How to organise a Silence Retreat at home

Four years ago when COVID hit and we were all forced to quarantine I was at rock bottom in all field of my life but what transformed me was to shut down all the noise and connect with myself. I did so by creating what I now call DIY Silence retreat. In this article I want to walk you through:

• What is a DIY silence retreat

• What are the benefits of doing it

• When you should organise one

• How to start your very own silence retreat ritual

• A few tips to make it a good experience

What is a DIY Silence Retreat?

Silence retreats have been practiced for centuries and through the teachings of many different faith (the Vipassana course in Buddhism, I’tikaf during Ramadan in Islam for example).

They consist of the practice of detaching from the world for a set period of time and actively engaging in spiritual practices. The intentions can be varied and I will cover some of them further along in this article.

They involve seclusion, isolation and remaining completely silent during the duration of the retreat or at least reducing speech related to worldly matters.

A DIY version of a Silence Retreat aims at recreating the environment that you would find in a Retreat Centre in your own home in order to get the benefits of this practice.

What are the benefits of doing it?

Reviving a beautiful Sunnah

As muslims the main intention behind doing a Silent Retreat is to revive the beautiful Sunnah of the Prophet ﷺ who used to isolate himself to worship Allah (khalwa) and contemplate on life, his existence, the wonders of Allah’s creation…

Rassulallah ﷺ would climb to mount Hira even before revelation came down to him to cut himself off from society and spend time alone.

In a world where our brains are constantly solicited by external distractions, we need this practice more than ever to reconnect with our Creator in a way endorsed by His best creation.

Note that you can also make the intention to do i’tikaf (retreat for the sake of Allah, especially during the 10 last days of Ramadan) during your DIY silence retreat as long as:

• You say, in your heart or at loud, the i’tikaf intention: I intend spiritual seclusion and this is my masjid (nawaitul i’tikaf, wa hadha masjidi)
• For men: you are in the masjid, women can do it at home but men can’t
• You are in a state of major purity, so not in your periods
• You remain in the same place and only leave it in case of necessity (use the bathroom, shower, go eat if you can’t in your i’tikaf spot)

And if you make that intention you will get more reward inshaAllah.

To get unstuck

Sometimes we find ourselves feeling stuck in life, as though we have no idea where to go and who we want to be anymore. What I have realised with experience is that a lot of the time it’s not that there is no answer to our interrogations and doubts, it’s only that we don’t really take the time to sit and reflect on ways out of our turmoil. Similarly, we otfen pray that Allah send us guidance but we really slow down to listen to the signs He sends us.

A silence retreat is an opportunity to give your current dilemmas the time that they deserve to be solved.

To calm an overwhelmed heart and mind

If you are a highly sensitive person like me, you probably get overwhelmed by life events pretty quickly. When unaddressed, overwhelm can quickly turn into burn out and a strong desire to disappear from the surface of the earth. (See my video on what it means to be a highly sensitive person)

A Silence Retreat is to perfect way to regulate your emotions, put things into perspective, work through everything that is going on in your life at the moment and decide what is worth spend time and energy on.

To slow down and connect with your feminine energy

Women nowadays aren’t taught how to tap into their feminine energy (if you don’t know what this is about, I’ve got a video on the topic here). We’re taught how to be on the go constantly to compete with men who weren’t created like us.

Women were not created to hustle, we come with different physical and emotional needs and when we neglect those, we feel misaligned with our fitrah (nature), as though we were betraying ourselves.

Doing a silence retreat is an opportunity to nurture our feminine side which is all about rest, creativity, spiritual connection and self-discovery.

Healing and making peace with the past

The vivid memories I cherish the most from the DIY silence retreats I have undergone are those in which I was able to release anger, hurt, resentment through reflection and prayer. Those were catalyst moments in my growth and I don’t know if I would have been to experience them if I didn’t sit in silence and faced the demons of my past.

When is a good time to organise a DIY silent retreat?

Honestly, as often as possible! I have clients who make it a point to turn their phone off at least one day per week and I think that is a fantastic idea.

Our natural inclination towards something like this is to wait until we’re in dire need of it to put it into place. But ideally you don’t want to wait until you’re completely burn out, lost, spiritually disconnected and overwhelmed to retreat. Have a “better safe than sorry” approach by committing to doing silence retreats regularly, even if short in duration.

How to create your Silence Retreat Ritual

Set and intention

As mentioned at the beginning of this article, their can be many intentions to do a silence retreat and the one you set will highly impact the rest of this process.

For example, if your intention is:

• I’tikaf and get closer to Allah: you will have to make sure that you respect the conditions of i’tikaf and your time will be spent in worship: dhikr, engaging with the Quran, salah, contemplation, seeking knowledge…
• Self-discovery, healing: your time will be spent engaging in activities like journaling, meditation, reading self-help books, doing personality tests…
• Resting your mind and nurturing your ability to focus: you will make it a point to not use any technology and not consume any content at all, most of your time will be spent meditating and in silence
• Reconnecting with your creative side: your time will be spent engaging in creative activities (writing, drawing, crafting…)
• Spending quality time with your family: no silence involved but no devices allowed at all, you will prioritise playing with your kids, family activities, active listening… in order to be fully present for them.

The list of intentions that can be set is infinite and really depends on your heart’s needs. The good thing is that you can mix and match intentions for one retreat if you have a lot of time in front of you.

For example:

• You start the day from tahajjud with the intention of i’tikaf and engage in ibadah
• End your i’tikaf but continue your silence retreat with any other intention you want to set for the rest of the day
• Re-enter the state of i’tikaf at each prayer time and leave it to switch to another intention

Create a covenant with yourself

Now that you have defined your intention(s), it’s time to decide how you want to fill your time in order to fulfil those intentions.

This is where you decide:

• What activities your want to engage in, for example:

  • Reading, memorising Quran
  • Praying nawafil salah
  • Dhikr
  • Tadaburr, tafakkur
  • Watch islamic videos
  • Complete a course
  • Meditating
  • Breath work
  • Walks in nature
  • Hike
  • Journaling
  • Reading
  • Draw
  • Paint
  • Declutter a room, a space or your digital belongings
  • Clean and tidy your home
  • Organise files or living spaces

• How much talking you will engage in: full silence, partial silence or no talking restrictions

• Devices and technology use: none or only for a specific purpose (Quran on your phone, reading on your tablet, courses on your laptop)

Once you’ve defined all of this, I highly recommend you turn the list of activities into a very specific schedule, either on paper or in your calendar and you also write the set of rules that you will follow.

Decide on a date and duration

This will depend on what is possible for you but I find that the longer the better. It’s easy to disconnect from the world for an hour and it can definitely be beneficial but imagine the result of disconnecting from it for 48 hours? 72 hours?! More? This is when real transformation happens because you are stepping outside of what has been comfortable for you for a while: checking your phone when you are bored, procrastinating on reading the Quran, ignoring the self-development courses you bought…

The longer time you spend “in silence” the more you can engage in activities that you have been avoiding but that your soul and heart desperately need in order to connect with your higher self.

List what is needed and prepare

Finally, what is left is to prepare for your silence retreat:

• If it’s going to be a long one without any device, let your family and friends know that you won’t be reachable for as long as your silence retreat last.
• If you live with people, tell them about your plan and clearly express how it will impact them (don’t just go silent without alerting anyone of what’s going on)
• Take time off work
• Get the supplies you need for the activities you have chosen
• Get the meditations, classes, breath work practice… you intend on watching and doing ready in a playlist so you don’t have to browse to find them. That way you avoid getting distracted
• If you’re going full on no device and if needs be, get a phone jail which is a box that will forcefully contain your phone for the time period you set on it: this is for those of us who have no self control, the technology junkies
• Get a journal and the books you want to read ready

Tips for success

• Don’t try to run before you’ve learnt how to walk: don’t set extremely high goals for your first silence retreat, start with a short duration of a few hours and increase as you get used to boredom and silence.

• Really spend time reflecting on the benefits of doing this and on your intention behind it because this is what will help when you get the urge to turn your phone on to “just make sure no one urgently needs you”

• Also reflect on what will happen if you don’t press the reset button through this practice right now: what have you got to lose if you keep living a life stuck in the rat race, with no space to reflect on your purpose and existence? Use those pain points as motivators to maintain this practice.

• Acknowledge that the only way to get rid of the pain of sitting with oneself in silence without distraction is to just do it. There are no secret formula, no supplement you can take to make this easier… You just gotta go through it to grow habibty! And it’s all worth it, trust me.

I pray this is helpful my beloved, keep me in your prayers during your time in seclusion and I will keep in mine.

Allah bless you,

Soumaya