What 10 Days at a Silent Retreat Taught Me about Creativity

A couple of weeks ago, I went to a 10-day silent retreat. I’d debated on signing up for this for well over a year—since I first heard of it. 10 days sitting in silence and meditating. The rules were simple—or not so simple—depending on how you look at it.

• No talking

• No technology

• No reading

• No writing

• No eye contact or gesturing

The schedule is rigid. You meditate for about 10 hours a day with the first round starting at 4:30am and the last meditation at 8pm.

Each meditation session lasted about an hour. Which meant an hour of sitting cross-legged on the floor while your back and knees began to ache.

First time students eat all vegetarian meals 3 times a day (dinner consists of fruit and ginger water or tea) while old students eat twice a day.

Pandora’s Box

The first three days of this were grueling. I thought about leaving every single day. The anxiety of being so disconnected was getting to me because I was never disconnected. I never learned to sit with myself in the quiet. My mind was telling me all kinds of stories about the terrifying things that would happen while I sat for 10 days disconnected from the world.

My mom would have a heart attack and I wouldn’t know about it. I would have a heart attack and no one would know about it. Something would happen to my brother. I would go crazy and end up in the psych ward.

These thoughts looped and looped. My mind told me more stories. More lies.

By day 9, I’d learned something really important.

My mind was a master storyteller. The problem wasn’t that it was telling stories—it was that I only noticed the anxious ones.

When the noise of the outside world disappeared, the creative ones started showing up too.

By opening Pandora’s Box, I realized that my mind told two types of stories: fear stories and creative stories.

During those ten days, I had nightmares and I had dreams.

Along with all of the fears I didn’t want to confront came story ideas and revelations I’d been searching for.

By running from the fears, I was also running from my creativity.

The Creative Lesson

Initially, I was scared that if I didn’t write it down, I would lose it. I didn’t understand why we weren’t allowed to write. But by the end of the 10 days, I understood.

What I learned:

• Writing too early interrupts thinking

• Observing thoughts creates deeper ideas

• Some ideas need to live in the mind before being captured

By allowing my thoughts to flow freely, I was observing them rather than leading them.

I thought writing things down was the only way to keep them. But I started noticing something surprising: when I didn’t immediately grab an idea, it evolved.

A character became clearer. A story deepened. A thought turned into something more solid.

I learned to observe. I observed people, nature, the environment. I sat watching squirrels chase each other, and created narratives about what kind of person someone was based on absolutely no information other than their clothing, their posture, the way they held themselves, and the way they looked.

I didn’t go to this retreat to clear creative blocks, but it helped me understand the source of mine.

We live in a world of constant connection and disconnection. We’re constantly busy—working, reading, scrolling, watching, binging.

But creativity doesn’t come from consuming more.

It comes from giving your mind enough space to wander.

Somewhere between boredom and silence, your brain starts doing what it was built to do: tell stories.