Silent Retreat: WEEKEND IN SILENCE

Have you decided to change something in your life. Choose a few days of silence that will tell you everything? Turn off your phones, computers, TV, and close your books and just listen to your heartbeat. Silent Retreat.

EASY EXERCISE

Start the morning of your first day of silence with a light workout before taking a shower. Pilates, if you practice it, will be enough. If you know a few yoga positions, this will be ideal. But any set of exercises that will warm your body in the morning after a night’s sleep achieve its own. You can also run around the neighborhood for 20 minutes. Given that you are in silence, you should not be interested in anything that is happening around you. Pay all your attention during the exercise only to the movements of your body. This is a practice you will do all the time during silence.

BREAKFAST FOR A GOOD DAY

Exercise is followed by a meal. Before retiring to silence, you stocked up on groceries for three days, right? Otherwise, going to the store could break your silence. While the cashier is looking for a discount card, you could be wasting some unnecessary words that you don’t want right now. Take the time to prepare each meal, now you have the time, and so you will employ your hands and have the opportunity to eat something really high quality, for which your body will be very grateful. A glass of freshly squeezed juice from seasonal fruit is a great start.

For a large glass of juice, you will need about a pound of fruit, and any combination of apples and other fruits is a good choice. Apples are never too expensive and you can combine them with pears, oranges, kiwis, grapefruit, peaches, lemons, apricots, grapes – really with any seasonal fruit. If you want the juice to refresh and strengthen you, grind a piece of fresh ginger into it. Then treat yourself to a porridge of oatmeal, raisins, almonds, hazelnuts, and bananas with rice milk, which can be seasoned with cinnamon and coconut flour. With spectacular taste and caloric, you will keep the site until lunch.

Silent Retreat: A WALK IN THE WOODS

Once you wake up the fire in your body with exercise and food, it will be time for activity. Every town and place has a forest, hill, river, lake, or path by the sea nearby. Take a long walk and fill up the next two to three hours with it. While you are walking in nature, start paying attention to the environment. Pay attention to trees, shrubs, grass, and other plants, whether there are any animals or birds nearby. Pay attention to the sound of the wind, the singing of birds, and other sounds of nature. Just watch them, be aware of them and relax.

Take a few deep breaths and exhale. After 20 to 30 minutes, you will get used to everything that is happening around you, pay attention to your steps as well. Walk step by step at your own pace and just watch what happens, foot in front of the foot, one after the other. It will take another 10 to 20 minutes, and then start paying attention to your breathing as well – is it deep or shallow, is it fast or slow? Don’t change it by force, it’s good as it is, just accepts it and observe it.

Once you get used to observing your breath, start observing your thoughts, and figure out what’s going on in your head. Take a walk in nature in silence every day of your retreat. You will slowly notice how the world around you is more alive, how everything vibrates with energy and you are in the middle of it.

Silent Retreat: THE IMPORTANCE OF MEDITATION

Your light lunch during the time you have devoted to silence should be a seasonal salad spiced with lemon and olive oil and just a pinch of salt. Add pieces of tofu, sunflower and pumpkin seeds, and some hazelnuts leftover from breakfast. In addition to it, you will also need two thin slices of corn or rye bread. You do not want to eat, you want to go through the silent light and awake. Once you have prepared (with full attention) a meal, do not eat it right away. Take another 15 minutes to meditate.

Silent Retreat: DEEPER AND DEEPER

The next two days of your silence, if you choose to do so, will be similar to the first. The only difference is that every next day your experience will be even deeper. You will slowly notice how the world around you is more alive, how your emotions and thoughts are in motion, how everything vibrates with energy, and you are in the middle of it all. Take a walk in nature every day and observe and employ your hands with something every day. If you find this monotonous, leave one day for a walk in the afternoon and do your chores in the morning.

Use time in silence as a time to easily detoxify your body and adjust your diet. The experience is sometimes so deep that after the third day, it may seem like a week or more has passed since you stepped into silence. Time is so-and-so relative. While you are in silence, think of only one thing – relax!