatever they do in that time. Why don't we have that around the world? Like. Every country should have a National Silent Day. Just be quiet, just tune in and reflect, like how beautiful is that? So, I sort of went, alright, Silent Retreat, what's it gonna look like? Now, I actually googled the words, Bali Silent Retreat, and this location that I'm going to today came up. It's the best! SEO, Google name you could ever have as a business, Barley Silent Retreat. It's going to lead you there straight away if that's what you want. So I considered that and I thought that would be really cool. You can live on site, there's all sorts of different meditation opportunities. Like I call them meditation stations, like there's a maze. There's a water meditation. You can go for a walk down to the river. There's a stargazing platform or something like that. There's a massive big like yoga space that you can do a daily stretch and meditation practice as a group. There's a beautiful lounge and library. So it all seems really kind of a bit retreaty, bit sort of ashram. I guess you could say style, but also with. The minimalist of no technology. I don't think it's a bit of an eco retreat as well. So you have to take all your rubbish out that cannot be compostable or biodegradable. And yeah, no technology, leave your phones locked up, turn them off. And if you do need to use your phone, you have to go to a certain area of the whole entire complex to use your phone or laptop and stuff like that. Which is, I think is great. So to me, it was like all a bit self administered, but with a few little luxury. You know, perks within there, but then I also considered the Vipassana, which is a 10 day silent meditation retreat where you follow and move through the Vipassana practice. Now I wanted to do this back in 2014. I was hoping to do it in Portugal actually, believe it or not, after I'd finished my Camino de Santiago. But long story short, decisions were made. I said no to it after I got accepted, I canceled it and I regretted that decision ever since. And so I thought, well, this could be my opportunity now, like 10 days of silence. Can do it in Bali. Maybe that's what I'm meant to do and be there for, and I'll apply. So I applied, had to jump through one little hoop to get there and I got, ended up put on the wait list. Great. So I'm wait listed. Who knows? It could be yes or a no. And I still wanted to go to Bali, but I didn't know if. I'd get in, so I don't want to leave anything last minute, so maybe my plan A, which was the silent retreat, which then became my plan B, is now going to be my plan A. So I chatted to quite a few friends who are familiar with Vipassana and familiar with retreats and meditation and knowing me as well and my practice and who I am and they said, well, maybe it's okay that you don't do Vipassana and that you just do this, you know enough already to lead yourself through meditation and a practice and observe and. Do whatever needs to be done when you're in this space and perhaps 10 days, which in total I kept saying to everybody, I'm going away to Bali for 10 days. So this is the other things that kept coming through and I kept automatically saying, so I feel like soul and spirit was already telling me what I was going to be doing. I kept saying, I'm going to Bali for 10 days. Well the Vipassana retreat is for 10 days, but then I would have to allow at least two days on either side to travel from Broome to Perth to Bali retreat. Back from Bali to Perth to Broome. So in all up, that would have been two weeks. And at the time I sort of felt like that may have been a bit too much to be away from Ava and Francois, knowing that they'd be a fine anyway, but thought, well, I'm clearly saying 10 days, which actually in actual fact, I'll be away for 11 days, but that's okay. Let's make it 11, make it 11 and magical master number. We'll make it 11. So it's okay. It's just one extra day. But in other words, There was something inside of me saying, it's going to be for 10 days and you're going to Bali, and this is what's happening. So I followed that. I ended up canceling the Vipassana and here I am, literally 15 minutes away from being picked up and heading to this retreat, which takes about two hours to go to. It's not in Ubud. It's in this place called, I cannot pronounce it very well. It's called Penetanan. I think it is. So you go sort of towards Ubud and then a further bit North. It's a little bit like Northwest of Ubud. So it is in like more of a rainforest rice paddy in a Bali Island location. I am not familiar with Bali, so please do not expect me to describe it or exactly pinpoint it without showing you on a Google map. And yeah, I have been tuning in, like thinking, well, what is my intention for this? What is it that I want to experience or what's my anticipation around this rather than my expectation? And then all the other thoughts around like, Oh, is this going to work out? Okay. Maybe I should take my phone and just have it there in case I need it to like, you know, maybe I should download a podcast in case I can use my phone at some stage or whatever. And I actually had these thoughts of maybe I should take this, maybe I should take that. And I kept coming back going, Hannah, no, you wanting to go to not be distracted and to be. Entertained by external things, you want to go to be in silence and to be in that meditation space. So I haven't packed any books. They have a library there that you're welcome to borrow a book from. I haven't downloaded anything onto my phone. So there's no need or cause for me to pull that out and use it. I have said to Francois, I will probably check in every two days just to make sure they're okay. So I would like to try and honor that, but I won't speak. I will be just. Silent wave or a message, and that's okay. You can do that in a certain part of the retreat area, but I haven't brought anything. All I've got is a pen and two notebooks and myself and I just, yeah, see how this all rolls when I get there. Like just, I actually even don't have a watch. So when I turn my phone off, I don't have a clock. I have brought a digital camera because I would like to take photos if the feeling is there and the need is there to just document something. Yeah, I know, busted out the good old Canon digital camera that I found in a drawer. And that's the only other thing that's got the date and the time on it. So otherwise, I'm just going to be trusting my own biological clock. I know that sounds a bit weird, but my own inner clock is the time, the day and what I need and maybe sunrise and sunset and just the grumblings on my tummy as to when I need to eat. So I don't really know what to expect. I don't really have any big anticipations. I just know it'll be a moment where I will tune in, practice my meditations. Yeah, and I will be sharing what I will experience. I know that sounds a bit deflating, like, What are you going to do, Anna? What's it going to be? What's it going to be like? What are you going to be like? I don't know. I have no idea. But I will be sharing this, I will be documenting it as I go along because I feel like this is something that would be very interesting to those who are curious to know more about being in a silent retreat space. So if I had to tune into an intention, it's just to go within, experience the meditation, experience the silence. I hope it relaxes my jaw a little bit because I know I clench my jaw a lot. And just have the space and freedom to process anything that comes up that does come up and just to be within the experience of what it's like to sit, be in meditation and observe. And that's, I guess, the biggest intention that I have around this. And of course, like I want inner guidance. I want to have like, receive some big messages of like, Anna, you're to go off and do this, this and that, and this is all blah, blah, blah. Like, of course, I'm looking for some of that confirmation, if you'd like to say. But overall, just to be there and quiet and do some inner reflection time, which I feel like I haven't had a lot of space or time to do since becoming a mum. So that's the end of this moment and I will verbally communicate with you on the other side. Day one, Kuta to Bali silent retreat. I feel tired. It's been a big 48 hours with lots of anticipation and uncertainty. I'm here. I've arrived. The drive only took one hour and forty minutes, not the full two hours, thank goodness. I still had no idea where I was going, but leaving the big city and driving through smaller towns and then into rice fields. I could feel myself starting to relax and unwind. Arriving here, you get out at the reception area, which is a building at the end of a driveway. You do a little check in process and watch a video that sort of is an introduction to the whole entire complex and kind of shows you what to expect and what it's about. And then they take you on a guided tour of the whole property. So they actually have someone carry your bags to your accommodation. And as you walk down the driveway, you're walking down with rice fields on either side of you, a massive big lodge. It's basically three stories, but a two story lodge is what you can sort of see initially the third story or the. Bottom floor is the kitchen, and that's on the other side. And then there's accommodation, bungalows and two story bungalows to your right, and then massive big mountains to your left. And as you get closer to the lodge, there's these white flags that mark the time to now be silent. And that for me was kind of like, Oh, it's all starting, silence as of now. And of course, like during your tour, you are able to talk and ask questions, but it was almost like this sense of like, I walk through these flags and silence descends and I need to honor that. So if I've got questions, I'm just going to whisper. There's no way that I'm going to speak loudly or openly. I feel like I need to start respecting silence. So on the tour of the grounds, they basically take you through the lodge first. And the first thing you see as you walk through the entrance is this bank of lockers, these wooden lockers in the wall. And on there, there's a sign that says Handphone Hotel. That's where your devices and your phones get locked. During the entire time that you're there. Now you have a key. So you have an assigned key, which is in relation to where you're staying, your accommodation. And you can take your phone in and out as many times as you want. It's just suggested that you do not have it on within the lodge space or any other of the communal areas, and particularly not in your room, like you don't really need it. If you do want to use it, which I did a couple of times, you'd walk back up the driveway to reception. That's where you can talk. Okay. Ask questions, have conversations, there's a co working place upstairs above the reception area if you have to do work or if you want to use your laptop to write, you know, your next best novel. But otherwise your phone goes in that locker. And it was weird because I kind of thought I would do that in my own time after the tour, but my guide kind of looked at me as if to say, it goes in here now. And I'm like, Oh, okay. So let me just turn it off and put it in there. And it just felt really weird. It felt really weird turning my phone off. I turned it face down, popped it in this box and I was like, bye, see ya and shut the door and took the key. It was really quite weird in that moment. And then also knowing that in that moment, like the expectation of silence, I really became just immediately conscious of noises, my footsteps, the way I walked as I walked around the lodge during the tour of just my presence. And how everybody else was in this sort of sacred silence and I was a new person that was coming with all my busy energy and people already there perhaps in their relaxed energy and how important silence was and how conscious it made me of my movements and myself. So on the first level that you walk in of the lodge, it's all the kitchen kind of serving like the food area. So there's again like these, I guess it's like shelves and each shell has a compartment labeled with the room number that you're in and each compartment has your cutlery that you will use for the entire time. They have little fabric napkins, like proper material napkins, which they wash and give new ones out regularly, but it's your responsibility for your cups, your plates, your bowls, your little tray. And to wash everything up after each meal. Nobody does that for you. Then they have a massive big table that's underneath a massive big like fly net curtain, and that's where they lay out the breakfast and the lunch and the dinner, and it's all buffet. Now I will talk more about the food later because. That's a whole entire thing all on its own, so I won't go into it then. They have a little tea station, and then you follow some stairs upwards, and that takes you to the lounge, the library, this beautiful outlook over the whole property. It's very open air. Everything's open. There's no windows. There's no air con, the walls and the ceiling are open. Like there's so much natural airflow. It's so relaxing and it's so cooling as well. Like even though it's sort of wet season temperatures and there's a bit of humidity in the air, it's really nice and cool just sitting there. I think it's the way the building captures the breeze and also the way they've positioned the building to capture the natural flow of the breeze as well in the direction that it normally comes in. But the windows are open and you can sit on these like little benches. That overlook the property and you can just see bush and nature and trees and plants and birds. And I think it's squirrels. I think Bali has squirrels and I saw squirrels playing in the tree and so many dragonflies. Like if we think we have a lot of dragonflies marking the change of season here in Broome, there were tons of dragonflies there. And then these other little birds like starlings, I think they are, or what's the other little bird, not sparrows. It's either a starling. Or I thought I had the other name of the bird the other day. I haven't looked it up, but these tiny little birds that just fly around, they're so cute to watch the way they zoom and soar and shift. Oh, it's so beautiful. And that's where you can sit and you can read, you can eat your food, you can journal, you can relax, people fall asleep on the couches, there's like cushions and bolsters on the floor. It's such a relaxing, beautiful place. Then they take you to your accommodation. So my wooden bungalow, I chose, opted for the private wooden bungalow, mainly because A, I didn't wanna share my toilet or my bathroom with anybody, which some of the accommodation allows. And I also didn't wanna have to share like a petitioned wall or like a floor, like here's someone above or below me, no . I want my own space . And this little beautiful bungalow, while it was. Simple, like it had a really lovely, like the sheets are white and clean. There's a mozzie net that covers it. There's a little table and chair. And then the next area is like the bathroom or the toilet and sink. And then it leads you out to an outdoor shower. Amazing with the most amazing hot water. So there's plenty of hot water. It was simple. Rustic, cozy, clean, homely, spacious, relaxing mine. It was just my private space and it was so lovely. I had a little balcony out the front or a little veranda with two chairs and I often sat there and just relaxed. Watched, meditated, slept, read, journaled, whatever. Then they sort of lead you around the complex and as you would have heard earlier, I sort of described some of the, I guess you could say activities or facilities they have. And that's all true. They have this massive like octagonal yoga space, it's just under a massive big sort of like tent, but it's all open, open air again. And they call that the yoga bale, yoga barley, I think it is, it's spelled B A L E, so however you pronounce that word in Indonesian. But it was just a beautiful yoga space and they held yoga there twice a day. They also have this water meditation where you sit under a stream of water that's coming from a holy spring. And then they also have a jungle walk that takes you down to a river and what's called the crying bench. So if you want to release tears. When I heard about this bench, I immediately thought of the words Crimea river. And it just, it's the truth, you know, just cry into the river and the river just takes your tears away. It's a beautiful jungle walk. They had a fire pit where every night you could sit and watch what we would call Bush TV, but use it as a space for healing, setting intentions, letting go, releasing. There's also rice field walks, which I did a few times. And other beautiful spaces within the garden. Like there's a herb garden where you can sit on these stargazing benches, or there's another like lily pond area, which I was often drawn to. And everything is just so meticulously taken care of and loved and looked after and beautifully created. Now. It wasn't towards the end of my stay that I found a whole series of photographic yearbooks, as if you want to call it, where it came from, described the initial conception and the initial buildings and undergoings of the retreat. I think it was back in 2008 to the time that it opened in, I think it was around 2011 and up until I think the last book that they had was 2019. So it was a beautiful way of getting to understand and learn what the whole entire retreat space was about and its intention behind it. And I took a photo of the introduction of the first book and I'm going to read it to you now. So you have an idea of how it was created and who came together to create this space. Our history began with a calling and vision to Patricia. The message was loud and clear, build a silent retreat centre for prayer and meditation. Who's to say when or how or why we're called to do what we do, but after much personal resistance and a vision of two mountains, water and hot springs, the where search began. Sang Tu joined with his vision of a place where persons of all spiritual faiths can join for both prayer and nature. He said, I've had a dream for most of my life to create a safe place where people can pray and join with nature's wonders. With a sparkle in his eye he added, sort of like, if the human spirit marries the nature spirit I guess. Serendipitous events rolled into play including a significant loan from a philanthropist in Switzerland. A local Balinese family with four hectares at the base of the mountain and vision to protect the land for future generations appeared on the scene and a partnership for a hundred years was forged. Sanctuary and Patricia and the family continued with trust. People with skills showed up, construction and architecture type experts, permaculture maniacs, yoga gurus, whole natural food enthusiasts and many worker bees, Western, Balinese and Javanese. After 18 months of construction, we found there had been a holy and healing ashram in exactly the same place 550 years before, in 1487. where the son of the king of Tabernan was miraculously healed and decided to build an ashram and a village. Papa of the Balinese family was a priest of this lineage. Apparently history has been waiting. Destiny dialed our number and we answered the call. The right people continue to show up from all parts of this wonderful planet. We continue to embrace truth and passion for this safe place to awaken with each person. Divine Source combines with nature's gifts. It is the most blissful adventure which we invite everyone to experience. We operate as a non profit and 50 percent of our beds, the dormitories, are profit free. Our commitment is to make pursuing a spiritual path affordable with a top end ashram ambience where people from all over the world can retreat and take time out, nourish the body and soul and find themselves again in their own time, their own schedule and in their own way. We rely on dedicated Balinese workers and Western volunteers who value working in a creative, spiritual and healthy environment as a collaborative team in agreeing to extreme community, laughing and enjoying life. Bali Silent Retreat Mongan village. When I read that, I just had that immediate sense of, Wow, that makes so much sense. I really did feel that this place was so safe, so balanced, so well guided. It was like even the ants, the bugs, the bees, the flies, the geckos, the birds, the squirrels, and human beings, and all the plants had every right to be there. And it just felt so special and so sacred. I didn't feel at any time unsafe. I didn't feel at any time vulnerable. I didn't feel like at any time I wasn't meant to be there, but had this overall feeling when I was there of how much beauty and how much we often miss because we are so busy talking. Or looking on our phones, never looking upwards or around us, but in this straight linear fashion. So after my tour of the complex, I put everything away and decided it was time to have something to eat. I thankfully timed my arrival. So it was just at the start of check in, lunch was still available. And I knew that about 3 PM, they would start the afternoon yoga session, which was brilliant because for the first two days I was there, there was a, um, I think she was volunteering a yogini from California, and she was great. She did like a Kriya style yoga, which is, I guess, from the Kundalini aspects of yoga, and it was great. It felt like I was detoxing emotional and physical elements of myself right at the start of this retreat. It was really, really, really well timed, and I didn't even know she was there. In the evening, after dinner, on Tuesday nights, they do a regular, um, meditation session. So, they do allow you to say, um, if you want to, when you're at the retreat in the yoga space. And, for that session, we all just sat together and, I don't know how many rounds each time, but we all just chanted, um, together. And it was so magical. And then we all laid down and did a Shavasana meditation and I was like, Oh, this is so blissful. So like even saying, um, out of my mouth and the way it hummed and felt on my lips was just incredible. It was really beautiful to be in that space. Little side note here. You don't need to take any yoga props or mats unless you're really attached to the one that you have. Again, everything is assigned to you. So even in the yoga space, there's, as you walk through the entrance, there's a whole lot of shelves. And on each shelf, you have a yoga mat, a bolster, a meditation cushion, a blanket, and this mosquito netting, which I have to say is the best idea ever for when you're wanting to be outside meditating or just sitting there. You can throw it over and around you and no mosquitoes get you. Side note while I'm saying the word mosquito, and I don't want to forget this, also reading some more about the creation of this retreat. They called in a mosquito expert, I don't know who she was, but she came and actually helped them figure out ways they could manage mosquitoes through natural deterrents rather than creating anything that involved pesticides or chemicals. So she's explained which plants would be attracting water and, you know, where mosquitoes would lay eggs, as well as how to block certain drains and keep water flowing throughout the whole complex. Thanks. So that, therefore, chances for mosquitoes to breed was reduced. Now, I have to say the mosquitoes there, some of them were the size of what I felt like was a bird and some quite tiny, but I didn't feel like I was harassed by them all the time. I didn't feel like I couldn't walk anywhere with the risk of being like harassed and annoyed by all these mosquitoes. They do have their own natural bug cream and oil, which you get a little bottle of in your room and there's heaps throughout the whole entire complex. Like you can go anywhere and just. Put this cream on you, which I just loved. It smelled very much like citronella and really beautiful scents that obviously help detract mosquitoes, which was amazing. One thing I did do and I felt like was in the first maybe day so much was that I had to take a lot of photos. I felt like I had this need to get my phone out, take photos, do a few selfies, a few little videos. Every day I felt like that was something I really wanted to do. And again, I guess that was that, you know, attachment we have to our phones these days where we can whip them out and take a picture or a video of something. Thanks. And obviously, as I said earlier, I had my digital camera, which was my little clock for any time. I didn't know what time it was. So there's a few photos on there where it's black because I took a picture in the middle of the night just to see what time it was, if I'd woken up and whether it was morning or something. But I felt like this sense of like, just get it out of my system, take a whole bunch of photos, put the phone back away. So it was in those few hours after I arrived, I took some photos where I knew I was allowed to, in terms of having my phone available, did a little selfie, walked around, took some videos of my room, things like that, just so I could get that out of my system, and then put my phone back away, and then I felt like I was done. And everything else I was like, I'm going to journal and write about, and just commit to my memory. And that felt like I had to just get that out. And then once I'd done that, I felt like I could relax even a little bit more. I did spend a bit of time on day one, still going over like, what's my intention. And one thing I still spend a bit of time in day one going over my intention. I felt like it was really important for me to have like this intention that followed a structure of how it's going to spend each day and time and hour minute I had at this beautiful place. And what I've realized straight away was that I didn't want to be kept to a schedule or a program and feel like I had to attend and do every single thing that they offered. They offered a lot of other workshops and classes about their medicine garden, their kitchen, their gut, their organic veggie garden, how to do a Balinese offering and what that meant, which I actually did that one because I really wanted to know a little bit more about that, as well as the yoga and a few other things. But I felt like for me overall, I just wanted to have the flexibility and be non committal to anything. The only thing I wanted to commit to was me and my time. And I guess I quickly realized as well that as much as I loved being in meditation and silent and just sitting, I also didn't want to have this pressure that I had to be scheduled to it. Every day, because if I wanted to be scheduled to it, I would have kept pursuing my goal of doing the Vipassana and that's a scheduled program meditation. Okay. That's something you do every day for so many hours at a day and it's all scheduled. And I didn't want that. I wanted to be within the flow of what I felt I needed at that time. So the one thing I did commit to was getting up early. Doing my yoga, having breakfast, and then just seeing what unfolded for the rest of the day, whatever I felt like I needed. So day two saw me waking up around about 5 AM. You can have the option every morning to have a ginger tea dropped on your front doorstep, and it comes in a big thermos and a mug in a woven basket. And then from that moment onwards, the day is yours if you want to start then or sleep in. And I felt like that was a really good time for me to wake up and just sort of have a bit of quiet time, watch the world wake up and everything unfold. Now, for me, I'm a bit of a light sleeper. And the best way I can get to sleep and stay asleep, particularly if I'm in a new environment is an eye mask just helps block out all the lights. I'm not constantly opening my eyes to see things around me and earplugs. So I was very grateful that I took both because again, the bungalow is very open air, even though there's like windows that you can shut, nothing is sealed. All the ceiling is still open. Natural airflow still comes through. The windows don't have any screens or glass on them and neither do the doors. So you can hear all the sounds. And there was rice patties out the front of my bungalow. So you heard constantly a stream of water coming through crickets and frogs and birds and nightlife. So for me, sensory deprivation gets me to sleep. And then I sleep solidly. And knowing that if I went to bed, I think maybe it was around about eight o'clock and I woke up at five. For me, that was solid sleeping that I had not had in a very long time. And I had been waking up around five o'clock recently with Ava's schedule. So to me, five o'clock wasn't a bad thing. And I am naturally, I'm going to say it, I'm a morning person. I have no problems getting up early. So I just loved it sitting there sipping my tea and watching the dawn lights start to creep in. The way I found that I knew what time it was each day without having to look at a clock and not obviously relying on my phone because I don't wear a watch, I don't have a smart whatever device on my wrist and I just only have my phone. There are three clocks, I will say this, in the whole entire complex. Two in the lodge, one on the kitchen floor and one on the lounge floor, and one in the yoga bali, or bale, I'm going to say, I'm going to call it a bale. Let's just get over it. I'll probably mispronounce it. It's B A L E in Western language. It's a bale, the yoga bale. And that's how I knew what time it was. Now, 6am, you can hear what I called. The call to prayer, if you want to say it, it's the morning prayer that's echoed through some of the compounds or the family villages. And you can hear that at 6 a. m. So 5 a. m. was teadrop, 6 a. m. call to prayer, 6. 30 was the first gong in the complex and that tells you that at 6. 30 a. m. wake up if you want to. 6. 45 is the next gong and that was to tell you that you've got 15 minutes till yoga starts. Yoga went from 7 Breakfast was the next gong at 8. 30, and that told you that was breakfast from 8. Then after that, there's no gongs or any other times until the afternoon, but lunch is from 1130 till 330 and it's just there all day for grazing. So then at 245, the next gong occurs and that tells you, you've got 15 minutes before yoga, which is from three to 430. Dinner gong goes from 4. 30 and dinner goes until 6 and then at 6. 45 is the final gong and that tells you that the fire pit has started and that usually goes from 6. 30 till 8. And the security guards that are there all night, they come in around that time. They start the fire and then they look after the fire until 8. So when they leave, you kind of know it's 8 PM. So that's how I had a judgment of what time it was. But again, as I said, I quickly found out within day two, I didn't want to be within A particular timeframe, I just wanted to do what I felt like I needed. So after I had breakfast on day two, I was tired. What was I going to do? I went for a nap. It was so good. It was so good. I tell you what, from being a mom in these early years, sleep is such, you know, solid napping, oh, juicy sleep. You take it when you can, right? So, I went and had a nap. That was it. If I'm tired, I'm going to nap. If I feel like journaling, I'm going to journal. If I feel like reading, I'm going to read. If I feel like going for a walk, I'm going to go for a walk. Because I still had this feeling within me of like, am I doing this right? Was this what I expected of myself and should I be doing more or should I be not worrying about this at all? And it took me a while to unravel my mind around that as well and just relax and trust what was to unfold as it was to unfold. I was there to not only reflect, but to do some inner healing work and that was work on things that some of it was big. There was a lot of stuff that I was wanting to shift, but I could only shift when I had the space and time and energy to do that. And particularly around things that were happening in the next season of my life. And there was other things that, you know, those stupid little memories, those stupid moments in time when you're just like, Oh, why did that happen? Or why did I say that? Or, Oh, I can't believe I did that. Or that person, this, and you just want to let it go. And you just want to feel better about those moments. It was some of those little things that when they crept up, I bookmarked them, I journaled on them, I wrote them down, and I did some inner healing. Now I'm going to share with you my three step healing process that you can do as well. In some upcoming episodes. Cause I felt like that was a really good self help technique that I developed on this retreat. So day three, I had a little bit of a rhythm happening in my life and I felt pretty good about it and I liked what was unfolding and I was starting to get into the rhythm of things. Now I'd read on their website that some people, when they finish day three, they realize it hasn't been long enough and they. Um, extend their stay. Some people had said five days was still not enough and they wanted more or they felt it was just right. And some people had said seven days was perfect. I only read one review of someone who did 10 days. So overall you can do as many or little days as you want. You can come for one day. You can come on a day pass so you can stay somewhere nearby. I have nowhere, no idea where, but you can come on a day pass and come for the experience and then go to wherever you want to go. I honestly don't think that's worth it. You need to be in this space. You need to be in this space for a fair, decent amount of time to really feel and experience the benefits. I feel five days minimum. Seven days was perfect for me. I don't feel like I would have wanted any longer. At the time I did, I thought, Oh, it's only seven days. What if I need more next time? And if you want more, you can book him more, but three days was definitely not going to be enough. And I think by day three, you've sort of unraveled, you figured out your little plan, your process. You've gotten to the rhythm of things. You're certainly enjoying the food and you're ready to just really allow more things to unfold. The night before I went to the fire pit to do some release work, there was honestly this feeling of going, okay, you came here to do some release work. Why the hell are you procrastinating on it? It's still hovering over your head. Why not take now as the present moment, just get it done, do it, heal, release, you'll feel better. So I did a process during the day. And then in the evening I went to the fire pit and I burnt my words. And the feelings, and I went through my own little process, which I will share with you, and I did the release work. Then I went back to my room, bedtime, and I felt really good for it. As I was walking back from the fire to my room, I had this feeling of like, I feel great. I feel like I've just released something really heavy off my shoulders and off my chest. And I really felt so much better. Actually, I want to share something with you. Just coming to mind, the stuff that I did and I healed was actually something that I started to do with Kerry a few months ago. It was, I think, towards the end of last year, this thing started coming into my mind. And I booked in a healing session with Kerry, which she was in that previous episode. So if you haven't heard about Kerry White, look for the episode, just a few back, multidimensional quantum healing with Kerry White. Have a listen. It's great. Anyway, I started doing this healing process with her and it gave me clarity and it gave me insights and it gave me understanding, but I knew there was still more to do and I had to do it on my own. And the thing that I released. Was just this ugly, black, spiky, squishy thing, like this horrible worm is what I can say as the feeling and the visual of it. And I just remember ripping it out of me and throwing it into the fire and immediately felt so much more clearer and lighter and freer because of that process. Day three, I checked in with Ava as well, just to make sure they were okay, see how they're going. And I was loving the fact that Francois was doing little video diaries for me. So every day take little videos of Ava doing something. And it was just so lovely to see him and Ava just having such a wonderful time together. And it just warmed my heart to be able to see them as well. And I obviously texted back and shared with him some of my experiences and feelings. So it was great to communicate with them and I really enjoyed having that flexibility within the retreat to do that. So the retreat on Mondays to Friday offers a free trip, it's included within your stay, to a hot spring nearby and they take you there and then pick you up two hours later. And it felt right to go on that day. I was like, do I need to go today? Yep, I'm going to go. And you can talk when you get there, you are allowed to talk and, you know, be verbal with whoever is in and around you. But again, I decided I wasn't interested in that. Again, I didn't want to make friends. I didn't want to talk to anybody. I didn't want to get to know anybody. And interestingly enough, the complex isn't huge. There's a few private hot springs. There's a massive big swimming pool at the top of this sort of terraced area. Not the most. Amazing swimming pool I've seen. I did question its clarity of the water. And then they've got hot springs as well. It was lovely. I'm not going to lie. I'm glad it was for free and I didn't have to pay for it. It was relaxing. I was kind of bored after 30 minutes. I was like, okay, I'm done. I've sat in the water. Mm hmm. Let's go. But of course we're there for two hours. Meditate Anna, just be in the process. But it was, um, interesting that two people decided they wanted to have a conversation between themselves in one of the larger hot spring pools and they were from the retreat. And I sat sort of not too far away from them in the same pool and immediately I was like, I don't want to have to listen to your conversation. Like I don't want to talk to you guys, but I certainly don't want to have to listen to you either. So I got up and left and I sat in a different smaller pool cause I'm like, I just don't need to hear. I think that's one thing I really enjoy about going to other countries where I don't speak the native language, because if people talk, it's just babble and you don't even have to tune in and think about what they're saying. Whereas when you hear people speaking your own language, you kind of tune into that conversation and it's a bit like, do I really want to get involved with this or not? No, I don't. I'm moving. And the other thing that really made me realize that I was in another country was the fact that there was a few locals, which is how I'd probably. Say who they were all smoking, having a good old smoke in the, one of the hot springs. And I'm like, okay, welcome to Asia. That, that just took me back a bit. That afternoon, it rained. It was one of those amazing tropical downpours and this massive cloud came rolling in. There was buildup in the clouds and I'm like, oh, if I could verbalize that to someone, I'd point it out and say, see those clouds building over there? That's buildup. It's gonna rain. And it just circled in around these massive mountains, and then it just came down in this massive thunder of rain and lightning, and it was just magical to see in here. And actually, when I went back to my bungalow, at the front of the deck, they've got a blind that you could roll down. I think it's so that because my bungalow faced west, you'd get a bit of the afternoon sun, but you can also roll it down so you don't get too much rain coming in onto the front step. And as I did, this tiny weenie little bat Rolled out of the blinds. I don't know how he got in there. I certainly hope he wasn't squished in there. He looked very sort of disturbed. Like he was like, you just woke me up from the bad sleep. I was like, buddy, are you okay? And so he kind of sat there and I took a photo of him and here's the moment, right, where you miss so much. I was looking at my camera, my good old digital Canon camera. And I was trying to figure out how I could change his setting, and when I looked up, he disappeared. And I was like, buddy, where did you go? Did you fly away? Because he certainly didn't look like, he was a bat. But he just didn't look like he could fly. I don't know how he would have. And I missed it. I missed it because I was looking at a silly piece of technology. But I took a little photo of him. He was my little batman. Not Batman. Where did that come from? It was like my little bat friend, my little bat energy. And I just thought that was really special to have that moment where I found him in the blinds. I hope he's okay. I hope he flew away somewhere safe, maybe into the rafters of my roof. I'm not entirely sure. So at the end of day three, I journaled some thoughts. So I gave myself a little questionnaire and it went something like this, thought so far, do I feel relaxed and rested? Yes. Could I have replicated this experience in any way at home rather than having traveled to Bali for it? Maybe some of it. I decided, I don't think I could have done all of it because really at the end of the day, you need to be in a place where people are going to feed you and take care of everything. And you don't want to have to communicate your breakfast, lunch or dinner order. Okay. Okay. And even the same with going to yoga, like there's acknowledgement that you're there for a reason and purpose and to be silent and you don't have to talk to anybody. So that's okay. Do I feel that I've gained more clarity and awareness of my next step or purpose? No, because I already know my purpose. I already know my next steps for now. Nothing needs to be changed or altered as I'm on the path that excites me. I love my work. I love teaching all my workshops. I love doing my sound baths. It's my favorite thing. I love being a mother and motherhood is great. I'm really loving and I'm happy being a wife. I don't feel like I need to change or alter anything there. And my home feels really good too. Francois and I were doing some really big renovation works and it's really exciting to see the transformations. Side note, Francois is doing more of the renovations than I am. I'm just there for feedback, support, and. Ideas. Have I gained any awareness? Had time to do some reflection or inner healing? Yes, I have. I've already healed some experiences and also some healing around people in my life and I feel lighter for it. Have I followed my intuition and inner guidance as to what I needed each day? Yes, I have. Am I better at meditation or inner connection? Yes, It's been great to just sit and be, listen, let thoughts roll, breathe, move energy and be still. No time, no process, no agenda. I honestly believe right now I'm living in alignment with my true self. Everything is meant to be right now. No clogs need to be shifted. No big moves made. My current path is the right one. Nothing needs to change. All that needs to happen is right here. Do I feel lighter? Do I feel lighter? It's a way that I often describe how I'm feeling after healing or if I feel like anything needs to be shifted, you know, if there's a heavy kind of feeling. Do I feel lighter? Yes. And then I ask myself in the next three days, which could have been really four because I'm on day three, let's face it. But what else needs healing? So for the next three days, I asked myself these questions because I just wanted to have these kind of like little thoughts rolling around. Cause sometimes, you know, it kind of helps bring in messages and guidance and understanding and anything that, you know, my higher self might need to let me know that. So for the next three days, I asked myself, what else needs healing? Because let's face it, we can always heal more stuff, can't we? I also wanted to have time to set my intentions for the next part of the year within my work. While I spent a lot of time in Bali just trying to tune out work and not think about it, which I did a lot of, of not thinking about it, I also wanted to set a little bit of time to nut out what I wanted to do over the next six months. Just to ease my business self at the same time but I felt like I would be happier doing that at the end of my stay rather than in the middle. Is there anything else that I need to know for the next six or twelve months or be aware of? What do I need to know for the next season? And that was a question that I had rolling around my mind the next day. So, that's the end of part one. I'm going to put a pause here and come back to you in the next episode with part two where we'll continue reliving day four to day seven, plus my departure and my return. And I promise in the next episode, I'm going to talk about something I know you all want to know deeply about, the food. Because of course we all know that food is so important as to whether it makes or breaks an experience. Right? So let's talk about the food. First thing in part two of my experience of silence in Bali. Until then, happy listening, and I look forward to sharing more with you soon. so much for tuning in and listening to today's episode. Please rate and review this podcast so that it can continue to thrive and reach more listeners. I love to know who my listeners are. So please screenshot this episode and tag me on Instagram at Anna F. Hastie, and I look forward to connecting with you in the next episode.