Day 178: The Vipassana Experience – Into The Deep

As you know, I have been having progressively worse nightmares each night while on this trip. Each day and each night another layer of my “onion” has been peeled away. Deeper and deeper down the rabbit hole I go.

Before I continue sharing though, I want to premise the remainder of this post with this…not everyone’s experience will be like mine. Every life is different and so too will be the experiences within it. So if you are scared of going to the retreat after I tell you all of what I went through, don’t be. You won’t have the same experiences. Just go with an open mind. You will surely find the rainbow at the end of the storm…if indeed you actually encounter one. It just happened to be that I did, and this is what it looked like.

It was on the seventh day that I went into the deep dark abyss of the underlying everything. After my latest nightmare I woke up crying, visibly shaken and wanting out of whatever the hell I got myself into. I was scared and oddly enough felt alone amongst people. My nightmares were no longer just nightmares; they became vivid memories of my past. It was in the night that I got to know the deepness of the dark within, and met face to face with my painful past…sexual abuse as a kid and rape at 18. Momentarily reliving it frightened me; however, if Vipassana got me here, surely it would also walk me out.

What I didn’t realize was that the simple act of breathing and getting in touch with the sensations of my own body would create such an enormous impact on me, but it did. It makes total sense too. I have been out of touch with it since I was about five. So getting back in touch with it and learning to bring myself back to the present moment, the here and now, was actually a big deal. Up until this point I have led an escapist’s life in a world of daydreams, fantasy and out of body experiences…all forms of disconnection with reality and what is actually occurring in the moment; also known as not being present. While it served its purpose in times when I needed it most to temporarily disconnect from what was going on, what I didn’t realize was that I never stopped doing it. Even with the threat removed, my former “escape” eventually became habitual and a hindrance. I was a prisoner of my own mind and in constant flight mode from anything that could possibly be deemed a threat. I was on auto-pilot, without even knowing why I was doing what I was doing. It reminds of the saying, “It’s not the devil you know, it’s the devil you don’t”.

And the learning didn’t stop there. The process also uncovered one of my relationship patterns of why I keep getting involved with the same characters I do…often ones who hurt or take advantage of me. Sound familiar? If you didn’t catch it, it is a repeat pattern of the first occurrence. Like a broken record, I have been stuck on “repeat” ever since.

But you know what? Awareness is the first step to change, and for that I am grateful. Now that I know what I know, it no longer has to be this way. I no longer have to be an unconscious slave to my own mind, creating my own misery. I can simply walk out. That’s it.

No doubt about it, Day 7 was definitely the hardest and most unpleasant of my days at the retreat, but it also possessed my greatest gifts within. And true to the essence of Vipassana and what I learned there, I am living the lessons of impermanence. Change is inevitable, and already my life has taken on a whole new direction.

If you choose, yours can too.