Category: Participants’ experiences

Greetings, friends of dark retreats.

It has been a long time since I tried darkness therapy, but I still remember it and it stays with me through life.

Preparing for the dark retreat

I prepared for the “sanctuary”, both mentally and physically, for quite a while before going in. Today I know it was unnecessary and maybe even did a bit of harm.

The dark retreat wasn’t a problem for me and finding my way around was surprisingly easy. I moved more slowly and more deliberately than in life in the light. Today I understand that for me it symbolises these hurried times.

I went into the dark retreat full of hope

The home-made food was excellent and the flavours were surprisingly intense. After a short fast I discovered the hidden taste of food.

I went into the darkness hoping I would get information about my future, about which direction to take my life in. Instead came a big disappointment that the answer didn’t come.

You steer your own life, you set it up and create it yourself, it’s just easier to be with someone who leads you by the hand and not to be responsible for your own actions. The more I wanted an answer, the more my mind raced.

A storm of thoughts and expectations. The thoughts couldn’t be stopped, thrown away or hidden. They were there and they always will be, it’s just up to me how I perceive them. Whether it’s an attack from the depths of my soul or the sun setting in the twilight.

Everything has its time

My life after the darkness is an awakening and an understanding that everything has its time to show itself. And what I wished for so much is starting to show itself, with a delay.

With the passing of time I’m becoming more and more aware of everything.

I’m not saying it’s always beautiful and fulfilling. It is the way I wished it to be. And that’s the catch.

Because I dare say that few people really know what they want.

A dark retreat for everyone

Thank you for an unforgettable experience that everyone should go through at least once in their life.

Thank you for the willingness with which you devote yourselves to people, and for what radiates from you.

Jarda

Hi Tomáš and Lenka,

the dark retreat was a new experience for me. I knew a little about dark retreats before I came and had also read a bit about them.

The dark retreat and excellent facilities

I was warmly welcomed, and the excellent facilities in lovely surroundings lived up to my expectations. I didn’t come to the retreat as a form of treatment; I was mainly curious about my feelings, my reactions and the chance to work better with my thoughts.

The dark retreat and meals

I’m a vegetarian, but out of all the options I chose raw food, which makes up most of my diet anyway and which I prefer. The food was very tasty – I only regretted that I couldn’t see it, and it made me realise all the more that in everyday life I also enjoy how colourful food is. I tried to keep to my daily rhythm, as I’m used to exercising in the morning, but my sense of time still drifted quite a lot. The food being brought once a day was the only point I could hold on to and use to work out roughly what time it was.

After the retreat ended, I savoured a gentle, slow drift back into everyday life and the joy of being able to perceive my surroundings more sensitively.

Petr

An encounter with nothingness, with the zero state. The struggle between the human being and the higher being imprisoned within. Who will win? Does that human really want to know where they came from? Who they are? To know their sacred self down to the ground? How will it help them on their journey through life, here and now? Won’t it tear them away from the material world they have built with so much effort and that is still not stable?

This won’t apply to most people who decide on a dark retreat. It’s only about me and my feelings.

In my life I spent a very long time searching hard for myself. But in the end I found my essence! An awareness that I come from somewhere far beyond the earthly sphere has been with me since early childhood. The urge to keep searching, learning, discovering… everything…, how and why things exist, the principles we function by. Long years of contact with the higher world, prophetic dreams, work with archetypes, dream symbols, the subconscious, and finally trying to tell others that they are here to move on, within their human possibilities, where everyone is on their own and has to find their own path and the meaning of a full life. My dissecting of myself, turned inside out…, to the point of screaming pain. Dragging out the shadows, the programmes injected by the collective consciousness just so we can fit in among humankind, function here and keep our true value and direction. Breaking down the ballast and accepting my inner demons, taming my beasts baring their teeth…,, learning, learning and learning how to get along with my self versus my bodily shell.

Events and experiences that so far had thrown my human self around to the edge of despair and given me an understanding of a higher order and the laws of the universe. That was my life and my path. And it was a lot! All my life I’d been flying up high and I was missing a runway. When one appeared, I refused it and kept flying.

In the dark, to my surprise, I understood that I have to go in the opposite direction, here and now. A turning point in my life had come! I must no longer fly off into the heights; instead I have to go downwards. Let my roots grow into the element of earth, deep down. That’s why I was born as a human. My essence is in the universe, my body is here and now. I have to take care of my human, my avatar. Its place is on Earth, its comfort and well-being. I won’t help it by tearing the spiritual essence away from it. That’s what would have happened! I know it!

The first few hours in the dark warned me: I was transported into a vivid parallel reality, where I lived among the same close people, only things happened completely differently! I saw myself being pumped full of schizophrenia medication in an attempt to bring me back to the reality of earthly life.

The moment I realised it was an illusion… , but it wasn’t an illusion, it was extraordinarily real and vivid, I came back into the dark room, where I was now alone.

Then came rapid images of the karmic and generational burden of my family line, which drew my attention to what was currently going on in my family. That was the second and last question I needed to resolve and understand. Done!

The rest of my dark retreat became a matter of enduring and struggling with my human’s existential comfort. Above-average heat of around 39°C, the feeling of being hot (in the cabin it was maybe 29°C) and the feeling of being unable to breathe in a fresh, cool breeze (even though the cabin is quite well insulated and ventilated) made me end my stay after 24 hours.

Before I left, before I decided to end my stay, I struggled inside for a long time. Questions were tossing around in me like: Am I a coward? How will others see me for giving up? After all, I waited so long… I know the first three days are the hardest… But? What more will it bring me? Do I even want it?

And finally: I’ve paid… will I look like an idiot to the others?

Suddenly I listened to my reliable intuition!!! Nothing is more important than what I really want and what I feel! And you can always rely on that! I wish everyone would let themselves be guided by their intuition! To break free of what others want or expect from us! The only thing that matters is how I feel about it! The opinions of the people around us, some money – all of that is just a system that controls us. Being free and deciding for yourself is the most important art in our lives.

I thank Lenka and Tomáš for their kindness, for their empathy and love for everyone and everything they do.

I’m glad for those 24 hours they made possible for me and that I went through! Even that one day and one night brought me so many insights and set my direction for the future that without them I’d have been searching, who knows how long.

One last thing: even though I was the one who went into the dark, my husband lived through it all with the same intensity and decided to take a bigger part in our shared life, to share more and show more empathy. Thanks for everything.

Aleksandra.

Dear Tomáš, dear Leni,

thanks to you and your kind, accommodating approach, during my dark retreat I experienced something I had never managed to experience in my whole life so far.

The dark retreat and the Dark

…beautiful, radiant, embracing, and also a very harsh reflection of my own thoughts. The journey to you – complete inner certainty that I was going where I needed to go. A week alone with myself…pretty “intense”.

The first half of the dark retreat

… total chaos of thoughts and sensations, dazzling flashing lights, great physical pain … only when Tomáš helped me understand that I was creating it all myself did things turn round immediately into a zone of calm and bliss,

Food and the dark retreat

Experiencing food as something not to be taken for granted, wonderful, fragrant, prepared by that marvellous being, Lenča.

The journey back….was filled with gratitude towards everyone and everything that gave me the chance to travel, to eat, to take in the beauty around me

….well, I’m simply starting to LIVE

…..and that’s how it is!

Thank you! Eva

Hi Tomáš and Lenka,

greetings a month after my dark retreat, time flies..

The dark retreat and my experiences

About the dark … I wasn’t there long, I left after 3 nights. Even so, the experiences from my dark retreat kept catching up with me emotionally for about another 14 days. When I left, thanks to Lenka I only felt it as a bit of a failure, but now I know it was exactly what I needed, 2 days, 3 nights.

I’d compare it to an athlete training for a long distance 🙂 Nobody who doesn’t last is a coward. Everyone has their own stuff to battle with in the dark; there’s no avoiding it.

I was also surprised how important the talking is on a dark retreat. I thought it wouldn’t be, but about 15 minutes in total over 2 days wasn’t enough; I really missed the contact.

On the morning after the 3rd night I had to turn the light on, it was such a panic, but then again..I’m glad, and I don’t think it would be any different now, even with the experience.

Darkness therapy, all in all

In short, a priceless experience. I’ll plan it again next year; everyone should, for the sake of their mental health..because in the dark you simply can’t help but stop. Time disappears and what is left is the present moment, an empty head; holding on to a thought felt like a superhuman feat. That’s not the only reason, but even though I slept quite little, I rested a great deal.

Many thanks, have a lovely day.

Martina

Hmmm, how do you begin with something as intimate as being alone with yourself?

Longing to be alone, a dark retreat, a desert island

For a long time I longed to be alone, to take a few bottles of good wine and two or three books with me and go off to a desert island.
Since that kind of solitude wasn’t feasible, I looked for some alternative. Now and then I browsed various websites and came across darkness therapy. It still took me a while before I wrote to Tomáš. Once I’d taken the first step, the rest followed by itself.
I booked a date and the decision was made. I deliberately didn’t look for more information about the dark retreat, so as not to be influenced by other people’s experiences and not to have high expectations

Will I last the dark retreat?

As the date approached, doubts crept in about whether I could manage it. Will I run away? Will I stick it out? Will I panic?
Tomáš showed me into the cabin, explained how we would communicate and what the rules were, and told me something very important: ” Do NOTHING, just be aware of yourself.” and we said goodbye. I went for one more walk around the garden, went into the cabin, closed the door, switched off the light, and there was darkness. Total darkness..
I thought I’d be afraid, that fear and anxiety would come. Nothing. Calm. Trust. For the first three days I slept a lot. After that it didn’t really work any more; my brain switched into a defragmentation process and wouldn’t stop, it rustled, grumbled, nudged, processed and discarded. There was no stopping it.

Conversations in the dark

An important part of the dark retreat was the conversations with both Lenka and Tomáš. Each of them could see things from a different angle, and that helped me understand. The food Lenka prepared was very tasty.Amazing. I realised how much more you taste without your eyes. How differently I perceive smells. How important touch is. I had great fun guessing which vegetables I was eating in the salad. I also managed to spill my nuts, and believe me, I wasn’t bored at all while I was picking them up.
My experiences in the darkness were thoroughly positive. I went there wanting to sort out and finish things within myself. And that happened.

Why darkness therapy?

I see the retreat as a very important step towards self-knowledge and self-awareness.

How do I feel now? Balanced, humble, calm and with love in my heart.
Being alone with yourself is a gift that we humans don’t really know how to make use of any more. Are we afraid of ourselves?

Dáša

It started long before the dark retreat

For me, so-called darkness therapy began long before I actually arrived. The closer my start in the sanctuary got, the more nervous I felt. I had set aside a week in my calendar so I’d have more time to meditate and think about my planned stay. I didn’t quite stick to that 🙂 but I thought more and more about it and paid attention to my feelings and to the synchronicities happening around me. The solar eclipse the day before I went in felt symbolic to me. I visited my family to say goodbye, spent the morning of the last day with my girlfriend and then set off. I took a little drum and a few talismans with me 🙂 I took an mp3 player with a dark display, with my favourite songs and favourite audiobooks on spiritual growth. In the dark I wanted to get to know my deeper self, my divinity, and get into the space between thoughts, calm them and stop identifying with them. I saw it as the next step in my inner development.

Arrival and getting to know the place

I got a bit lost for a moment, but in the end I arrived at about 4 in the afternoon. I was welcomed by Tomáš with his calm, friendly and positive energy, and by his loving kids, who straight away radiated a beautiful freedom, ease and honesty. That had a really positive effect on me, and so did their giant welcoming doggo Charlie.
Tomáš helped me with my things and showed me the cabin. He explained the signals for when food is brought, told me how everything works, that I could still walk round the garden and that whenever I felt ready I could turn off the light and begin my stay in the cabin. Then Lenka came along and asked me what I don’t eat, about allergies and so on, because she was the one who looked after me the whole time. She brought the food I enjoyed so much during my dark retreat – I’ll never forget the amazing mushroom risotto or the fruit dumplings! 🙂 It was fun not to be told what was for dinner and to work it out for myself in the dark 🙂 Lenka always chatted with me for a bit, which helps a lot, and she had a feel for when it was a good moment for me to talk with Tomáš too, who normally didn’t come to the cabin every day.
As soon as she left, my nerves got even worse. First I tried turning the light off for just about 2 minutes to “see” what was waiting for me, and I have to say I really struggled with whether I’d be able to stay in the dark at all. I settled in and walked round the cabin, called my girlfriend to tell her how it felt and say goodbye. I took one last look at the sun and switched off the light…

A stay in the dark cabin, or into warrior mode

A few minutes after switching off the light, my nerves let go and I calmed down. I won’t describe the stay itself in detail, so I don’t push my feelings onto others. What happened in the dark was mainly an amplification of my inner feelings. Throughout our lives, all our belief systems and emotions wrap themselves around our soul, and gradually, instead of with our inner self, we start to identify with our ego, with our store of emotions and thoughts. As Tomáš explained to me so beautifully, the darkness can draw this out of us, peel off these layers of fear and reveal our divinity. He explained nicely how important it is not to suppress the emotions we carry inside, because that causes pain as the soul tries to get out through them – to express itself – but the ego doesn’t want to let go of that shell of emotions. I learned to accept these emotions, not to resist them but to surrender to them, and even though it may not be pleasant, it’s important to overcome the fear, because you find out that nothing can happen to YOU 🙂
I think it’s very important not to be afraid to talk about it. To have a chat with Tomáš, who has an incredible sensitivity and experience that can really help you.

After the dark retreat

Coming out into the light was simply enchanting. I felt like an astronaut who had landed on the moon. As day broke, I watched the beauty of Mother Earth; everything was wonderful. I got a warm welcome from Charlie and then from the whole family. We talked, drank a green smoothie, I went for a few more walks in nature, said goodbye to the cabin and the whole family, and off I went…
It’s important to mention that just as the start of the stay had an effect on me several days in advance, the end keeps playing out too. Through my dark retreat I’ve gained a greater awareness of myself and above all a heightened sense of how the whole communicates. I notice lots of details happening around me, and the synchronicity that’s showing up for me is unbelievable!

Thanks to that, I’ve been able to keep working on the problems the darkness showed me even after it ended – my heightened sense of fate guided me there beautifully!

Some take five steps, some take one, but what matters is moving forward. I wish everyone lots of luck and love! And thanks to everyone who ventures into the dark.

Filip

Has it really been a month since I finished my dark retreat?
Time seems to run faster in my universe 🙂

In the dark it was black and soft

What was it like in the dark? Black. Surprisingly, very black and very soft. Time somehow passes more slowly when you’re inside yourself. It’s strange how you notice the difference between eyes open and eyes closed. You see the same big fat nothing either way, but that sense of being at one with yourself is very peculiar.
Before I went into the dark, I put some meditations and exercises on an MP3 player. A fairly “random selection”, you could say. I hadn’t meditated much, so I had no strong preferences. But I wasn’t born yesterday, and I know there’s simply no such thing as coincidence, and nothing special happened to me in the dark, luckily no “bogeymen” or anything like that, so I ask myself: why, then?

You usually only see it looking back, why life puts certain people or situations in your way. Life is very wise, so why resist it? One way or another you’ll live through it, only the intensity goes up. Some of the meditations caught my interest so much that even here “outside” I simply make time to stop inside myself for a while. What once would have been a “waste of time” (a rather amusing line where a dark retreat is concerned) now seems much more important to me. The world is somehow more beautiful, don’t you think?

A dark retreat is not a waste of time

I think, no, I know that I’m enjoying life in a biological body much more. After all, life is only a game, so why not enjoy it properly?

The dark retreat was a strange and beautiful episode for me, and certainly a priceless experience. Thank you so much for it.

When I “HAPPEN” to be passing by… well, you know how it is. I’ve saved your phone number.

You are wonderful people, I’m very fond of you
With love in my heart, I give you a hug

Anička

I first heard about dark retreats from a friend of mine, roughly a year before I decided to go on one, that is a dark retreat, myself. What settled it for me at the time was watching a video with Jaroslav Dušek, in which he answered questions about his own dark retreat. At that moment it was clear that I had to do it too. The dates were already fully booked, so I had to wait a few months for a free one. I chose the first available date, which was three months from the moment of my decision, but then I had to make some changes to my plans and in the end it turned into a six-month wait.

I need a dark retreat

At the time I was going through various changes in my life and felt I simply needed to go into the dark right away. Now, with hindsight, I know that everything had its own timing, that nothing happens by itself, and my date didn’t come up until the autumn. Looking back, I even realise that around the time of the first date, in summer, I was going through yet another set of important life situations. If I had gone into the dark at that stage, my head would have been full of it all and I wouldn’t have enjoyed the retreat as much.

The closer my start date came, the more I couldn’t wait. I was most likely expecting some kind of life change from it. I only told a few people close to me about my retreat. They didn’t really understand what there was to do there for a whole week and claimed they would “go mad”. The one thing on my mind was a certain fear of the dark itself. I’ll come back to that later.

Conversations and a dark retreat

Meeting Lenka and Tomáš was already crucial for me, both at the start when I arrived at their home and later during my talks with them both over my week in the cabin. I discussed my thoughts with them, which was very important to me. Each of them touched on something different, but something fundamental for me. I’d like to offer some advice to those who aren’t sure whether they want to keep in contact or be in complete isolation. From my experience, don’t resist that contact. I think a short conversation can actually help speed up the process going on inside you; you can move forward more quickly and a lot of things fall into place at the level of thought.

What I took away from the retreat above all was an awareness of the present moment. Tomáš helped me with that through his words. And Lenka helped me accept my life so far as it is. I reflected on it from a karmic point of view and accepted everything that is happening or has already happened in my life.

A dark retreat and food

I mustn’t forget to praise Lenka’s wonderful, delicious cooking. During that week spent alone, her meals became a real balm for the soul, because I dare say Lenka cooked with love. I experimented with the food a little, because I never let anyone tell me what I had been given to eat or drink :o) It’s another interesting way of exploring, and fun at the same time.

Fear of the dark

Now I’ll come back to the fear of the dark I mentioned. After just a few hours in the dark it was an amazing discovery for me that the darkness is safe, and I started to feel good in it. Perhaps it was because the space was enclosed and locked. I felt as if the darkness had wrapped me in its embrace and my fear went away. Even now I perceive darkness differently; for instance, when I go to bed in the evening and close my eyes, a feeling of safety and calm runs through me, the one I felt during my stay in the cabin.

From my experience I can’t say I went through any unpleasant moments. It’s more a fear of the unknown, of what might happen. I had two dreams that made no sense to me at all and were so unpleasant in feeling that I woke from them with a nasty sensation, almost fear. The truth is that after about three days I started asking myself “Why am I here, and do I really need to put myself through this?” But that’s probably a kind of transitional period you have to go through.

What did I do during my dark retreat?

I personally enjoyed my dark retreat, rather than there being anything life-changing that woke me up to life and awareness. I think this is very individual and everyone experiences their darkness completely differently. It depends on the phase of life each of us is in, and personally I think that any therapy or other sessions undertaken before going into the dark have a positive effect on how the first dark retreat unfolds. By that I mean longer-term work on yourself.

I did a lot of evaluating of my life there and, above all, I clarified what I want to go on doing in the future. Even though I’d known much of it before, somehow everything took on a kind of shape and it brought more calm into my life. For me it was an unconventional holiday, during which I slept a lot, did breathing exercises or some meditation, exercised or just thought. Not knowing the time, and having a great expanse of it, helped me become aware of myself and, above all, not to hurry anywhere.

The end of darkness therapy

Lastly, I’d like to describe my feelings after I came out of the cabin. It was Saturday and an absolutely beautiful, sunny day. I said goodbye to Lenka and Tomáš and decided to spend the day in Kutná Hora. Those first feelings I had were utterly unforgettable and strange. I felt as if I were from another planet, especially on returning among people. But it only takes a short while and you’re back to everyday normality. In that calm and contentment I enjoyed the whole day with myself, and I’ll remember it for a long time. The next day I spent the whole day with my family and I really have to say that I experienced an unbelievable happiness in that moment of being with them. For them it was a normal day, but I felt it very intensely and I felt happy.

It was interesting to observe everything that happened the following week, or rather how much a person can get done in a week. It gave me the chance to compare the week in the dark with the week that followed my retreat. And somehow everything went well for me and came more easily :o)

To finish, I’d like to say that each of us should take more care about the hustle around us, other people’s worries, but also our own, so that the world doesn’t sweep us away too much. I realised that what weighs on me most are the complaints of the people around me, including the influence of the media, which I let into my life far too much. And yet in myself I’m content with who I am and with what I do and have. So it’s certainly good to do some meditation or spend a lot of time in nature, which is how I deal with it.

I hope that a few words from me might help someone decide to go on a dark retreat and make a change in their life. It is a change, certainly, and as I said, everyone experiences it differently. So there’s no need to look for an answer to what it will actually give me and how I’ll experience it there. We’re each at a different stage of life and each of us has a different nature. It’s also good not to expect too much from it! Let it do its own work, and let’s not keep trying to control everything, as we so often do in this hurried world.

Thank you to the Darkness and to the Roud family.

Pavla