"Two and a half days? Not
speaking at all? You?"
My friend's question is not as
ridiculous as it seems; anyone who knows me will tell you that I generally have
a lot to say for myself, so to be totally non-verbal for anything more than about
ten minutes is quite an achievement.
However, that was part of my
meditation retreat and despite my apprehension about whether I'd manage it or
not, I decided to throw myself wholeheartedly at the task. And was amazed
to find that it wasn’t as difficult as I expected. In fact, I found it totally liberating and
think it should be compulsory for everybody, especially busy Mums just before
Christmas!
The point of being silent on the retreat
is to remind ourselves that the source of all emotions comes from inside
us. No one else can make you feel anything
that you don’t want to, so when we are upset by something that has been said or
done, it’s our choice to be upset. When
we laugh at a funny joke or situation, it’s our choice to be amused by it. It’s a strange thing to think that the
ultimate responsibility for how we feel is actually down to us, not anyone
else.
This is not a situation that’s
exclusive to meditation retreats; it’s how it is all the time – and that is
also very liberating. We no longer have
to be offended by people who say the wrong thing at the wrong time, or wait for
someone else to cheer us up when we’re feeling down. We become free to feel exactly what we want
to feel, and that also sets other people free as they are no longer responsible
for our emotions.
Actually putting this into practice
isn’t always easy. We still have to
consider other people’s feelings when we speak, be polite and respectful. However, for big daughter who spends her days
at school with over-emotional and over-sensitive teenage girls, it could be
something of a blessing. Imagine how
much simpler life would be without over-analysing every conversation or
expression! Imagine being happy with how
you are instead of letting your own insecurities get the better of you and
needing compliments to boost your self-esteem!
And imagine how much easier life would be for those of us who still do
that even though we left our teenage years behind many years ago!
The kind of retreat that I went on
isn’t everyone’s cup of tea and that’s fine; it’s everybody being different
that makes the world go round. But what
it has done is taught me some important lessons; we shouldn’t wait to praise something
that’s good, we should take time to praise ourselves as that’s our way of
giving thanks for what we have, and we should appreciate that the source of joy
and every other emotion is within us and within our control.
I know that it will be very easy for
me to get caught up in the day-to-day busy-ness of the year and forget, but this
year I’m going to do my best to try to remember these lessons. They can only benefit me and those around me
and, of course, are just part of looking for the extraordinary in the everyday!
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