A few years back I attended 10 day silent retreat in the wonderful Vipassana center in Ontario. One day I’ve heard an internal voice calling me to attend this program. So without hesitation I have signed myself up for a waiting list. There were no spaces at the time of calling. I did not have a vacation set up at work and my back then boyfriend was objecting me to go to the point of separation if I do. So I have trusted The Universe to guide me and ended up in the program regardless of all obstacles that were on my way.

We lived in the Ashram for 10 days in silence, food and shelter provided to us. We would spend our days waking up at 4:30am and meditating till 9|:30 p.m. with some brakes for food and self care.

This was the most peaceful and yet the most challenging 10 days for me.

For the first 4 days I felt like a cattle on the hot stove, slowly but surely reaching the boiling point within myself. All my stashed down emotions, anger, fear, frustration, agitation, resentment and everything in between started to come up to the surface. I felt like I was ready to blow up or a steam will start to come up from every place imaginable in my body.

Waking up at 4:30 am, or sitting in meditation for 10 hours, or even not talking to anyone wasn’t the hardest parts for me. It was having food only 2 times a day at 6 am and 11:30 am. I always had a complicated relationship with food. Cycles of binge eating, emotional eating, eating for punishment, late night eating was a norm for me. And here only 2 times a day. The food was wonderful, we had a buffet style dining so we could eat as much or as little as we wanted, but in one 30 minute sitting time frame. At the beginning I was struggling to adjust. On day 5-6 it became easier and easier with each day. On day 8 I was standing in line to get my food. I was calm, refreshed after my morning meditation and everything seemed to fall in place at that moment. I was learning to focus myself on breathing and sit still in meditation in an hour increments. My monkey mind started to calm down, although I still drifted into re watching every episode of star wars or any other sequel that would come into my mind during meditation, but hey, I was learning;).

So I am standing there in the line to get my food, the table is filled with at least 5 different kinds of dishes to choose from plus the desert and drinks. And for 8 days there was no shortage of food and I was always able to get seconds and more. The food there was an abundant experience. And yet, I catch myself with some uncomfortable feeling. I was anxious. The line was moving veeery sloooowly.

People took their time choosing and collecting their food. The girl in front of me was dragging her feet, she took her time to slowly grab a portion of soup and pour it into her plate, and then she could not decide what salad dressing to take, and then she was standing, seems an eternity, over the piece of an apple pie. I felt the agitation and anxiety rising up my body, starting in my tummy and ending up blocking my throat as if I want to scream and I could not… What is happening to me? Why am I at dis-ease over this? All past lineups flashed in front of my mind. The line up in the store to the cashier, line up to see the doctor, line up to get to the bus, line up here, line up there. Why do I have to be in this torturous situation? I am a free person. How dare they take soo much of my time!

Oops, somebody pushed my button! Breath, Olga, breath!

You have a choice now. You can choose to keep going like this and escalate internally or you can choose to view this as a teaching opportunity. Can you possibly stand in long line and be at bliss with yourself and the world around you? It struck me that my life becomes one long autopilot lineup where I would experience something negative and will stash it deep into my psyche without processing it. Same I will do with something positive as well. I will not stop and cherish it. I would take it as given. I am used to moving forward without thinking too much, as long as I was moving. Every time I am in line up, I stand there, I am not moving or moving slowly and my brain start to become impatient. I have realized that this has been just a dysfunctional habit of my mind. I was so used to justify to myself that I do not have time, I will be happy when…or I just do something because I must, and I do this almost unconsciously. I do not take time to process what is happening to me when it happens, I do not take time to stop and enjoy what is in front of me, for example, food. I do not do things out of love or ease, I do things out of duty or something else.

I started to breath deeply, focused on my surrounding intently. I looked at this girl in front of me as she was the most important teacher in my life at that particular moment. She taught me a lesson in self awareness and compassion to myself. I have centered myself and when the time came for me to pick my food and later enjoy it, I did it slowly, with the sense of ease and tried to enjoy each moment of the action I was performing. I had a blast doing that. I have noticed the taste of the food I had never noticed before, I enjoyed the arrangement of colors on my plate and I managed to eat soo slowly and with great intention I have never done before. This simple act of self awareness and conscious attention to each and every moment gave me so much energy and peace I had never felt before. It was amazing! Looking back on the whole thing I have realized how much peace and joy this was costing in every area of my life. It was a dysfunctional habit of my mind. My mind’s dis-ease.

Stop for a moment, evaluate yourself. Are you at ease in your mind or at dis-ease? And if you’re at the dis-ease, make a conscious choice of slowing down and center, letting whatever needs to come out to be processed and let go and enjoy each and every moment of your life, even standing in the long, slow, dreadful line. It is not the line that is in dis-ease, it’s how you react to it.

Tell me what you think. I want to know.

With love,

Olga

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