Reflections on a Teen Retreat

By Emma Carey

The nonprofit Peace in Schools (peaceinschools.org) launched the United States’ first for-credit mindful­ness course in a high school in 2014. This semester-long Mindful Studies class helps teens develop compassion, calm, emotional resilience, and self-awareness. At a time when many teens struggle with feelings of isolation, depression, and anxiety, mindfulness offers a positive alternative. The course will expand to seven high schools and serve over one thousand teens in 2016.

For the final class project, each Mindful Studies student does a four-hour silent retreat—and writes a paper on the experience. In Emma’s paper, she writes of her friend Shea, who died by suicide in the week before the retreat.

At exactly 10:00 a.m. I started my retreat. I was extremely ner­vous and was positive that I could not sit for four hours straight. I was fighting my thoughts instead of accepting them. I moved on from that failed attempt and started my body scan. The body scan was incredibly relaxing and I had no idea how much time passed. My worries vanished and I was now in a state of peace. Before I knew it, my stomach was grumbling. A voice inside me screamed, “FOOOODDD.”

Walking to the “eating area” I was antsy and secretly hoping that we would all share stories of our first two hours. However once I reached the room, silence overcame me and I no longer felt that need to talk. I ate slowly, not to starve myself or make the time go by, but to actually taste my food. To feel the textures on my tongue as I put each piece in my mouth. I smiled as the realization hit me, I actually love vegetables. I was thinking about where my vegetables came from, where they grew, how they got into my pasta. After all it must have been a long journey.

Around 12:20 I reached my room and went right into a breath­ing activity. I closed my eyes and counted my exhales all the way up to seven and then back down again. At 1:00 p.m. I journaled my thoughts. “Everything will not always be okay, comfortable, the way I want it and I am okay with that. Not everyone will like me and I am okay with that because I do not like everybody. I do not need a boyfriend or a ton of dates to feel special. That does not define me. I am happy with myself and who I have come to be.” Around 1:15 I mindfully drew and then went into some yoga poses. I then once again tried sitting meditation.

For the last thirty minutes of retreat I wrote about whatever came to mind. “I feel that yoga and meditation have given me a new look on life. I am relaxed and not distressed. I feel in control for once in my life, like I am stepping out of this hole. A hole with nothing but monsters lurking in the shadows. Throughout this whole experience I haven’t once forgotten about Shea. I keep thinking to myself, if she was taking this class, would she be here today, would it help her escape a black hole like the one that I was once in? Then I remember, she couldn’t sit, she was a runner. She would have probably been passing notes through a crack in the door, giggling about the silence because she was not comfortable in it. Meditation has really helped me cope with losing her. At first I was so angry, but I understand why and accept the fact that she was not happy, no matter how hard she tried to pretend to be. I will never fully accept that she is gone. She is in my thoughts every day, every hour, and every minute.” I used this retreat time to reflect on my past and my future, to learn to accept what has happened and what will happen. For the time being I am at peace.

My four-hour retreat was hands down the best experience I’ve ever had. I didn’t feel that urge to be on my phone or talk to anybody, I was comfortable in the silence. I took this time to really step out of the everyday life schedule and focus on my needs. I cleared my mind and left the stress behind, taking that weight off my shoulder. Because of this class, my anxiety is slowly diminish­ing along with my constant negative self-talk. As a whole, I feel better than I have in a long time. I think I will be taking time for a retreat of my own from now on.