My New Favorite Pandemic Hobby

Posted On November 29, 2020

Happy Thanksgiving! I hope you and your loved ones are staying safe amidst this latest surge in COVID cases. I’m hunkered down here in San Francisco for the foreseeable future and have been discovering so many new ways to make the most of quarantine time. Meditation has become one of my deepest interests this year and the more I see what is going on in my mind, the more I want to keep learning. I had done a few silent meditation retreats before the pandemic but was a bit wary of trying the virtual version. Somehow it did not seem enticing to watch teachers online. However as it became clear the pandemic would affect our lives for such a long time, I started talking to a few friends who had done online meditation retreats and decided it was worth a shot. 

My first online retreat was in mid-September for three days. It was during the worst of the wildfire smoke and poor air quality, and just after the apocalyptic orange sky in SF. That stretch was probably the low point for me this year and the retreat was incredibly rejuvenating. I quickly signed up for another one. I recently finished a 5-day retreat and am further convinced it is the best way to use my vacation days during the pandemic so I am signed up for three more online retreats in the next three months. I was talking to a friend about it before starting and she thought it sounded awful. If that’s your first thought, bear with me; I hope there will still be a few useful nuggets in here for you. Here are some of the ways retreats have helped me.

Breaking my phone addiction: like many people, the first thing I would do after waking up was to look at my phone. I had been hoping to get rid of this habit for ages but didn’t seem to have the discipline or motivation to stop. During meditation retreats, the protocol is no devices allowed, except to watch the Zoom sessions with the teachers, so I had to put away my phone. Even after 5 days of not looking at my phone, when I wake up, I sometimes still feel the pull to look at it but the mental wiring has softened a bit and I’m able to stop myself. I’m determined to keep this as a policy for myself. I had noticed that looking at my phone first thing in the morning, I would be more affected by sad or scary news stories, sometimes overly reactive to emails, and would often get sidetracked by something and end up not exercising before work as I intended. It has been a very positive change to start my day with an hour of meditation before any exposure to anything else. It helps ground me in a peaceful state of mind before taking in anything else. 

Detoxing from news/politics: between the election, the pandemic, and everything else 2020 has had in store, I’d developed an uncontrollable urge to check the news constantly and was listening almost solely to news podcasts on my walks. I do think it’s important to stay engaged with what is going on in the world but my news intake had clearly reached the point of diminishing return. Still, I could not seem to stop. It was almost a relief that I wasn’t allowed to look at the news during my retreat because my mind really needed the break. Of course, as soon as the retreat ended, I had to catch up on what I missed, but I am now being more mindful of how much news is productive to take in, and I’m working on only checking the news once or twice a day. I have also scaled back on listening to news podcasts and now focused more on meditation-related podcasts (side note: check out the Ten Percent Happier podcast – I have been binging on it and loving it!) 

Mindful eating: aside from meditation retreats, I rarely eat a meal without multitasking. During the workday, I am generally on a call or doing work while eating, and outside of work hours, I tend to watch YouTube clips while eating. Retreats are a good way to be reminded of what it is like to sit and eat a meal without any distractions, to slow down and savor the taste and nourishment, and have gratitude for all the people who played a role in my meal. I buy most of my food from the farmers’ market and was reflecting on how many people were out there working on farms during the heatwaves and terrible air quality this year. I wish I could say this is a practice I’ve maintained after the retreat but it is surprisingly hard for me to implement in my daily life. I’ve tried to at least have a few mindful moments to start most meals… It’s a work-in-progress. 🙂

Walking without headphones: the format of retreats typically alternates between seated meditation and walking meditation. During my September retreat, since the air quality was in the purple zone, I did all of my walking meditation inside my apartment. The weather was glorious during my recent retreat so I did my walking outside. In my daily life, I am almost always listening to podcasts or audiobooks while walking so it felt notably different to walk without any distractions. I had many moments of awe for the beauty all around me and realized how peaceful it can be to just walk and pay attention rather than being absorbed in whatever I am listening to.  

Training the mind: many people have told me they are not cut out for meditation because their minds jump around all over the place. That’s the case for all of us! The point of meditation is not to stop thinking but rather to notice our thoughts and learn to stop identifying with them so much. We can’t control what thoughts come into our mind so it is a practice in getting space from our mental patterns and starting to discern what is productive and what is not helpful, and then choosing what to pay attention to. The teacher at the end of the retreat said something very insightful: everyone is training their minds in every moment, even if they aren’t aware of it. Meditation gives us a chance to be more intentional about what we incline our minds toward. 

If you are interested in checking out a retreat, here are some of my favorite retreat centers: 

IMS

Insight Retreat Center 

Spirit Rock

If a retreat is more than you can fit into your life these days, consider checking out the Ten Percent Happier podcast!