A friend of mine mentioned dark retreats. I hadn’t heard from him in ages, and out of nowhere he started coming out with all these big ideas. Suddenly the conversation turned to darkness therapy. I liked the sound of it, and I started toying with the idea just for a laugh and floating it past my girlfriend to see how she’d react.
My girlfriend wasn’t too keen on my dark retreat
Her reaction to the dark retreat wasn’t very positive. Then all of a sudden the thought came and I signed up. The date wasn’t until May, but I wanted to go sooner. I could feel a crisis coming and a need to rest and be alone with myself. An e-mail arrived saying a date had come free in March. Tension. Stress. I couldn’t sleep or concentrate on work. Nerves. Huge ones. I was looking forward to it, but at the same time I was terrified. I kept wanting to get out of it somehow. In the end I plucked up the courage and went. A week before, I stopped dealing with e-mails and phone calls and started preparing myself mentally. Two days before, I switched my phone off and it was just me and my girlfriend.
I was scared to start the dark retreat
I was terrified of switching off the light, I didn’t know what I would do. Someone who works with people every day, makes calls, talks. And suddenly he’s alone, can’t see, can’t hear and has almost nothing around him. The first day I was fine, a wash as usual and off to bed. The first night I slept. The following days I could hardly get to sleep, I had horrible dreams, images kept appearing in front of me, someone was frightening me, I heard sounds and so on…it kept building up and got worse and worse.
The wait for food kept getting longer
The time between waking up, going to have breakfast and then waiting for the next meal got longer and longer, and I didn’t know what to do. It was soul-destroying. DARKNESS. YOU DON’T HEAR. YOU DON’T SEE, you hardly speak. It was like that until Tuesday, and then suddenly I started living my life. I saw myself being born, nursery, school, my first loves, family. But mostly all the bad situations in my life that I’d c*cked up or done wrong, and you wanted to live through them again. Without anger. Without resistance. Let them pass through the body. The pressure in my head kept building.
And I didn’t end the dark retreat until Saturday
Lots of things have changed..not STRAIGHT AWAY, but it’s coming naturally. Someone or something inside tells me what to do and how to do it. If you don’t want to do something, don’t. I do more things from the heart and I do things I wouldn’t have done before. Even if it makes you money, there’s no point. Don’t do it (someone tells me inside). Don’t chase after everything at any cost. Live!! Don’t stare at your phone, talk to people. Enjoy every moment. Love. Forgive. Be honest. My negotiating position has changed. I’ve gained more self-confidence in certain things. I treat my girlfriend differently, better. I’m better with my family too. I communicate with them differently, and lots of other new things. I’m more patient, I’m calmer. I talk to people more. Openly. I’ve become aware of lots of things I didn’t notice before the retreat.
And now I don’t even know any more, I’ve got so into it that I’m getting lost in it. It’s not like an article about a dark retreat, more like feedback for you, Tom and Leni.
All the best, Michal
