In the dark about my fear of darkness
What spending a week in a dark retreat taught me about my hidden fears
You are afraid of the dark. You might not realize it, but you are.
At least that was my experience entering total darkness.
Six months ago, from the comforts of my desk in a beautiful penthouse in Austin, I had signed up for a dark retreat. A whole week, day and night, in complete darkness by myself near the Black Forest in Germany.
Why did I want to do it? I didn’t really know. I didn’t have a goal in mind, no reason to do this crazy thing, but the moment I heard someone sharing their dark retreat experience on a podcast, it instantly spoke to me. I knew I had to experience this.
It was an inner recognition of truth. “I will go into darkness, look into the abyss of my soul, and come out a different man.”
That was it. I was excited.
A few weeks later I found the right place, booked my spot, and blissfully forgot all about it.
I had no expectations, no fears, no worries and no goals. I thought I knew it had to happen, so I trusted and surrendered to the experience, no point in thinking too much about it, right?
My life was jam packed with travel, work, family, and a ton of other experiences and challenges that kept me pretty busy.
And then it happened.
A week prior to the dark retreat I started feeling more and more stressed. Nothing unusual about that: I was about to relocate to another country and start a new chapter in my life.
But as time went by it dawned on me that this wasn’t the stress of moving, this was something different, something way more intense: anxiety.
I started craving more sugar in the evenings, seeking more distraction during the day, being more tense, more worried, more sensitive, more dramatic (mostly inside, since I know how to hide these parts of myself from the world).
But still, I thought this might just be due to work, the stress of moving, and all the changes in my life, and kept acting out my anxiety. Self-awareness? Not so much.
Two days before my dark retreat was about to start, I could barely listen to a sad song without crying. I felt such tumult inside of me, such inner intensity and rawness, that I had to accept the idea that this was fear. Fear of the dark retreat. Fear of the unknown. Fear of what was ahead of me. Scared of the dark, like a little child.
“Am I really afraid of this?” I kept asking myself. It didn’t make any sense.
A day before leaving for the Black Forest (what a fitting place for a dark retreat center), I spoke with my mother about it. She actually was worried about me, and I tried to calm her down. She kept telling me how scared she is of the dark, that she could never do something like this, and how from childhood on, but worsening now in her sixties, she is feeling panicked whenever she finds herself in the dark somewhere.
Being the conceited and sometimes out-of-touch son that I am, I gave her a whole speech: “There is nothing to be afraid of in the darkness other than your own mind. I can stop the retreat at any time. All I have to do is open the door and let in light. I can just choose to leave and drive to my family anytime.” I told her that I had no goal to make it through the whole week, no pressure to prove anything, and so would go through this in a lighthearted way, to experience something new and exciting, and would quit the moment things got too frightening.
In other words, I was completely and utterly full of myself.
The morning of the dark retreat, I got into my car and started the ignition. And then it hit me: “Oh fuck. I’m in deep trouble.”
My heart was pounding, my breath out of control, my vision blurry. I was having a tiny anxiety attack.
Holy fuck.
The darkness starts working on you, way before you make it into its embrace.
On the two hour drive there, I couldn’t even listen to music. I was just taking deep breaths, feeling all my feelings. “Don't get overwhelmed. Keep your eyes on the road, Steli.” I tried to calm myself down, and find some humor in my cocky self-deception.
“I am scared. I am scared. I am scared and that’s ok. I am scared and glad I finally feel it.” I was telling these truths to myself, acknowledging them, shaking my head and laughing at myself for being so ignorant before.
It’s painful, but I love to be humbled in this way. Learning something about myself that isn’t pretty, that I would have rejected only months before, but that I had no way of denying anymore.
I was afraid of the dark. Wow. Who would have thought?
It’s even better when it’s so obvious in hindsight. The greatest truths often lie in front of us in broad daylight.
Everyone I talked to about the dark retreat would tell me how terrified they were at just the thought of it. And I was telling everyone how stoic I feel about it, that it’s going to be awesome and that I don’t think I’m afraid of it. El, O, El.
Well, here I was, on a bright sunny day, at the outskirts of the Black Forest in the South of Germany, standing in a small humble room, unpacking my bag.
“The retreat host will be here in about 15 minutes for the introduction and ritual, and then your darkness experience can start” said one of the staff members. She was an older lady that looked like a mix of your favorite divorced aunty and second grade arts teacher.
“15 minutes?!?! Are they kidding me?!”
I had expected to spend the first day in the light, get familiar with the room and surroundings, go on long walks in nature, and rest up at night. I had thought the dark retreat would start on the morning of day two. I was wrong. Again.
My anxiety rocketed to a level eleven. I would not have a lot of time to prepare. This wouldn’t be a serene descent into calming darkness. I’d be kicked into the abyss, plummeting through the infinite black.
“Deep breaths.”
Once the nice lady had left the room, I did a quick test run.
I closed the window which instantly transformed the room into utter nothingness.
Holy fuck (this was quickly becoming a new mantra).
Open the window quickly. Light. Breath. Ok, this will not be smooth. Let’s test it again.
Close the window. Total darkness. Walk a few slow steps. Look around. Up and down. Everything is absolutely the same: nothingness. Like deep diving at night without lights, enveloped by thick layers of heavy black.
Open the damn window again. Quick. Light. Relief.
Ok, let’s get used to this a bit more.
I went through this exercise a couple more times. It seemed to help. Rather than just waiting for the ghastly moment when she would arrive and darkness would start.
I started to feel my fear soften just the tiniest bit. That was good. Encouraging.
I can do this. I am doing this.
She ended up coming in two hours later. At that point I was meditating on the chair, had calmed down, and had familiarized myself a bit with the darkness. I felt ready.
After a small conversation, she lit a candle, sang a short beautiful mantra, and had me blow out the little flame—and with it the last remaining light.
She left the room, and closed the door. I was alone.
This was it.
Holy shit (I said and thought these very words at least a hundred times that first day).
Darkness.
When you are in real darkness, full darkness, you realize that you have never in your life experienced it before. Not truly. It’s not normal to be in a space without a single particle of light.
Disorientation. Your brain is completely unsettled and wants to flee.
The first question that came to my mind was unsurprising in content, but surprising in emotional punch it carried - “What the fuck are you going to do an entire week alone here in the dark????”
Anxiety started to rise again. A hurricane within, violently threatening to drown me.
Then I remembered to grab the lifeboat.
My body. Presence. At this very moment. Breath, feel your body, focus on the now.
This moment is ok. Don’t think about the future, the rest of the day, the rest of the week, the unknown. It will only overwhelm and bury you.
All anxiety, all fear, all worry lives in future thought.
Now is your oasis of calm.
Right now, everything is alright. I realized that to survive darkness, I’d have to learn to be more present, to be embodied in the now. I’d have to let go of my handle on the future, on planning, on scheduling, on preparing, on timing things.
And so I sat in darkness, and started to learn how to float in the storm.
I experienced the inner truth of my fear, my anxiety and my stress. And I experienced the savior from all my sorrows and all my fears; the present moment.
Sitting in the darkness. Breathing. Feeling my body. Letting go of future worries and thoughts. Experiencing that in the Now, I was calm. Then looking around. Nothing. Total Darkness. “Holy fucking shit.”
Those were my first few hours in darkness.
Not at all what I expected. But when outer light is missing, there is nothing to distract your soul from inner truth.
“I am afraid.” “I am worried.” “I am here right now.” “Right now I am ok.” “Stay here.”
That was the very beginning of my journey, my initiation into the illumination of fear within the dark.
And it was only the beginning. So much more was waiting for me to be seen in the dark.
Holy shit.