10 days of meditation, and they gave me

In this article I want to talk about his 10-day meditation retreat, I took last spring. It seems to me that now is the time to talk about the results, as they have passed the test of time.

Everything that is written on is just my personal experience and does not purport to be complete and objective, as well as the personal experience of any other person.

I became interested in meditation about two years ago. The reason is simple - the older I got, the more sharply felt the stress of everyday work, and indeed of modern life. Also added fuel to the fire of personal expectations - "you have... years, and you have not achieved anything. At this age, Gates, Jobs was already... ".

As a result, I went constantly sullen, rude people, was very irritable, focused on the negative, sometimes enjoyed the fact that someone has something does not work... In a word, was a typical representative of modern society.

I understand that it should not be, and that such a state is not normal, even though it is ubiquitous. I have read several articles and a few books about meditation and began to try on their own. It was a question hard enough. I do not fully understand how and what to do and most of my meditation session was either dreaming or dremany session.

retreat

I started looking for a teacher, visited several schools in Kiev, but no I did not like. Some even looked like a sect, where asked to donate money is not clear on that, and the other teachers were even more nervous than I am, and unbalanced, that is alarming. In short, it's moving slowly and in a very understandable way.

Then I accidentally (?) Found the information on the meditative retreat near Kiev. I read the information on the website and I liked the point. I decided to try. In the extreme case, I was driving in my car, that at any moment could escape.

We arrived with his wife, met with organizers and settled in their rooms. Rules seemed at first very hard and even impossible:

1. Do not use the Internet, mobile phone, TV
2. Do not read or write
3. Do not talk
4. Do not go beyond the territory of the mansion
5. Do not listen to music, do not sing, do not exercise
6. Do not have sex (prudently wife and I settled on different buildings)
7. Not to harm living beings (mosquitoes can not be killed, but it was possible to catch and release on the street)
8. Do not use alcohol, drugs
9. For those who were not the first time, it was impossible to eat after 12 pm

At first I found the rules too strict. I thought to myself - "How do modern man can live 10 days without a mobile phone or the Internet?". I also did not understand the rule that one can not speak. Other rules also looked quite difficult feasible, and most still unclear. As an example, with exercise. But then it turned out that no one really does not watch over their execution - all is given to us for self-control. I was able to perform all of them, and then I realized why they were needed!

Full schedule and first scared - the rise at 4 am, many meditation sessions throughout the day... To my surprise, it was very easy to get up at this time.

In that pleasant surprise from the very first day, there was food - excellent vegetarian buffet... I remember right and drools. Incidentally, in everyday life, I also adhere to vegetarianism, but sometimes allow myself to eat some fish (sushi).

In short, before the course was more frightening than appealing. It seemed that I did not get to sustain such a schedule and following rules, but to give up easily, I also was not going to - it is necessary to test yourself.

A few hours later came a teacher, an Englishman. From the first moment he seemed very kind and open person. He gave meditation instruction and we have agreed to carry out the above rules. Thus began the course.

First meditation was given to me with great difficulty - I could not concentrate, my head swarmed thoughts, ill back and legs... At this point I realized that the brain is like a big-eared pit: constantly wandering, restless, contaminated ...

By the way, you can test yourself and become better acquainted with the reality of his mind. Take a pen, put on any timer counter for two minutes, and during those two minutes, try to think only about this particular pen. Only 2 minutes. True, it is surprising to realize that you do not control your brain. He constantly jumping, spreads, it is constantly fly any unwanted thoughts, expectations, thinking about the future or the past... So it was with me.

But over time, quite a drop, slowly, my mind began to calm down, learn to concentrate and do what I wanted. And then I realized the appointment of strict rules - their only objective was to protect us from sailing external information that could prevent the practice and re-alarm brain. Whatever it was meditation, if you call every day your employees? All the rules were designed to calm the brain and does not give him the new information that he could begin to digest.

By the 6th day of my meditation became magnificent. I started to feel happy, the brain became calm and concentrated. All my problems have found an easy and effective solution. It seemed that I was so happy the first time such a long time. Despite the fact that we woke up at 4 am, I was full of physical strength and felt rested. Even I had the feeling of a unity and harmony with all others. It was a wonderful, unforgettable experience.

My wife was not able to fulfill all the rules - at the end of the course she slipped and used up half of the notebook of poems for children. While it is very these never worked, and then she did it with ease, without thinking about the words and rhyme - all went as though by itself.

Return to the city

The course ended and it was time to return to his everyday reality. After the course I have 3 hours could not remember how to properly drive a car. Well, it was Sunday, and then I could do something bad things on the road.

whether the results remained after I returned to Kiev and back to work? Partially. Now I regularly practice meditation at home, in the park, waiting for their turn in the clinic... I was able to effectively deal with the protracted problems that constantly gnaw me earlier. Anyway, I became somehow more sensitive, he began as a spontaneous help people around the world began to see and feel a part of it. He became somehow more relaxed ...

Real life

It helps me in everyday life. Yes, I got rid of all the problems, but I also can sometimes flare up. But it is much more rare, and I now I'm not hard to see it at the time when this happens, stop it and apologize for his behavior.

But that did not have any high expectations, I want to say that meditation is not something where the red pill, which once adopted, and everything went well. This is the way. The path, which requires effort and perseverance. But I'm sure many of you would like to feel more calm, poised and balanced. And it seems to me that this is the perfect tool to achieve this.

Perhaps after reading this article, you will think that he wrote her a guy with dreadlocks in a long white robe. This is not true. At the moment I held senior positions in several companies related to Internet projects and Internet marketing. I live in Kiev, and not somewhere in the mountains. I have a wife and son. I'm not a hermit, and not a fanatic. I tried this tool and it gives me results that justify spent his time and energy.

It seems to me that this is one of the best life hacking, which I have tried over the last few years.