Your Zero-Cost Silent Retreat

During COVID I finally had enough. It wasn’t the lack of travel that got to me, nor was it the virtual office environment. No, for me COVID marked the beginning of an onslaught of digital coping. My days were filled with incessant Youtube scrolling and vicious Wikipedia rabbit holes. I knew if I didn’t do something soon I’d start to resemble one of those humans in Wall-e.

Beyond resisting the lure of my devices, I wanted to dive head-deep into a solution. I kept hearing about silent retreats — fascinated with the concept but unable to peace out on my other half and precocious toddler. So after some experimenting, I came up with a strategy to create stillness moments. I called it the Stillness Diet, and I use it every New Year to help reorient my mindfulness practice.

In this article, you’ll learn how to structure your very own Stillness Diet to meet your needs and desired outcome. So give your phone one last loving swipe and read on.

How to Prepare

Imagine your End State: You want to have a vision of where you want to end up before you begin. As Robert Fritz likes to tell us, what you want in life is far more significant than what you don’t want. So take a moment or two and envision where you want to be at the end of the Stillness Diet. Describe this inner state. Do you move peacefully through the day, having a sense of comfort in your own skin? Are you in tune with your natural surroundings and the people you share your life with? Think about it or write it out, but don’t skip this very important step. Envisioning your end goal creates the right amount of tension to propel you to success.

Timing: New Year, your birthday, “Stillness February,” this very moment — the start date on the diet is up to you. Because it constitutes a new way of living, you should spend time making it as meaningful as possible. I would recommend picking a time that doesn’t involve a lot of socialization. The idea is to allow yourself a reprieve and a deep commitment to bringing stillness into your life. But unlike a Silent Retreat, you won’t be removed FROM your life, you will be in it. So don’t use this as an opportunity to pawn off responsibilities. The idea is to move through these experiences with a still frame of mind.

Length of Time: I usually recommend newbies stick to the diet for one week. This is enough time to work through some blockages and sense your own energy. If you’ve done this with me before, explore four to six weeks. There are no awards for “going big,” and remember that Stillness Diet can spark some very messy emotions, so start small.

Support: It’s always helpful to have a buddy on a diet, don’t you think? Enlist help by inviting family and friends along the way. This will help you with the emotional support you’ll need and could help you stick to the diet itself. Pick up books that will inspire you along the way. I recommend Cal Newport’s Digital Minimalism and the classic Power of Now to keep you motivated.

Reflection Time: This isn’t a hard and fast rule, but it helps to either journal or talk out your experiences with the diet. By journaling or having a buddy to talk to, you can more easily work out how things are going. This goes without saying, but make sure you are using a hand-written journal, no devices on the diet!

Let the Retreat Begin!

Now that we’ve laid the groundwork it’s time to outline some tenants to live by during your diet. These aren’t hard and fast rules, but suggestions for going deep into stillness. Remember, start slow, journal frequently, and be open to the experience.

Stillness Tenant #1: Monotask Whenever Possible

This is the first step of the Stillness Diet and quite frankly the hardest. By monotasking, we embrace what is right in front of us. How often have you sat down to watch a TV show and then instinctively glanced at your phone? It happens to me more than I care to admit. But attempting to do two things at once you do neither well.

Let’s explore why this happens. Your attention is energy. A good example of this is when you know someone is watching you from across the room. Humans are powerful creatures, and how we direct our energy is hugely important.

When one multitasks that attention is diverted. It goes, not to the task at hand, but to several. Simply put, multitasking is a way to numb. It’s a way to step out of the present moment in pursuit of a “goal” whether that be having a clean house, being productive at work, etc. When we multitask, it scratches that itch that is in all of us to escape from what we are doing NOW.

But what is the purpose of doing things? Goals, indeed, but how similar is your multitasking to a hamster on a wheel, running, running, running with nowhere to go? The emails still pile up, don’t they? Just like the laundry, and the dishes, and the bills, and . . . you can get lost in thinking that attending to these things makes you a productive member of society. That’s what we are taught, right? Do the “right” things. Have the right house, job, car, boyfriend, child, etc. But these things are not virtuous in and of themselves.

What if you were here, really here? Right now. What if you did one thing and actually enjoyed doing it? I hear you already.

“I’ll never enjoy laundry, thanks.”

“Oh, so I’m supposed to ENJOY the traffic jam, whatever.”

“I love my podcasts! I listen to them all day!”

Look at the attitude behind these objections (which come from me, by the way). There is anxiety behind them, even a little fear. What happens when everything goes silent, and you can’t make yourself feel differently than your life situation? When you are stuck in traffic or have to clean your house. It’s that sinking feeling of discomfort, which can grow stronger the longer you put it off. By multitasking, we alleviate these feelings, if only for a moment.

But that remedy is becoming a larger part of the problem. So here we tackle your first challenge in attempting to embrace monotasking, by eliminating all other distractions.

Stillness Tenant #2: Eliminate/Limit All Digital Content

You guessed it, this part of the Stillness Diet requires you to remove most digital intake from your daily life. It should include everything on your
“daily” list, down to the last scroll, Google search, and Tweet. Obviously, if your job is social media content manager, that won’t be possible. However, you will be surprised with how much time you can free up by axing your Daily Mail addiction.

As this is the hardest part of the diet, I recommend fully abstaining from as much as you can for the entirety of the diet.

This includes, but is not limited to: podcasts, streaming services, music, television, social media, news sites, email, text messaging, etc.

So basically unless it’s a book it’s out. But even with books, be careful how much time you spend with your nose in one. The idea is to remove those items that bring you away from the present moment. If that is a book for you, then abstain.

Note that these are suggestions and not rules. If you “need” to text to arrange daycare, talk to your boss, etc. then you should do those things. The point is to remove almost all visual/auditory content to reset the brain.

Stillness Tenant #3: Limit/Eliminate Screen Time

You knew this was coming, right? Yup, hand it over. During the Stillness Diet, your battery should last a really LONG time. This is because you will not be using your phone frequently. How severely you restrict phone use is up to you. I go for a 3x check-in, and on the weekends I power it off when not in use. Your diet may look different from mine, and that’s fine.

Your phone is a manifestation of all that is the worldly you. It is your perception of who you are–from the lock screen to the apps on the home screen. What is the best indicator that your phone is your ego? The way you CLING to it, and frantically lose your temper when you are either denied it, cannot find it, etc. You take it with you everywhere, it tells you how to get places, and it answers every random question that pops into your mind. Your phone distracts you from conversations, it interrupts movies. It’s basically the worst friend you’ve ever had.

Nothing is a coincidence. Not your toddler’s spilled milk (on the couch, of course) or the traffic jam, or the pimple or . . . you get my drift. We try and avoid so much of life by numbing ourselves with the “refresh” button on our apps. But there is far more relevance to your mission in life than any update can provide you.

By tapping into the moment, you unlock that awakening. By engaging, rather than ignoring the things that so often derail our moods you judo-mind trick yourself into your life’s deeper meaning. You can more easily get through daily struggles by noticing instead of fighting them. By letting them be, and accepting them, you’ll find a peace that surpasses all understanding. This is is true mindfulness.

There is no greater gift than releasing yourself from the obligation to control everything around you. There is no bigger challenge than catching the thread of why you are on this earth. It’s like flying a kite. Is being bored hard? Is scrolling Instagram and checking and re-checking your text messages funner? Sure, but the rewards are far more exciting than any Twitter feed. I promise you that if you learn to disassociate from your ego aka. your phone, you will get to the heart of your life’s questions way faster. That’s wisdom you can take to the bank, years of your life you can save from being depressed, anxious, and overwhelmed.

Photo by Fallon Michael on Unsplash

Stillness Tenant #4: Frequent the NOW

If you’ve made it this far you know that a full cup can’t receive. You’ve begun the process of emptying. You’ve let go (hopefully) of your digital devices, and you’ve embraced monotasking. I find that these two steps, without anything else, can create serious improvements in people’s lives. But let’s go further.

To truly appreciate where you are in life, it helps to understand that all you really need is provided in the present moment. Obtaining what you want is no more mysterious than going to the fridge for a snack. By being in tune with what’s going on right now you can better detect those signals.

As you embark on the Stillness Diet, go about your day attempting to remain in contact with whatever is happening all around you.

When you have moments of boredom or listlessness, challenge yourself to become fully present. There is something happening at every moment. Nothing is truly “boring” because there is so much packed in our universe.

I love this part of the diet because it’s one of the few “feel good” parts of the process. When was the last time, since Kindergarten, you were asked to really witness the world around you?

The universe speaks to us in various ways, and I find if I’m really paying attention, I start to notice coincidences and idiosyncrasies that relate directly to what I’m experiencing.

When (not if) you Relapse

Though I’ve been on the Stillness Diet multiple times, I’m amazed by how quickly things can backpedal once I slip. In one memorable case, I went on vacation right in the middle of my Stillness Diet. I multi-tasked with abandon and picked up the phone from the time I woke up until the time I slept. I clicked on articles, watched Youtube, and lived in the Wikipedia rabbit hole. The day after I got back, I had a routine work situation that turned into a full-on anxiety cycle. I was up in the middle of the night, worrying. I developed a fear of a rare illness, which I began Googling. In short, I relapsed hard. Once I had a moment to reassess everything, I realized what had happened. Can I prove that getting off the diet had anything to do with this? No, but I do know I was trending just fine before then. Relapses happen, but don’t let them discourage you. Get back on the wagon and finish strong.

So that’s it. You have the tenants of the Stillness Diet. Nothing is standing in your way. Remember, it’s only a week, and by clearing all that crap out, you pave the way for phase two, which is when the magic happens. Until then — stay still, my friends.