RISING RISING, FALLING FALLING

2016 was the year I decided to deepen my practice through silent retreat. For the 13 years prior, I had an on and off daily meditation practice that began after an 8 year struggle with an eating disorder. I found peace through a Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) program. This practice helped me to connect to a body I had disconnected from for so long. It felt so freeing to be able to feel a feeling, without becoming the feeling. To notice subtle sensations in the body. To not be so afraid of myself. At this stage, meditation gave me my life back. It allowed me to travel the world, work fulfilling careers, and want to teach others how to do the same through a yoga and meditation practice.My year of retreats began with a 5 day Vipassana, based on Mahasi Sayadaw's labelling technique from the Theravadan Buddhist lineage. It was intense, challenging, powerful and insightful.

I left feeling more peaceful, but also had begun to experience a ‘tic’ in my body. I thought it was happening because I was dosing off during a sit, but when I would check in with myself, I wouldn’t feel lethargic. I never mentioned it and didn’t think it was of concern. An 8 day silent retreat followed, based on a lighter style of the Zen tradition. It consisted of shorter sits and walking, less rigidity, and felt nourishing. 3 months later I entered a Burmese Forest Monastery in Myanmar for their annual 60 day retreat. This Theravada Buddhist tradition of Satipatthana Vipassana from the Mahasi Sayadaw method, emphasizes abdominal breathing and continuity of mental alertness, through noting of mental and physical objects as they arise moment to moment. Within the first few days my body began an intense physical purge, I experienced deep states of concentration, began hallucinating and experiencing visions of what I can only describe as past traumas resurfacing. I experienced myself transforming into a bird and an extremely dark disturbing figure, I felt sensations in my brain that almost felt like it was being reprogrammed, and each time I vocalized these disturbances to the monks – I was just told to return to the practice.We were encouraged to sit through intense pain. During one sit, I stayed with the pain until I almost couldn’t bare it and then something in my system split. I saw a vision of molecules separating into thousands of pieces as the pain disappeared.

The next time I sat, my body began to move in ways I had never experienced before. My shoulder would pull back and down almost adjusting itself, my chest would lift, my head would turn from side to side, and my body would sway. The sensations would become so intense it was almost as if something was trying to make its way out of me as it thrashed my body in all different directions. With these physical experiences came more visions, voices, paranoia, I began having trouble walking and holding my limbs in place. All of my senses were incredibly heightened. I felt in some ways I was having profound insight about life and the nature of dis-ease, but also something felt terribly wrong. As a yoga teacher, health care professional and energy medicine worker – everything that I had learned, studied and practiced began to make more sense, but as the physical disturbances would rush through me with such a violent force I began to fear for my life. The mental health states I began to experience were terrifying. I cried a lot. Everything became dark and depressing.

I approached the head nun several times to ask what was happening to me. I vocalized the physical intensity of my practice, how I was scared to close my eyes and how these experiences were continuing off of the cushion and in my sleep. I was advised to sleep on my right side as “the Buddha always slept on his right side” and that we were working with “Ultimate Reality.” I was told I would be able to go back to my “Conventional Reality” with no problems. I was told nothing seemed out of the ordinary and I should return to the practice. I had lost trust in these teachers and began to perform my sits in child’s pose to avoid these violent physical experiences. I wondered what I was supposed to do – stay for the remainder of retreat hoping things would get better? Leave, not knowing if I was mentally stable enough to take care of myself in a foreign country?

After another disturbing night, I chose to leave, after 24 days. In what I now understand to be a traumatized and dissociated state, I arrived at the airport and found my way back to Canada, making my way through 5 different countries airports over the course of 35 hours on Christmas Eve. I did everything in my power to control my body from moving involuntarily and not have a complete breakdown in the state I was in. I have no idea how I managed this. But I have deep trust in my systems resilience after that. I thought I had just done something wrong and failed at meditation.

I reached out to a former teacher for support. He shared similar experiences and assisted me in finding safety in my body again. He began to speak out about the darker sides of practice. By validating my experience, I believe he saved me from myself in those dark and confusing times post retreat. The ripple effect of the retreat left me depersonalized, disregulated, depressed, traumatized, with suicidal thoughts, confused, and to this day I still experience involuntary movements. Willoughby Britton’s work and dedication to researching and spotlighting the adverse experiences that exist in contemplative practice is so important.

We need to open the doors to speaking about the emotional first aid necessary in dealing with these deeper states of practice and the consequences and effects they can have on our systems. Through unlearning these disciplined practices of intense concentration, I have learned how to properly take care of my systems and what they are asking of me in order to stay regulated. I have learned deep compassion for myself and I have also learned that I am not alone in my struggles and that my story needed to be told in order to help others.

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