The Power of Silence

Rachel Sim shares the profound transformation that a 10-day silent retreat has had on her personal and professional life—and why you should consider going to one too

- Pakkee Tan

“I felt like it would be nice to detach from social media and be able to unwind. I think that’s quite a rare thing to be able to do in a Singaporean context. It almost requires the environment to force me to put technology aside, put all my distractions aside, and just make time for myself.

I went not knowing what to expect. I was told to go with a very open mind. We were told not to practise any other forms of meditation while we were there. We would wake up at 4.30 am and finished at 9 pm—it sounds like a lot, but when I was doing it, it didn’t feel like that much. Every session is broken down into an hour, and there’s a break. You have two meals a day: breakfast and lunch.

I won’t say it was easy—it was actually quite difficult. I wanted to give up on day two, day six and day eight … it helped having friends there with me, even though we couldn’t have physical contact, verbal contact, or eye contact! It helped having people around me, knowing that we’re going through the same thing. And I felt like the most important thing was that at the end of it, I came up with a mental clarity that I’ve never had before.

Imagine your head is like phone storage space: you’ve got 80 per cent of the apps running in the background and 20 per cent running in the present moment. I think I developed the ability to shut down the apps running in the background and turn them on at will. That was when I realised our minds are actually very cluttered spaces, where we allow our minds to lead us, and that’s how we very often spiral down into making a mountain out of a molehill, and thoughts can cause us more grief and unnecessary emotion.