Three unexpected, life-changing lessons I learned in my quiet time

Every story has an end..but every end is a new beginning of a new chapter. -Unknown I attended a week-long retreat last month that was focused on letting go of the past and indulging in some quiet time to regain yourself. It was indeed the best time and I learned so many things from the same. Apart from focusing your attention on someone else, the quiet-time retreat helped me get back in touch with myself and that’s exactly what you too musty do. Quiet time by definition is a term used to describe regular individual sessions of spiritual activities, such as prayer, private meditation, worship of God or studying of the scriptures. However, every person has his own style of having his quiet time. Sipping green tea while reading some motivating books or meditating or even doing yoga, everything done in an enclosed place without any interference from anyone else, is having your quiet time. The three things that I learned from my quiet time are- desire, expectations, and judgment. These three things are probably the sole of life and your happiness depends on these majorly. Desire Doesn’t your life run by the constant desires? The desire to grow up, desire to earn well and become rich or anything else. It is your basic nature that desiring for what looks good to you and you think you should have. Being at the retreat, everything was kept equal for everyone. From the clothes you were supposed to wear, the underwear that was provided to the food they served. In the initial days (about 2 days) all I could think of the kinds of food I would have been eating at home or men’s bikini and briefs that generally wear. However, later I understood that the desires are mere feelings that make us want what we want. However, what I learned was that being simple in your desires helps you make better decisions because you are able to see both the sides of the coins and judge better. Now I know that desire is just a feeling of want rather than a feeling of need. Expectations This makes me laugh even now because expectations and human relations are never-to-be-set-apart kinds. If you have people around you- your family, friends, spouse and other, expectations generally occur from those situations. I was blinded by the set-forth expectations that are the mandatory things in life. For example, if you’re in love with someone, you’d want to spend a lot of time together, talk and share things. However, what we forget is that personal space is always very important and if you don’t give or get the same, your self-growth is very difficult. These are illegitimate expectations which are of no use. Quiet time made me more aware of what expectations are justified and which aren’t to keep a healthy balance in life. Judgment Don’t we all get judgmental all the time? Even if you don’t want to, you’ll judge someone for the way they drive, the way they communicate with others, their eating habits or even dressing sense. The fact is- you cannot change or suppress the judgmental remarks that if not spoken would definitely come to your mind. Here, I learned the various effects of judging someone on your body and mind. It happened on a night when I was at the retreat itself that I saw another person flaunting even the simplest attire that was provided to us. While we looked ordinary, that person was actually rocking the same with some twists obviously. I looked at him and started to feel inferior. Eventually, I judge him for being such an attention-seeking case and my mind and body was too preoccupied in thinking about him. All of a sudden I came back to my senses and noticed that I was being judgmental myself. It was then I realized that if you really want to be judgment-free, you got to be open and learn to accept things the way they are. Live the way you are and try to keep yourself away from the above three traits. They don’t do any good but also takes away what you have right now.