[Some background – not mandatory reading]
I've been through a lot of stuff (m, 30). Because of serious self-esteem issues I ended up a loner and not performing well in school. I was quite unhappy, struggled (and still do) socially, felt out of place a lot. Because of bad performance and lack of motivation I ended up at the lowest educational level we have in my country. Long story short, I started to wake up and realise this is not what I wanted my life to be at some point. Got interested in psychology, mainly to fix my own issues as is so often the case. I decided it’s what I wanted to study and started working towards that, even though it seemed unreachable at the time. I went into therapy as well and have been on and off to this day. At some point along the way I also discovered all kinds of other practices, from meditation to self-inquiry, diary writing, free association, dream interpretation, what have you. I think I grew through all of it, and I also ended up finishing my MSc. in psychology last year. I’ve been looking for a job ever since, but it’s admittedly been half-heartedly as I haven’t been sure what I truly wanted for the longest time. I’ve had ideas about wanting to get away from society before, but they always felt like running, like fear, like my own issues essentially – and (as I contemplated being a Buddhist monk and living in a monastery) also not like a genuine path, like I was attempting to be something, identify with something. This seems to be changing now. I’ve been doing a lot of self-exploration again lately, and the more I do, the crazier this way of life in the west looks to me. I’m not saying all of society is bad and retreating is some panacea. Not at all. But I do feel more genuinely called to it at the moment. Like it is something I want or need to explore. To face my demons, so to speak, to really live, to learn to be at peace with myself in my own way and not some prescribed way. I don’t want to look back on my life and feel like I have lived a life directed by fear. Now, again, the retreating part is not necessarily saying that this is the only right way to live. There are good ways to live as part of society and contributing to it in a positive way. It is simply that at this point in my life I feel I need to retreat into myself, to come out at the other end and be more fully myself. I think when I can achieve this goal of being more fully myself, I can also contribute most fully what I am here to contribute (which I don’t know what that is yet).
[Main question]
Now for the question… I want to find a way to, for probably a couple of years, retreat into mostly solitude. It is not that I don’t want any human interaction. I just want to be able to spend most of my time alone. Meditating, writing, reflecting, exploring. I can imagine there might be possibilities like a ‘work away’ where I offer my help in any way I can for a couple of hours every day, and in return get some basic food and accommodation (preferably some sort of cabin, but anything will do). And maybe there are other possibilities that I haven’t thought of yet. Has anyone done any sort of long term retreat and can share their experience? Can anyone offer ideas of the possibilities that might be out there somewhere? I’m not really bound to a specific location. Europe would be easiest, but I’m open to basically the whole world.
Submitted January 03, 2018 at 08:10AM by 131318535 http://ift.tt/2CKj3r3
