I've returned to work after three years in silent meditation retreat – and this is what's challenging me the most

After spending three years fulltime in the spiritual environment, initially planning to withdraw from everyday life… I woke up one day and felt like something was missing.

I loved the peacefulness and tranquility of my meditation retreats. But suddenly, it was as I needed something more. I was curious to test my stamina in everyday life. I yearned to relate to people outside my retreat spaces. And most of all, I longed to develop my way of work - and explore how to create a living from doing something I love to do!

And so, I left my tranquil meditations halls and returned home. 

I picked work back up (in the creative field: I work as a performing artist), and for a good year’s time, all was good. I kept my daily meditations, I stayed close to myself, I practiced self-care and self-love. I was loving and inspired and supported people around me. But… then the speed of my work began picking up, and I began cooperating with bigger groups of people. And as that´ve happened, I've begun to face some troubles…

I'm going to describe those troubles for you by summing up some spiritual clichés - that I've sort of tried to live after the last years.

But now I'm realizing those cliches cover up some FAR MORE complex truths.

“Self-love is everything”

First of all, this one: remember your self-love. There is nothing untruthful about it. It's just that it’s much harder to live by than I’d ever imagine!

Because frankly: stress and self-love is a really challenging combination. And I don’t know about your experience, but spending three years in protected spaces and silent meditation retreats didn’t do any good for my stress management skills. Rather, I’d say I'm more uncomfortable with stress and pressure now than I've ever been.

Try practicing self-love during immense pressure - with no recent experience with stress at all - and see how you go. If you stay in a good mood, you're doing much better than me. Cause me under pressure gets grumpy and self-judgmental - and slightly self-destructive.

This way of being with work doesn’t have anything to do with my spiritual exploration at all - how on earth can I find my way back to inner peace? I ponder while sipping my fourth coffee that day.

And that’s just the beginning.

“Stay detached”

Staying detached (and not letting my heated emotions get the better of me) is indeed a great life mantra - and just as complicated to live up to as remembering my self-love under stress is.

Cause here´s the thing: it’s really easy staying detached when you're floating around in meditation halls and everybody else are floating around too, and there is not a thing in the world you need to do except for maintaining your inner peace until the next meditation. I've done that for years, no problem!

Then, try staying detached in situations that DEMANDS your passion to move ahead, as creative processes for example. How on earth do I stay detached and fully passionate and peaceful at the same time?

I have no idea. And after I started working with what I love, I've become much more emotional about work than I’d ever thought I’d be.

Yes, I cried four times at work this month.

So much for my inner peace.

“You attract what you are”

Stress and tears aside, I've come to realize that THE MOST crucial task of making life work out practically for me, is to find my sangha - my community - out here in the everyday world.

But it continues to amaze me how challenging it is to actually find those likeminded people to cooperate and play and relate with!

The law of attraction says like attract like. But… if it’s true that I attract what I am, then why are not people with the same mindset and values as myself flocking around me - rather than all these people that I have to argue with about everything and that do not see things the same way as me at all?

Actually, Existence have seemed lately to be sending me mere opposites of myself: people who think entirely different and work by COMPLETELY DIFFERENT values from myself!

Is Existence doing that so I will grow more confident about what's important for me, and learn to stay true to myself in all situations? But hey Existence, could you not at least send me a mix: someone to discuss with, and then someone to just… play and flow uncomplicated with?

Please?

“Focus on the greater good”

Great! But what if there are several versions of the greater good? Cause in this landscape of not-always-so-likeminded-people, that’s how it looks like to me.

It’s just now, two years after returning to everyday life, that I've started to work in team with others. Until recently I've worked mainly on my own. There’s a reason for that: cause in relation to others, a whole new set of challenges appear.

Working with others come with compromises. Not only that, cooperation’s (especially new ones) bring contractionary opinions and different values, and sometimes heated discussions about WHAT CHOICES TO MAKE. And I find it very challenging to sort out: When shall I let go of my own will and surrender to the opinion of my partners - and when shall I assert my own will?

I know there’s no right or wrong answer to that. And when I try to help myself by envisioning a common will - What's the collective good in this situation? – I often find myself becoming even more confused. Cause sometimes what I need, and what my partner needs, and what the rest of my team needs, is just… different. What on earth do we do then?

“Meet the world with an open heart”

Of course I would prefer acting from love continuously. I’d love to respond to every opportunity and challenge like a true goddess, in constant integrity with my higher self.

And I AM trying my best to act from an open heart: to be understanding, loving, emphatic, patient… But then suddenly, there is a collision of wills! My will and my needs clashes against the will and the needs of another! What to do now?

One thing is being open to the other. But I also have another responsibility: to set my own boundaries when I need to. And while some situations call for me to surrender my will, others demand me to put my foot down, and to say no: This doesn’t work for me!

That balance: to honor my own needs while also remaining open to the other, challenges me.

Hey inner growth, I’m ready for summer holidays!

When I first came back from my meditation deepening, I envisioned everyday life as my classroom; a grand playing ground where my great Existence Headmaster would carve out a completely unique curriculum just for me. It would be a curriculum based on exactly the challenges I could handle, and with precisely the lessons I needed to deepen my understanding of myself.

But now; I need a summer holiday!

These last months, personal challenges have risen to the surface that I don’t really know how to deal with. I thought I’d already handled these things – but obviously I haven’t. And my stamina… is unstable. On good days, I try approaching my challenges as valuable prompts to understand myself better, and to evolve. But the rest of the days, all I think about is to escape – to somewhere lush and sunny on the other side of the world, or at least back to my silent meditation retreats. I feel lonely, and in need more support. And I wonder if I'm too strict on myself. Why on earth do I need to take myself so seriously?

What if I could just allow myself to fail a little?

Here, to sum this up: is my favorite cliché: “Make love to everything you do.” For the next few weeks, I plan to take an inner holiday - and to love it!