Embracing the Silence: Lessons from a Three-Day Silent Meditation Retreat

Silence can speak volumes, and I am living proof of that. My latest podcast episode is an intimate account of the profound stillness and self-discovery I experienced during a three-day silent meditation retreat within the familiar walls of my home. With every intention set to embrace the present and shed the weight of the past, I navigated through an ocean of internal dialogue to unearth insights that are both personal and universally resonant. The vulnerability shared in this narrative promises to both challenge and comfort you, as I recount the lessons learned in the quiet.

As the retreat unfolded, the serenity of the first day gave way to a storm of emotions. Bound by silence, I grappled with the echoes of a busy beach and the whispers of a past ayahuasca ceremony. It's in these moments of struggle that I uncovered a transformative self-compassion, drawing parallels between the weathering of internal tempests and the peace that follows. This episode peels back the layers of my own heartache and the cathartic release that comes from staring down the shadows we all carry. My hope is that through sharing these moments, you too will find a sense of release and the courage to rewrite your inner stories.

The journey does not end with the closing of a silent retreat; it's merely a beginning. The clarity and self-belief that emerged from those three days led to the birth of not just this podcast, but the vision of a vibrant online community. In this episode, I reflect on the delicate dance between treasuring personal growth and the pull to share it with the world. I extend an invitation to you, my listeners, to join in this unfolding conversation, to discover the solace in solitude, and to cherish the joy of finding one's voice. Together, let's explore the balance of private revelation and collective inspiration, as we continue this journey of self-discovery.

Transcript

Nina Elise: 0:02

Welcome to the Receptive Impact Podcast. I'm your host, nina Elise. Hello everyone and welcome back. I will be taking you on a very intimate journey through my experience in a three-day silent meditation retreat. So, if anyone is not familiar with what a silent meditation retreat is or what really goes on in it, there are typically one, three or ten-day retreats. Those are the most popular ones. You can go longer, like 30 days or longer. It's typically done at a retreat center or in a remote area where there is facilitators to help you, and it's going to be different in different places that you go, so there would be different types of meditations that you can do throughout the whole week. Sometimes you might listen to things, sometimes you might have someone that you can share or talk with at the end of the day, especially for those longer retreats, from a mental health perspective, some really big things can come up during these silent retreats, and so they have people on hand in order to be there to support, and typically the post-inner retreats are the most popular. So in July of 2023, I decided to do a silent retreat, but with a twist, in my own home, and I decided to do it for three days, and this was something I had been looking into doing when I was living in Mexico in 2022, but nothing really lined up. When I was out there, I didn't really find a retreat center that I connected with, that I could do this at, so I kind of just set it aside and finally came back to it in July of 2023. And I was looking at different retreats but nothing really felt right and someone had actually planted the seed of just staying at home and I thought you know what, nina, you will still be hanging out with yourself anyways. So how fun would it be to do a silent retreat my way, and it's free as a bonus. So that was my whole journey to get to being in a silent retreat.

Nina Elise: 2:06

My why behind doing it was because I was feeling a little bit stagnant and stuck in my life and my mind felt so busy and trying to control and say this is what I need to do next and I wasn't really coming from an intuitive place or being in flow and I wanted to kind of just give myself space to be in silence and being quiet and quiet my mind so that I could connect with my intuition and what was really an alignment for me on how to move forward in my life. So that was my big why and I had also actually heard that people have had pretty profound experiences and have come up with really great business ideas when they go on the post and retreats. So that was like another big thing that I was like I really want to just go in and see what happens when my mind gets really quiet and see what comes up for me, because everyone else was having these profound experiences and I wanted to go and have my own in my own way. So before I do anything, I really like to set intentions and I do this pretty much every single day that I wake up and like what are my intentions for the day. It just helps me to be more focused and more clear about how I am showing up and what I'm putting my attention on and just who I am being every single day.

Nina Elise: 3:26

So my intentions for this three day mini silent retreat were actually pretty big and I'm laughing because I'm reading through them right here in front of me and I'm like, okay, these are actually things that need to happen over like a lifetime, but these were actually things that unfolded for me over the course of the three days and in the months following. So the first one was to embrace living in the present moment, because this is something that I had really been struggling with. At the moment I was really in my head a lot, I was not spending a lot of time in my body and it was just kind of like looping around in my head and I just wanted to get quiet and just quiet my mind. And another intention that I had was to allow and trust the natural flow and unfolding of my path forward. So that was more so like clarity and moving forward with my business and my life, because I wasn't sure what to do with my human design business or what I wanted to do with it and how that was going to evolve. And another one was to connect more deeply with my body. And the final one was to be completely liberated from my past.

Nina Elise: 4:32

So, like I said, these were kind of like really big ass or like really big intentions that I had set, but these were things that all of these intentions were met and so much more in just a few days of sitting with myself and silent. So I'm so excited to share my experiences. It was pretty intimate, you know. I really I waited a while because I wasn't sure if I really wanted to go more in depth or share what happened with me over the course of three days, because it was so such an intimate experience with myself. But I really felt like, okay, I can share like bits and pieces of this because maybe it's something that people are interested in, or maybe this is something that someone wants to do and they're looking to go do it, and maybe this is like a sign for them to go do it, or maybe just the permission slip to say, hey, maybe I can just do this at my own home and I can be okay when I do it, because, while this weekend was incredible, it was very tough for me in a lot of moments.

Nina Elise: 5:37

So I have been meditating for years before this and I have been on my own journey over the past year or so, going through a spiritual awakening, and I felt like I was mentally strong and prepared to go through this. I've sat in a lot of plant medicine ceremonies. I've been through pretty intense moments with myself, so I felt like I could trust myself to be alone. With that being said, I did let other people know like, hey, I'm turning my phone off for the weekend. This is what I'm doing and I let my therapist and my mentors know like, hey, if I'm struggling or feel like I'm losing my mind, then you might get a call from me this weekend because of this. So I was definitely prepared for that.

Nina Elise: 6:22

So what I want to do is go through like my rules that I set for myself and how I set up this three day retreat on my own in my own home, and like what I was eating and things like that, and then what my daily schedule was like, and then I'll go through day by day what I experienced, because every single day was so different from the previous one. So Before I started, I sat down and I was like, okay, I don't even really know what to expect in a silent retreat. I just know people meditate and they don't talk. So I looked online to see what a typical retreat entailed and followed some of the rules. So I decided like three days was going to be perfect. I just wanted to get a taste of this and see what happened and what the experience was before I did something longer, say like a 10 day retreat. So the rules that I had was I was only going to eat fruit and juice and drink juice, and I could take walks, I could take naps, I could do gentle yoga and meditate. The things that I could not do were talk, listen to anything, read anything, use any type of electronics and no clocks. And this was actually a very trippy experience and I personally already experienced time pretty differently than I used to, from probably doing plant medicine and stuff. But this actually took me very deeper into that and it felt very liberating.

Nina Elise: 7:52

And the next thing that I said I could not do was writing and no exercising besides gentle yoga. I wanted to connect with my body, but I didn't want to use movement as a distraction. So, like gentle yoga, like stretching or very like gentle, like vinyasa or sun salutations. And the final rule was I cannot kill bugs, and so that might sound really silly, but this is actually on the list of what to expect at a typical vipassana retreat. If you were to go to a retreat center and I was like this is silly, I have sometimes I have ants and stuff in my house and I was like, all right, I'll, I'll give them the weekend and they can survive and I don't have to kill any bugs. So I thought that was like a little funny rule that I added, but I totally understand like why that rule is at the different vipassana retreats.

Nina Elise: 8:41

So my actual schedule every single day was to wake up when my body woke me up and so I just slept in. I had no idea what time it was, like I had no, like no reference to time or like what time of the day it was, or just I just knew that it was night when it started to get dark, basically. So I would wake up and that was actually very helpful for me to just rest my body, to not get up with an alarm, and after I would get up I would immediately do one hour of breath centered meditation, so basically just focusing on my breath, coming in and out, for an entire hour straight. And after that I got up and I made juice and I did some dry brushing for my lymphatic system and did some gentle yoga, and then after that I did a two hour meditation where I sat and just scanned my body and just put my attention on my body, and after that I would eat my lunch, which was basically just fruit or more juice, and I either would go for a walk after that or take a nap if I was feeling sleepy, and then after that I would do a one hour meditation without moving my body, and that meant like if I had an itch, I could not scratch it, so just being very mindful of not having that immediate gratification of scratching an itch or like trying to fix something right away. And this is actually the type of meditation that I believe they do in typical vipassana retreats.

Nina Elise: 10:14

So that was probably one of the hardest ones that I did, but it actually got easier the second and third day, and then after that I would have like a snack or which is more fruit or more juice, and then I would do a one or two hour walking meditation where I would just go out I didn't have headphones on or anything with music playing or like podcasts or a book, which is what I would typically do. However, I did put headphones in my ears because I typically run into people that I know when I walk on the beach or when I'm out and about, and so I just didn't want anyone to start talking to me, and typically when you wear headphones, people are going to assume that like you're listening to something or whatever. And so, to me, I just had headphones in so that to tell people, like just don't talk to me, basically. And then, after the walking meditation, I would do some light stretching and do some yoga and then I would do a one hour meditation before bed. So this isn't like an exact schedule. It was a little bit different every single day, but I did end up doing about six to seven hours of meditation every single day, which I absolutely loved and I will tell you why I loved it. Like the first day was really great. It did get harder the second and third day, but the actual meditation and sitting and just being with myself was just so profound and so incredible. So I'm going to take you through each day, because each day was so different and the entire weekend was like riding a roller coaster into heaven and hell. So I will get more into that shortly.

Nina Elise: 11:49

And, like I said earlier, just like I made sure to tell people and my therapist, like what I was doing, so they knew if something were to happen or if, like I had like a mental breakdown or something like I had someone that I could reach out to. And they were like on call and I had friends in the area, too that I knew I could reach out to if I absolutely needed. Because, from what I understand and what I've heard, like you know, you go from busy, busy, busy, ignoring your thoughts, not paying attention to your body, and then you go into complete silence like a lot of, a lot of stuff is going to come up, and that can be very overwhelming for a lot of people who typically numb or distract themselves with alcohol or marijuana or watching tv, or even like reading books or listening to podcasts or just constantly like filling your minds with things. And then when you take and remove all of those things away, it can, it brings all of those things that you were suppressing up to the surface, that you didn't even know that that you were repressing. So to go into more detail for each of the days day one honestly was super easy. It felt like a decluttering day. It was easy, I was relaxed and honestly, I think it was just because my brain needed a day without stimulation. So it really felt like a breeze, and that's all I have to say about day one.

Nina Elise: 13:11

Day two two very different. While the morning felt great, I was thinking, you know like I could do this longer than three days, and so I like started out the day really, really great, and then I made the mistake of going to the beach on the weekend, and it's typically, like, pretty busy, there's a lot of people on the beach. So I went for a walk later on in the morning and I felt very agitated and grumpy and overwhelmed and in my head during that walk because there were so many people there and I had just spent the previous day in complete silence and it was just very like noisy and felt very heavy to me. So, being in the silence, like once I got back from my walk, it was like wow, this it really started to amplify the really like rough or tough thoughts in my head, especially about my past, and I noticed that I was starting to be pretty hard on myself, and so I was just, you know, I was simply observing this without attachment to it, but again, like I mentioned earlier, like this is stuff that you know starts to rise up to the surface, so it just kind of shines a spotlight and amplifies things that you're not normally paying attention to, and so it can feel very overwhelming or like really intense for anyone who's who's not used to that.

Nina Elise: 14:31

And so day two was actually the hardest day for me and I ended up having a very deep and very intimate moment with myself. Well, moments and my thoughts were so intense and I just had a lot of emotions and grief coming up, and it was like I had created this space in that silence to just give myself permission to release it. And so I remembered in my ayahuasca ceremony in Mexico in 2022, when I was having a very painful or rough moment. In that ceremony, the shaman came over to me and placed her hand on my back and she said to me it is okay to feel the pain, but you do not need to live there.

Nina Elise: 15:19

Remember your anchor, and during that that ceremony, my anchor was was joy, and that was something that popped into my head in that moment that I was sitting there when all of that grief was coming up, and it was just like this reminder of like okay, like my mind. It can lead me into all these different ways of being sad or whatever, and I can put my thoughts and my attention on the past, and it can cause really deep suffering for me and it's okay to think and feel about that, like all of those things, but I don't need to stay there, and I think that's a very common thing. That happens with people is like they hold on to it and it becomes an identity for them and they don't know how to move out of that. So when that moment popped into my mind, that memory popped into my mind, I was able to lean into that moment in a much softer way and was able to give myself some grace. So, and just like a side note, while this was happening, it was super dramatic outside and thunderstorming pretty bad, so it just felt like this reflection of what was going on inside of me and like this eruption. That was that was happening.

Nina Elise: 16:26

And you know like while I was having this moment, I had just been wrapped up in a blanket, staring at myself in the mirror and just like watching myself cry and like deep grief, and I was just like observing my mind basically battling it out. And as that was happening, I ended up just like finally laying on the floor just curled up in a blanket and as I was just observing my brain, kind of like going back and forth and having this argument and like how painful it was. It's just, I had this realization that the only audience in my mind was me and that no one else can or ever will fully know or see what's going on inside of me and I am the only one who can provide myself peace. So, if I get to create the show, why would it be chaotic or sad, or back and forth and constantly fighting? And it was such a profound moment for me and In that moment I decided to set down that internal argument and the pain and the sadness, and it gave me permission to create a new story, and just one that would please my only audience, which is me.

Nina Elise: 17:42

And so in that moment I was really learning to commune with the rawest parts of myself, like I was bravely going to the root to face the things that most of us distract ourselves from, and it kind of felt Like I went straight into the belly of the beast and it just, it really changed me in the most beautiful way. And I truly believe that when we have the courage to Open the doors that we have kept locked inside of us for so long, we are met with the darkest parts of ourselves, and once we acknowledge and feel those parts, they no longer have a hold over us and we are liberated from those unconscious shadows that have ruled our lives. And so I really wanted to just share that, because some people might be listening and they're like whoa, this sounds crazy, why are you crying, why did you do this? And this is actually very Similar, if you do like somatic therapy or any types of therapies. It's just we have these traumas and things stored in our bodies and when we have that space or that silence To sit with it, or if we have the awareness to know to like go into these things or be intentional Like I said, intentions for at the beginning of this retreat that was something that, consciously and unconsciously, I was ready to go into and face myself. So this experience that I had, other people may not have this experience. They may have it in their own way, or it may not be as intense or maybe it will be more intense, but it's gonna be different for for every single person.

Nina Elise: 19:17

So later on in the evening, when I was meditating again, I began to have thoughts of the future that were like lighter and hopeful, and I just paused and I stopped and I said wait a minute. I was just in deep suffering, like Not even an hour ago, and now my mind is happy and it was in that moment of observation. I just began to see the illusion of the mind more clearly and the malleability of it. So we may not always be able to control our minds and we may have ups and downs, but it's not something to be feared. It's just the mind is just doing its job of trying to keep us safe and figure things out. It just wants to help. But we don't always have to listen to it or jump on every roller coaster of emotion. If we're aware and can step back and be an observer will be on a much smoother ride. Otherwise it'll just be like watching a baby Cry non-stop, like cry one minute and then laugh constantly for like the rest of our lives, and we can spend our energy trying to figure out how to make that baby happy 24 seven, or we can just let it be and know that it will pass. The brain wants to be heard and we can listen to it, but we don't always have to believe in it.

Nina Elise: 20:39

So later on, in the night of that second day, I live on the space coast in Florida, so we had a night rocket launch and so that went off at who knows what time Still no, no idea what time it is, but it went off when I was sleeping and it woke me up and I couldn't go back to sleep. My mind started back up again and I'm not going to go into details on this experience, but I went through a very similar process that I had experienced earlier in the day. It was very intense, it was very painful, but it was something that I needed to face and release and come to terms with within myself. So this obviously was not the most comfortable weekend, but I was just so proud of myself for facing really deep fears and being just radically honest with myself and coming out on the other side. So I'm going to share with you the third day.

Nina Elise: 21:30

And while this day was still difficult because I was digesting the truth of what I'd experienced during the night and all those other additional realizations I had, something had profoundly shifted within me and my meditations were starting to be different. And after I had gone into that pain and released it, there was almost like this portal that opened up for me. I felt a deeper connection to source and my creativity and I just began to receive a lot of downloads. So, basically, I began to envision my future and how I could step into my purpose, and I realized that my purpose isn't just one thing, it's me, my purpose is me and it's simply the infusion of me and whatever I do, and I just saw the simplicity of this and it filled me with, like this new sense of wonder and clarity and passion to just fully show up in everything that I do. So that was a really profound experience that I had, you know, on that third day, when things just really started to open up for me.

Nina Elise: 22:42

Because when you do this work of going into your shadows and releasing all of it, it creates this space and it removes these layers for you to uncover parts of yourselves and realizations and downloads of what we were not able to see because we did not have the capacity to do it, because we were. It was hiding underneath all of that other stuff, and so when I went through all of that, it was like I created so much space to start receiving these downloads and these realizations. And actually, the third day was the day that I got the download to start this podcast. So you can welcome this three day silent retreat for being the inspiration that got this whole thing started and it also prompted me or I got the download to build out my online community, which is something that I'm building right now. It might be live by the time this podcast episode goes live.

Nina Elise: 23:36

And it's also where I really cultivated a deeper trust and belief in myself that what I actually have to say has value and that even if one person showed up and listened to my podcast, it wouldn't matter Like, over time, people would come. And I just felt this intense belief in myself that I have something worthy to offer and share and that I must show up for myself every day, believing even when I don't see results. And throughout the weekend I also realized that my journey was not linear. It was a mirror to like our own journeys in everyday life. So you have your ups and your downs, and then you have clarity and then you're lost and then you're down again and it's okay, like it's just life, like we're here to experience all of that. We need the contrast of it all and it's just so incredibly beautiful. So that was the third day for me.

Nina Elise: 24:32

And for the fourth day, which was when I was breaking my, my silent meditation, on the morning of that day I felt like a 5,000 pound weight had been lifted off of my chest. I felt so grounded and so clear and so much more softer and there was just this deeper sense of strength and trust, but also grace and tenderness and, honestly, for the first time in years, I felt excited about my future, like my future, something I had failed to have a vision for for so many years because I was so lost in my own thoughts and insecurities of doubt and hidden relationships, because I was afraid to create that and build that out for myself. And I was so curious and excited to create and build my life moving forward, and the bonus was the fact that I get to do it with the coolest, coolest person in the world, which is me. And so I just felt incredibly liberated and, like I said at the beginning, I didn't really have any expectations at all, but I did have a fear in the back of my mind that I might go crazy, spending so much time alone in silence. However, during the retreat, I actually realized that the fear that I was experiencing I was simply fearing life. I was fearing the liberation and the crumbling of control and beliefs and attachments and identities that were creating my illusion, and what I thought was losing my mind was actually a softening into truth, into love, and the liberation is in the crazy, and it's actually why I absolutely adore people who are so free and don't care what others think of them. Those are the people who truly know how to live and be present. So, after this experience, I definitely felt safer to soften into my own crazy and not be so afraid of it.

Nina Elise: 26:41

And I think, when you decide to go down this path of coming home to yourself, it's definitely a gradual process and this this weekend, that three days silent retreat, was just another layer to to peel back, and I really like how Richard Rudd from Jean Keys calls the awakening journey. He calls it a series of softening, and this is what I truly experience in my own journey. In all of the adventures that I go down. It's not just like this one thing is going to heal or fix me. It's just you're peeling back these layers and you're going into it and then you're just softening and you're opening. And you're softening and you're opening. It's like this flower, that's like opening over time. So I actually I really waited a long time to share this, because I record All right, this happened back in July 2023 and it is now December 2023.

Nina Elise: 27:35

And I really wanted to see how, not only like how this impacted me in the months following, to see how I shifted and changed, but also because I wasn't sure if I was going to share it all and I asked myself this question when I share, is it taking away the preciousness and intimacy of a moment or an experience? And I wrote this at the end of my journaling because when I was done with my retreat I basically did this huge brain dump. I wrote like 10 pages in my journal all the stuff that came up. I was whiteboarding out all my business ideas, like both sides of my whiteboard, and towards the end of my journaling this question popped up for me and I'd like to share it with you all. So it's something to sit with and possibly a gift to ponder.

Nina Elise: 28:30

What I wrote was I feel the need to not talk, to not share, to just go about my life as a boring stranger with wildly beautiful secrets only known to me. I want to experience life in the background, with no eyes on me, experiencing the fullness of life, the fullness of me, and getting intimate with it. All these moments, these experiences with myself, are so precious to share or attempt to share. Shatters and tears apart, the delicate art of each present moment, for such deep inner moments could never be described by words, not even a little.

Nina Elise: 29:22

This three days in silence really really taught me to find deep joy in the precious moments that I spend alone, not sharing every single thing, and to keep them my own, like an intimate secret with myself. And while I do feel torn sometimes when I share so much of my life and my experiences, I do truly feel it is part of my purpose and my Dharma to awaken the consciousness of others through sharing my own experiences, and I truly, truly hope that everyone listening finds meaning in truth and what I have to share, and that you take what you need on your own journey. So thank you all so much for joining. There is definitely more that I could share about this three day silent retreat at my house and how I have opened up and changed so much since. So maybe another episode is in order later on. If this episode resonated with you at all, please remember to share with those who would also love to go on a journey. I appreciate you all so, so much and I will see you on the next episode. Bye.