QUIET MODE
Candice Lake embraces protecting her peace
If faced with the choice of a luxurious week in the Maldives or a five-night silent retreat with single beds, mundane chores and a shared, freezing bathroom, I will choose the silent retreat every time. Driven by a perpetual quest for perfection, I love my job as a photographer. It’s amid a busy photoshoot that I feel most in my element. I am also a mother of three. At work, I’m always cool, calm and in control, but increasingly I found myself losing my patience with my kids, to the point of thinking I need some help.
A few friends suggested I try mushrooms or an ayahuasca ceremony, but I’m way too much of a control freak for that. Then I stumbled on silent retreats. The idea of being in the middle of nowhere and not having to speak for six days terrified me, but it also felt like the pause button I had been craving.
For five nights, 20 strangers will live together in total silence, meditating four hours a day. The bathroom I share with two other retreatants
(which feels more alarming to me than losing my phone) is absolutely freezing.
For the first two days as we sit together, meditate together and eat together in silence, literally everything and everyone annoys me.
I want to scream. In the afternoon, we venture out into the forest for a silent group walk. Everyone begins to walk so slowly, stopping to hug a tree or regard the leaves on the ground. After 10 minutes of this, I storm ahead in a huff and get lost in the forest for three hours. After the feelings of embarrassment and fear that I may end up sleeping in the forest subside, I try to work out what has happened and why these people I don’t know anything about have given me such an intensely visceral reaction. The thing about a silent retreat is that you have nothing to distract you from your incredibly noisy internal world.
On the second morning,
I decide I am going to throw myself in and to do the suggested walking meditation. Before we set off, our meditation guide tells us to “imagine that each step you take is the first step you’ve ever taken”. It is such a simple suggestion, but it is here, walking at a glacial pace, that I have my first glimpse into an enlightened state. The feeling of euphoria is something I haven’t felt since my days on the dance floor in the early noughties.
As the days go by, I feel my edges softening. On the fourth day, we start a guided hour meditation with the mantra “strong back, soft front”. It is through this meditation that I realise I have been going about life all wrong. I think of my children and weep. All the lost time being busy trying to be perfect and forgetting to just sit with them doing nothing much at all. I think of myself and all the mothers out there comparing ourselves to an impossible standard that no-one is measuring up to, and I weep. Of course, I am burnt out. I was brought up to believe that strength and success come from being perfect and stoic. I can see that it’s women like me who’ve peddled the myth that you can have it all, this illusion (in the form of perfect tiny squares) that we can breeze through big life events as if nothing much has happened.
A few days after returning from the retreat, I notice people randomly smile at me. I go to my local café and the barista gives me a free latte, because “my smile made his day”. It’s in these moments of the mundane that I realise the silent retreat and the daily practice of meditating is just the formal practice, setting you up for the real practice – everyday life. This is why I will always choose a silent retreat over the Maldives because wherever you go, there you are. You can’t run from yourself, no matter the thread count of the sheets or the view from your room. I’ll always take the experience that gets me closer to myself.
“I FOUND MYSELF LOSING MY PATIENCE WITH MY KIDS, TO THE POINT OF THINKING I NEED SOME HELP”