Category: Participants’ experiences

Darkness. It accepted me just as I am, with all my fears, doubts and uncertainties. It didn’t judge me or assess me; it quietly and calmly wrapped me in itself and patiently showed me one fear after another, for as long as it took me to understand that they aren’t mine at all.

And then, just as quietly and calmly, it took those fears away from me. And so, thanks to the darkness, light finally spread through me.

I feel peace, gratitude and love. For the darkness, for the world, for myself.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Pavla stayed with us in July and agreed to share how she herself saw her dark retreat.

My first dream in the dark

I found myself with my partner and a friend in an Indian restaurant, where at first I thought I had already finished my dark retreat, but I soon realised that wasn’t the case and started thinking about how I’d sneak back during the night, above all so that nobody would know I’d been away…

Now and then I had the feeling I could see red and white lights.

Eating spaghetti during darkness therapy is great fun

Mainly because you can’t see it, and when you think you’ve got at least one strand of spaghetti wound round your fork, wrong, you haven’t… and when you finally have, you get your chin thoroughly greasy putting the fork in your mouth, because the spaghetti is dangling off the fork, but you can’t see that 😀

Lenka’s cooking for darkness therapy is excellent, and your taste buds are sure to be satisfied; you’ll enjoy everything she cooks and bakes for you.

Sounds during the dark retreat

I really welcomed the sounds from outside, because they let me tell day from night.

For the last two days there was no work on the house being built nearby, so it was almost silent – long days for thoughts and Faster EFT

Daybreak after darkness therapy

On Saturday, a wake-up call at 4 in the morning at dawn, with a clear sky and a full moon shining straight onto the sanctuary door, and sunrise about an hour later, which I really … really … enjoyed.

Sharing my week of darkness therapy may come out a bit clumsy, so I’ll start from the beginning.

Who am I?

My name is Lucie and I’m from Hradec Králové.
I’m a mother of two children, a wife, my parents’ first daughter, a sister to two younger brothers.

But what does that say about me?

What am I like? Am I kind, caring, strong? Everyone expects something from me, just as I expected things from them. The expectations are so strong that we reinforce them with words like “That’s just not normal”, “This is simply how it’s done”, “That isn’t done”. But all those expectations only make sure that we lose ourselves.

I had lost myself

I realised I was living everyone else’s life: breakfast ready in the morning, taking the children to school, doing the shopping for my parents. It isn’t that I didn’t like doing it, it’s that I was doing it to meet other people’s expectations … and in doing so I lost myself, I lost my identity and I was living other people’s lives.

Thanks to darkness therapy I found myself

It’s a miracle, thank you that after so many years I could finally see clearly that all my life I had only been giving or meeting expectations, and I hadn’t been living my own life at all. A week-long dark retreat was enough for me to see that I’m the one trying to be the good one, that I’m the one who has expectations, that I’m the source of it all. It doesn’t matter at all what other people expect or think, what matters is what I think they expect and what I think they think.

Thank you once again for the darkness therapy, and I wish everyone peace of mind.

Today, after 7 nights, I finally crawled out of the sanctuary set aside for darkness therapy.

I had been looking forward so much to finishing my darkness therapy, but in the end I found I was nervous about looking at the world again. After all, when I first walked into the darkness therapy sanctuary, it was something new for me. After 7 days I knew the sanctuary, I had got to know it bit by bit, and now I’m supposed to leave my comfort zone all over again?

Enough darkness therapy, out into the world!

Phew, I did it and I’m really outside. If you would like to go through your own birth again, when everything seems new to you, pay the sanctuary a visit – darkness therapy is just the thing for you. The whole world is new to me. I caught myself just staring at a tree behind the sanctuary for half an hour 🙂

“Maruš, relax, this happens here all the time,” the guide reassures me 🙂

What brought me to darkness therapy?

I caught myself realising that my life was hurtling downhill like an avalanche. I wasn’t even sure whether it was my fault, fate’s or my relatives’. I just got up in the morning and looked forward to the evening, when I could collapse into bed and fall into a coma.

Today it’s different, though. After that week of “rest” I can see that it’s far more important to live every moment, to be here and now.

Thank you so much for the darkness therapy, and I’m sure we’ll meet again some day.

Marie, Liberec

I would like to share with you the story of Vladimír Böhm, who went on his own dark retreat.

It is a state in which, deep down, you are alone with yourself. All kinds of questions come to you. There are no distractions such as television, a mobile phone, a computer or music playing. None of that. Perhaps that sounds frightening to you. Perhaps you’re not used to it, because you can’t even fall asleep without the TV or the radio on? Maybe that’s why you have neither the time nor the opportunity to think about yourself. Which is exactly what a dark retreat makes possible. Don’t be afraid of it, because, believe it or not, this retreat can turn your life around for the better.

About Mr Böhm’s dark retreat

In his article he writes about how he rested and on the third day received a vision. It came while he was pondering his future life. What he would do next. And he spoke these words: “I want to live only by what fulfils me and what I enjoy.”

He would like to share the thoughts that come to him with people who are on the same spiritual path. So he said to himself: I will build a place where people with the same values in life will meet, and where everyone will be on the same wavelength. That was the vision that came to him during his dark retreat.

He planned how he would hold various gatherings there, healing treatments in a pyramid, meditations, lectures, exercise classes and dark retreats. In short, everything that would support their spiritual development and better relationships with one another, and act as a driving force for it.

He goes on to say in his post that he used to get on fine with the city, but now nature appeals to him more. He is tired of the ever-rising housing costs. And who isn’t, wouldn’t you agree?

Darkness therapy for new visions

Not long ago I had the chance to watch a video on YouTube with Mr Dušek about the “Earthship” project, a self-sufficient house connected only to nature. It doesn’t depend on mains water or electricity.

And Mr Böhm came up with something similar, a house that isn’t dependent on energy supplies and public utilities. That’s unique! Society is starting to head in a slightly different direction, with the realisation that the way we live isn’t something to be taken entirely for granted. And if you do the maths on how much we pay in bills today and how much we will pay in a few years, with prices going up every year… Work it out for yourself.
The sums are unbelievably huge.

And these are the kinds of amazing thoughts that can come to you in the dark and set your life off in the right direction. I know lots of people around me who would like to start a business of some kind, but are still groping around for what it should be. Bear in mind that on a dark retreat the most amazing ideas can come to you.

article source: vladimirbohm.cz
written by: Romča

I went into the dark and did darkness therapy because I simply didn’t know which way to turn any more.

Tomáš Roud – moving into the cabin

The map was fine, so I found the place without any trouble.
Arriving surprised me – the silence was amazing.

We quickly got to know each other and then it was off to the cabin.
I asked for the cassette player to be taken away, and just to be safe I unplugged all the lamps, just in case.

The first days of the dark retreat

I basically slept through the first 2 days. It’s amazing to watch your body shift down into “out of gear” speed.
On the third day my friend fear turned up and stayed with me right to the end.

Getting used to the cabin – where the toilet was, the shower and so on – was no trouble at all.
You learn to find your way around a 3×3 metre space very quickly 😀

What went on inside during darkness therapy

Because all you see is black, you start turning your gaze inwards.
That is, if I leave aside the possible illusion that I could even see my own hands.

What the dark retreat gave me

I’m very grateful for the experience and I’m already really looking forward to doing it again.
I had never seen the world so colourful. You wouldn’t believe how much more colourful the colours outside seem than they ever did before.

My name is Tomáš Roud and I have the honour of being your guide.