Structure Mindfulness Retreats for Both New and Experienced Meditators

Speaker 1 · 0:08Welcome to the Mindfulness Exercises Podcast, your space to deepen your presence, elevate your mindfulness teaching, and embody mindfulness with confidence, authenticity, and integrity. Join us as we explore insights and tools to transform lives, including your own. Welcome to the Mindfulness Exercises Podcast. My name is Sean Fargo, and today's episode is a really special one. It's drawn from a retreat that we hosted a few years ago where we invited participants from all around the world to come together to deepen their experiential understanding of mindfulness by sitting for several days all day in silent meditation together. During this retreat, we really deepened our practice and grew a lot by meeting each moment with this gentle awareness, meeting the joys and the bliss of a retreat as well as the challenges that inevitably come up. During this retreat, someone asked a thought-provoking question related to how the structure of a retreat relates to the participant's experience of mindfulness. So in this episode, I'll explore this topic and this question of retreat structure relating to the participant's experience of mindfulness, where I offer insights on how to tailor mindfulness practices for beginners as well as people who have a lot of experience under their belt. For people who are new to a retreat or whether they've done lots of retreats in the past. So without further ado, let's dive into this question.

Speaker 2 · 2:21When we think about structure, and you know, as we've talked about how much how much do we load it up or leave it organic, does the experience of the participant matter? You know, so I'm thinking like if I said this was an introductory retreat, you don't need to have any meditation experience, and then I come and it's like, okay, just sit here. I wonder whether that would be too, you know, people need, would they need some guidance at a beginning retreat or any thoughts on that? Like the type of audience you have?

Speaker 1 · 2:54Like how much does the previous experience matter?

Speaker 2 · 2:58Yeah, like if if I had an introductory retreat, day-long retreat, and said no experience with meditation required, does would you have a different kind of structure versus experienced practitioners only who are accustomed to just sitting?

Speaker 1 · 3:15Well, thank you for the question. I think it's it's an important question. In the case of say, for that example of like just sitting, and there's new practitioners or new people interested in the practice, whatever they think the practice is. I think that just a few sentences, a few basic sentences would be necessary, but it doesn't need to be more than a few sentences. It can be a lot more. But I think if you know, like if there's like a whiteboard or a piece of paper or something that outlines something so people can refer back to it, or like a bulletin board where you just write out like what we're doing, like gentle awareness of what's happening. If things get too overwhelming, please, you know, no, let me know or back off, or bring awareness to something that feels safe, noticing judgments as they arise, and then coming back to awareness of fill-in-the-blank body sensations, types of thoughts, thoughts of future, present, past, gentle awareness of emotions as they arise, being curious about how they feel in the body. Like it can be very basic instructions, and I think it's helpful to have like a bulletin board where they're listed out so that people are like, What are we doing again? You just read back bullet points, but that it doesn't need to be that much more, which is why I think pretty much anyone can learn how to teach mindfulness if they get those few bullet points down. There is a lot more nuance and complexity and depth that you can go into, but that you don't need much more than the basics, which is why, in the case that um so Spirit Rock had like introduction to mindfulness classes all the time. And I was there for all of them. And every time I learned so much. One of the beauties of mindfulness is that the teachings are the same, but the experience is always new. Whatever this experience is, is always changing. This experience now is unlike any other experience when you really sense into the fullness of it. So we're always changing. Like energies are always moving. You know, what's around us and what's going on in our lives and the emotions that we're carrying, always changing. The principles of mindfulness can be applied to whatever's happening now and now and now, so that even if you go to the same introduction to mindfulness class a thousand times, it's always going to be very different. And we all need reminders because, like, none of us have mastered this person, at least I haven't. You know, and Jack Cornfield would always say, if anyone here has mastered this, you can get your money back. Let me know. I I will be your student. So, in the case of sort of a simple, or maybe not simple, but like uh a day long where there's not much said, or if or if you're just recovered like reviewing the basics, anyone can go to those. Even you know, gurus or whatever, and it's still applicable.

Speaker 2 · 6:49Yeah.

Speaker 1 · 6:50Um yeah.

Speaker 2 · 6:52Thank you for that. I really appreciate that lens. You know, just I as you were saying it, I was thinking, oh, in my head, I'm thinking I have to control what happens for different groups. So then, as you said, you know, it just it every experience is an experience is worth putting up on my wall.

Speaker 1 · 7:11Totally.

Speaker 2 · 7:11Yeah. Thanks.

Speaker 1 · 7:13Yeah.

Speaker 3 · 7:14Yeah. And I had an experience that I just had recently with a brand new group. Um, they were all women that came, and some of the women came and they were, I'm gonna use the word really fearful. They were like, I've heard of meditation, I don't know if I can I and these are the comments I got, I can't calm my mind down for an hour. So this is kind of what they thought it was gonna be. So they're their minds that are just so incredibly busy and consumed, like you were talking about earlier, Sean, with all of the outside stimulus and family and and responsibilities, that even with the direction and the guidance, some of them would spiral into I'm doing it wrong, and which then compounded into I'm a failure, I'm not doing this, I'm not doing it right. So, from my experience, I think that little bit of instruction along the way was really valuable for them to just know that no, you are doing it right. This is just your busy, busy mind uh learning to be still. So, so for whatever that's worth, there were women that were really nervous who at the end of it were like, oh, this is really good. But it took a few goals for them, right, to trust that that's what they could do.

Speaker 1 · 8:38So yeah, yeah, to bring awareness to the inner critic, awareness to the scaries, the fear, the awareness that I think there's a right way and a wrong way. And like, what does that feel like? Like, what does that fear feel like? What do those scaries feel like? What does it feel like when you think it should be done a certain way? Like, where can you feel that in the body? What is that pressure? Where is that pressure in the body? Can I bring gentle awareness to that? Am I judging the pressure to be good? And many of those women are. Am I judging that pressure to feel to be bad? And many of those women are. So judgments, okay, judgment, good and bad. Can I be curious about the judgment? Can I bring gentle awareness? And um can I soften the judgment of the good and bad? Come to the actual experience of what this feels like. What does that pressure feel like? You know, and you can like, is this pressure familiar? Is this judgment familiar? Well, you know, in in that type of scenario, with um if that pressure um is very common, or the inner critic is very common, um, might be helpful like on a bulletin board or poster board or something to write out the tenets of self-compassion, the myths of self-compassion, examples of self-compassion of the inner critic, mindfulness to the inner critic. This is common and it's understandable. And you know, this is one of the things that um Jack Cornfield prefaces his teachings that you don't have to remember anything, you know, this practice is not a chore. We're not trying to get anything. And in a lot of the retreats I lead, you know, I'll say like just nowhere to go, nothing to do, no one to be. We don't have to, you know, I purposely came here today in a t-shirt. I normally wear a polo shirt, but today I wore a t-shirt to like partly convey that we're like shedding appearances. That's not about like presenting something per se. Like, I honestly like I was planning on wearing a baseball cap uh to like further get this point across, but then I remembered that um it's an old Buddhist habit I have. Like the Buddha said that um monks aren't allowed to teach the dharma wearing a hat. I'm not a monk, this isn't exactly dharma, but I I just felt weird about wearing a hat. There's an old thing, this old story of like some sage in India was wearing a hat, but he was like actually concealing a knife or something. And I've the story went out of control, but anyway, I was gonna wear a hat, but it felt like I was gonna betray my mom teachers. Anyway, my point is that we're we're not trying to be anyone or do anything or get anywhere, you know, and this this is something that can be discussed, you know, near the beginning or middle or end of a retreat, or quite frankly, any meditation session. You know, a retreat is basically just multiple meditation sessions. That's all it is. It's not like a fancy magical thing, it's just you're just being present for a little longer than you normally do. It's you know, that's basically it. And and so, like a couple years ago, we had a guest teacher, Corey Muscara, who's uh a wonderful person and a wonderful teacher and a dear friend of mine. But he there's a guest teacher workshop that you can go back in your teacher dashboards and see, like he's he talks about retreats and meeting retreats. So you can if this is at all at all interesting, you can go back to his workshop. But like one thing he said is like, if you know how to lead a meditation session, if you can talk about mindfulness for a little while, you can lead a retreat because it's just you know like connecting multiple sessions together. That's all it is. It is a little oversimplified because there are things that come up in a retreat that are that can be quite intense, and there's different ways of doing a retreat with different ground rules, and you know, an over overnight retreat can be complicated if you need someone on hand at the middle of the night, food and accommodations that can be challenging sometimes if you're not teaching at a retreat center where they're handling that for you. Or you know, what what do you do if you do in-person day longs two days in a row, but you're the only point of contact for 20 plus people? What happens if everyone's trying to come at you at the break? You know, people have different things coming up, then it's really helpful to have multiple points of contact, very clear ground rules, you know, like a pre-retreat information packet that they can review beforehand can be really helpful. Sometimes interviews before the retreat even happens, like a little 10-minute check-in, having a like a psychological evaluation survey to exclude people who may not be able to handle a retreat, or who think that the retreat is going to allow them to discontinue all their medication cold turkey right away. There, you know, so I'm oversimplifying by saying that like if you know how to lead one meditation session or mindfulness talk that you can do a retreat. But um personally, um I am very fond of leading online Zoom retreats for a weekend. I'm kind of going into tangent right now, but I really like doing like a Friday afternoon to Sunday afternoon retreat session. And so when I usually start, I don't go into a big spiel about mindfulness and like nuances or the neuroscience or anything. I for better or for worse, I usually start a retreat by just sitting there and notice what comes up. So as a practitioner, as in a teacher, and as a teacher, it can be helpful to notice if there's like a hindrance to presence. So as a teacher, especially in retreat, I'll often just allow myself to sit there for a little bit and notice am I present? You know, what's coming up for me as a you know, someone who's leading this retreat. Can I meet any hindrances to presence with gentleness, with care? And then without forcing it, can I kind of dissolve that hindrance to be more present and then speak from presence? So for example, I'm or for any retreat session, I can start with just sensing into my experience here. Is there a sense of doubt that I can't do this, or they can't do this, or that this isn't gonna work? And can I meet that with gentle awareness and allow that feeling to be here? But can I be present for it? And it's gentle awareness of it, it's felt sense. I don't have to like believe it, but I know it's here, exploring it and curious about it a little bit, and then maybe remembering, yeah, this this stuff works. Like, you know, I'm just offering these gent these invitations to notice for themselves what's going on for them. Offer some simple tools for them to see what works for them. And everyone's different. Some people like it, some people won't. Some people like me, some people won't. I'm offering these tools because I know they can work. Or for me in this moment, is there a sense of aversion, anger? I don't like some of these people. Temperature is way too hot. Things aren't going the way I wanted them to. Okay, can I meet that? Or I really want this session to go amazing. I'm gonna change everyone's lives, it's gonna be so profound, everyone's gonna be blissed out. Like, like, this is gonna be the best. Um, I um really hope that everyone, you know, loves this stuff and it's gonna be amazing. And I want them to love me. Everyone's gonna say to the end, my career's gonna blow up in a good way. You know, I really like this. Like, this is gonna happen. I need this to happen. Yeah, that's gonna get in the way of actually being present. Or maybe I had way too much coffee today. I am um, it's hard for me to focus on this because I'm like thinking about a million things. How is this gonna go? Everyone's asking me questions, you know, like I barely got out the door. It's hard for me to settle because I'm so distracted by all these things. Gentle awareness of that. Breathe, sense into it, allow it to be here, stay with it for a while, allow it to dissolve as much as possible. There's different antidotes to these different hindrances. Breathe, go for a short walk, ground. Maybe I barely slept last night. I'm so tired, I'm so sluggish. It's hard for me to stay awake. Breathe. Um some cold water on your face, reflect on things that might bring some energy, sense in the heart, sense in the head. Oftentimes when we think we're tired, we're actually not, when we investigate it in the head, it's just a coping mechanism usually to check out light, basically, via slumber. So anyway, being present, you know, at the beginning of the retreat, and kind of like just just being. You're not throwing a bunch of info at them. Some, you know, some for some teachers that's fine, but I like just kind of slowly settling. You know, this the snow globe has been so wound up where the snow is flurrying in everyone's lives. And for a lot of us, the point of the retreat is to allow that snow to settle. So when starting a retreat, we can calm the snow globe, um, speak from presence, work with our own hindrances. What is our tone of voice? What's it here? You know, a lot of like when I lead retreats, you know, I want to like encourage courage. And sometimes it sounds like I'm speaking to a five-year-old. And in a way, I am, as I think everyone's five-year-old cell needs luck. Thank you for joining me in this conversation on the importance of considering participants' previous experience when structuring a retreat. As mindfulness teachers and practitioners, it's really important to adapt to the unique needs of our students to create a more supportive and transformative experience for everyone involved. If today's discussion resonated with you and you're ready to take the next step in your mindfulness teaching journey, check out our mindfulness meditation teacher certification at mindfulnessercises.com slash certify. Until next time, stay present, stay grounded, and continue showing up with authenticity and compassion. Thank you for listening.