The Hardest 10 Days of My Life: My Vipassana Journey

I’ve just returned from a Vipassana meditation retreat, and honestly, it was the most challenging yet transformational experience of my life. I want to share what it was really like — raw, unfiltered, and hopefully insightful.

I signed up because I felt stuck. I was disconnected from myself, a bit overwhelmed by life’s noise, and searching for something deeper. On the outside everything appeared to be going great. But inside, something felt missing.

What attracted me to Vipassana was the idea of 10 days of silence. No talking, no phones, no books, no distraction — just you, your mind, and over 10 hours of meditation each day. It would strip away all external stimulation, forcing me to confront myself in ways I never have before.

I thought I knew what I was signing up for. I was in for a rude awakening.

What followed was a rollercoaster of pain, self-discovery, and ultimately, a renewed sense of clarity and a new direction for my life.

The Silent Battle: Days 1-5

From day one, the retreat was brutal. Every meditation session felt like torture. Sitting still for an hour at a time, with escalating physical pain in my back, legs, and hips, was a mental marathon I didn’t know I could survive.

By day 2, waves of sadness, despair, and anxiety overwhelmed me. It felt like every suppressed emotion I’d ever buried came rushing to the surface. Hours felt like days. At one stage, I lay down on my bed and burst out laughing at how insane this all was — then I started to cry. I had thoughts that I had wasted my life, that nothing was meaningful and everyone was going to die soon. I had visions of my parents getting very old and I felt helpless. It was all very intense. And there was nowhere to escape.

The first three days of Vipassana are dedicated to strict attention training — focusing solely on the breath as it passes in and out of the nostrils.

My mind was very scattered for the first few days, but by the third day I was doing a good job of not letting my mind wonder and keeping my attention on my respiration. Though the pain from sitting for long periods was still causing me a lot of problems.

Day 4 and 5 got slightly better as we started the proper Vipassana training, which I was excited for. We now began using our attention to become aware of sensations in the body.

This required more focused attention which helped distract me from some of the discomfort. I was stretching my back and glutes after each meditation sitting to relieve the tension that was building, but I was still in a lot of pain.

In hindsight, I wish I had've done some Yoga in the weeks leading up to the retreat, instead of lifting heavy weights. But there I was, suffering through intense physical pain hour after hour, whilst trying to keep my mind from reacting. And just when I thought things were getting slightly better, I was hit with my biggest challenge yet.

Facing the Darkness: Day 6

Day 6 was one of the lowest days of my life. Emotions I've not experienced before came to the surface and it was overpowering.

Most of them came up between meditation sessions which became their own torment. It was like I was escaping from one torture to another from 7am onwards. Childhood flashbacks of not fitting in, feeling like I didn't belong and that nobody cared about me hit me super hard.

Strong feelings of guilt, shame, regret, and disappointment flooded my body. It makes me want to cry typing this. I felt like a scared and vulnerable version of myself, sitting in my prison cell of a room with nowhere to go but to sit with the feelings for hours.

For once my mind had no answers — no reframes or positive perspectives. It was all just dark and heavy. I had to come face to face with my demons.

The teacher warned us that days 2 and 6 are often the hardest, though it didn't make it any easier. I had no solutions. Just darkness.

By this point I'm really questioning what this whole thing is about. I was going through so much pain that I couldn't see any end to.

Looking back, it amazes me how hard it is to see anything positive when you are in a deeply negative state. It feels like there is no end, your mind has been defeated and you fear this is going to last forever.

This is why these feelings get stored in our subconscious, we can't deal with them so the mind suppresses them so that we don't have to suffer.

We all carry baggage — those unresolved feelings of guilt, shame, or not being good enough. But when was the last time you sat alone with those feelings and truly faced them?

For me, this was that moment, and it was excruciating.

Surviving the Mental Marathon: Days 7-8

Days 7 and 8 were an improvement. The deep emotional waves had subsided and I was back to surviving the physical pain of the meditation sittings.

Mentally, I was exhausted. Some sessions required us to sit perfectly still for an hour. No shifting, no adjusting. Just sit and endure.

By the last 15 minutes, my entire body would be trembling with tension. My back was in agony, my hips throbbed, and my legs burned as if I were holding a plank at the edge of failure. Every second felt like minutes.

When the bell finally rang to signal the end of the session, the relief was indescribable. I gasped as I moved for the first time, pain shooting through stiff joints and knotted muscles. I felt like I deserved a pat on the back for my efforts, yet there was no reward.

You had 5 minutes to stretch your legs before you go again, hour after hour. It's was a relentless mental marathon. There was no room for victory, only survival.

The only way through was to focus on the smallest possible goal: one breath, one moment, one second closer to freedom.

It’s strange, but looking back, the hardest moments taught me the most. They revealed patterns I’d been running from my whole life: avoiding discomfort, suppressing emotions, and rushing from one moment to the next without being fully present.

The Breakthrough: Day 9

Day 9 was the turning point. For the first time, the teachings started to click. By the end of the day, I finally understood what it meant to observe pain without being consumed by it.

The day started like any other. Another round of sitting in silence, wrestling with physical and mental discomfort.

But something shifted during an unforgettable session.

After scanning through my body as usual, I decided to focus sharply on a specific area of my back where I had been struggling to feel anything for days. It was like a blind spot, a numb void. I honed in, imagining my attention as a magnifying glass, penetrating deeper and deeper.

Then, out of nowhere, I hit what felt like a nerve.

A sharp, shooting pain surged through my body, as if I had pressed directly on the most sensitive trigger point imaginable. It was so intense that I almost yelled out — I thought, “how could something so small hurt so much?”

But instead of flinching or pulling away, I stayed with it. I observed the pain, letting it magnify, without trying to fight it.

When the intensity subsided, I moved my attention just one centimetre lower and found another trigger point — which was even more painful than the previous one.

Over the next 20 minutes, I found dozens of these. It was as if my entire back was lined with these hidden pockets of pain, each waiting to be uncovered.

My body was trembling, but I didn’t run from it. I simply sat with it, observed it, and waited. And each time, something fascinating happened.

Slowly, the pain began to dissolve. Each sensation arose, peaked, and passed, just as the teachings had described. If I could simply observe the pain without trying to push it away, it would go away.

By the end of the session, I felt lighter — as if I had released years of stored tension and emotions in that one hour.

But most importantly, I had understood what the teachings meant by impermanence at an experiential level. I had faced the pain, sat with it, and allowed it to pass. For the first time, I felt what it means to sit with real discomfort and not react.

I wasn’t fighting or suppressing. I was letting go.

In those moments, I truly grasped the impermanence of all things — not as an abstract concept, but as a direct experience. That session was a glimpse of freedom, and shone a light on the path that lays ahead.

After days of relentless mental and physical endurance, the end was finally in sight—but it came with its own unexpected challenges.

Breaking the Silence: Day 10

After my breakthrough experience, I felt a sense of calm clarity that carried into Day 10. This is the day we were finally allowed to break out of our silence which everyone had been looking forward to.

For the first hour, this was really stimulating. Finally getting to speak to the other 20 people I had shared this experience with and listening to everyone relaying their experiences.

I soon realised that I wasn't the only one who found it so hard, and that everyone had struggled in their own way.

Then after a while, I felt overstimulated and burnt out. There were lots of conversations going on at once and I couldn't process words properly. When I tried to speak, my mind was slow and sloppy, almost like it was rendering.

For some reason I started to feel really sad, like I didn't belong or fit in. Everyone seemed so happy around me and I was going into another dark place.

When we returned to meditate, I was overwhelmed by sadness and started to cry. It was the only meditation I cried and it was hard to know what was going on. I just let it come out and told myself this was something that needed to be released.

At the end of the day 10 I got chatting to two of the guys on some deep topics, which was incredibly stimulating. We talked about finding meaning and purpose in your life, the interplay between awareness and cognition, the challenges we face to living a happy life, the importance of connection to your true self and finding ways to share that with others in a positive way.

Each of us discussed our main lessons and takeaways from the teachings, how it had influenced us, and most importantly — how it was going to impact our lives going forward. I felt so energised and inspired that I couldn't sleep for hours.

Day 11 we had a short meditation, then breakfast before we packed up and left. I almost felt a little bit of sadness that it was ending, and anxious about returning to normal life.

When they handed me my phone, a wave of agitated energy came over me. I guess this is normal after after so long without connecting. I feared that something bad might of happened that I had missed, everyday worries returned and I knew it was going to feel overwhelming when I hit that on button.

Surprisingly I handled it fine, nothing major had happened, life had went on as normal and after an hour I was in a good state of mind. We took some group pictures, exchanged a few numbers and then it was time to go. Real life awaited.

Lessons Learned: A New Way of Being

Looking back, the retreat taught me truths that were both simple and profound. Lessons about myself, life, and how to truly be present.

It wasn’t just a mental exercise or a spiritual practice — it was an experience that broke me down, forced me to confront my deepest struggles, and then gave me the tools to rebuild.

I want to share with you most powerful lessons I will take into my everyday life.

1. Everything is Impermanent

If I could sum up the essence of Vipassana in one word, it would be impermanence. Everything — whether it’s physical sensations, emotions, or thoughts — is constantly arising and passing. Nothing lasts forever.

During the retreat, this truth became more than just an idea; it was a visceral experience. I watched waves of pain build up in my body, only to dissolve when I stopped resisting them. I felt intense sadness and guilt rise to the surface, only to fade away when I sat with them.

The suffering came from my reactions — clinging to pleasant sensations or trying to push away the unpleasant ones. When I let go of those reactions and simply observed, I found peace.

This realisation has stayed with me. It’s a reminder that even the hardest moments in life will pass. There’s no need to fight them. They’ll will go on their own if we let them.

2. The Body is the Subconscious Mind

One of my most surprising insights was discovering how much of our subconscious mind is stored in the body. Every emotion we suppress, every experience we avoid or don't process, leaves an imprint. Our subconscious mind then communicates these to the body in the form of sensations, yet we often aren't aware of this.

By training the mind to sharpen its awareness, I began to notice these subtle sensations — tiny vibrations, tension, heat, or pressure. Each one felt like a whisper from my subconscious, bringing buried emotions to the surface.

Instead of reacting or suppressing, I simply observed them. Over time, these sensations would dissipate, as if I were releasing years of unprocessed baggage.

This process taught me that the body holds the key. If we want to free ourselves from old patterns and wounds, we must stop living in our heads and start listening to our bodies.

3. Equanimity is Freedom

I’ve always thought of freedom as external — time, money, or lifestyle choices. But Vipassana showed me that true freedom is internal. It’s about equanimity: keeping a calm, balanced mind no matter what’s happening around you.

This isn’t about suppressing emotions or pretending to be unaffected. It’s about feeling everything — pain, joy, sadness — without letting it overwhelm you.

When you stay equanimous, you break the cycle of craving and aversion that keeps us stuck. You respond to life with clarity and compassion, instead of reacting impulsively.

Equanimity is a skill, and like any skill, it takes practice. But the moments where I achieved it during the retreat — sitting calmly with intense pain or overwhelming emotions — were the most transformative.

4. Experience is the Greatest Teacher

Before the retreat, I’d read countless books and listened to endless lectures about Buddhist philosophy and different meditation practices. But this is nothing compared to direct experience.

Vipassana forces you to go beyond intellectual understanding. It’s not about someone else’s words or ideas; it’s about what you feel in your own body and mind. That’s where true wisdom lies.

It’s humbling to realise how much you can learn just by sitting still and paying attention.

This has shifted the way I approach learning. Going forward I will value experience over theory. It’s one thing to know something intellectually, but it’s another to live it.

Integrating These Lessons

Coming back to “real life” after the retreat has been strange. When I turned my phone back on, I felt a rush of agitation and anxiety — a reminder of how overstimulated modern life makes us. Although the retreat was an amazing experience, what matters now is how I am going to integrate these lessons into my daily life and make this transformation last. So this is my commitment going forward:

• Meditation: I’ll start each day with an hour of Vipassana meditation and end the day with another 30–60 minutes. These sessions will be my anchor.

• Presence: Whether I’m walking my dog, working out, or eating, I’ll focus on being fully present. No multitasking, no distractions — just experiencing the moment.

• Service: Instead of being self-centred, I’ll ask, “How can I serve this moment?” or “How can I contribute to others?” Service will be my compass.

• Connection: I want to deepen my relationships, starting with my personal relationships and extending to everyone I meet. I’ll lead with compassion, kindness, and vulnerability.

Final Thoughts

Before Vipassana, I was stuck in my head, rushing from one thing to the next, always chasing but never arriving. I was overstimulated and reactive, trying to avoid any negative feelings by always being busy.

Now, I’m learning to slow down, to live in the present moment, and to feel more deeply.

If I had to sum up my transformation in one word, it would be connected. I feel like I’m finally living in my body, not just in my mind. I’m more aware of what truly matters: the present moment, relationships, and contributing to the world in a meaningful way.

It’s only been four weeks since the retreat, but I already feel the difference. I’m more present in my relationships, more open to my emotions, and more committed to sharing my journey with others.

I know this is just the beginning of a much longer path, but for the first time in a long time, I feel like I’m on the right track.

To anyone considering Vipassana: it will be the hardest and most rewarding thing you ever do. Be prepared to face your demons, to sit with pain, and to let go of control.

But if you commit to the process, you’ll come out the other side with a deeper understanding of yourself and life.

Thank you for reading. I hope sharing my experience sparks something for you — whether it’s curiosity about meditation, a desire to slow down, or a reminder to stay present.

Adam