By Alison Weihe
How often do we pause in our busy lives to hear another voice, our inner voice? In this complex, messy, war-torn, media-fueled, relentless world of immediate demands and immediate gratification, sometimes all we hear is the cacophony of the world.
At the age of 60, I paused. I was at a crossroads in my life. I had been the public face of our company, Creative Stone, for 20 years. I knew it was time for a new era and time to let our leadership team own their own narrative and develop their own unique voices.
I took a brave step. I signed up for a 10-day Vipassana silent meditation retreat. My daughter had implored me to do it. I knew, on a soul level, it would deepen the bond and the understanding between us. But another layer of trepidation lurked uneasily beneath my acquiescence. I even said to her, “Karla, I’ve done so much personal development journey work. I’ve dealt with so much of the trauma of the past, I’m a bit scared to rip off the plasters when I finally feel a lot more healed.”
She assured me it was a different kind of processing, an immersion unlike any other. I had lovingly packed the loose, flowing clothes prescribed. But I remember feeling somewhat old as I checked in at the reception desk among the youthful nomads from all over the world.
My heart hammered a bit, but there was no turning back. It was a promise I had made to my daughter, but more importantly, it was a promise I had made to myself.
Time out. Time within. Unheard of in my busy, entrepreneurial, demanding, chosen lifestyle.
I knew that we were staying in small, simple monastery rooms. What terrified me most was not being allowed to exercise between the long periods of silent meditation.
“Why was that so scary?” you might ask. I had walked such a long journey to wholeness, consumed with depression, anxiety, and battling eating disorders. At the age of 60, I had finally found peace. I had changed not just the shape of my body, but the shape of my soul.
From being a sedentary couch potato at 52, I had transformed my life into a lifestyle of going to the gym, swimming, yoga, Pilates, and regularly running 21K races. Running and swimming stilled the anguish in my soul. They silenced some of the anxiety. They tired the tiger of torment. But still, the sadness lingered below the surface. I think my daughter, in her wisdom, sensed that. Having just turned 60, having overcome a long bout of shingles following a period of immense stress, I surrendered.
So, I surrendered to a silence that I had never experienced before. Growing up, I had been quite solitary. I was not uncomfortable with solitude. I often craved solitude, but this was a different kind of silence.
I was shown to a small, tidy, monastic bedroom, a row of rooms overlooking the valley below, adjacent to a nature reserve where you could hear the lions roar at night.
At the first meeting, after a simple, vegetarian meal lovingly prepared, we settled into a rhythm. Long, relentless, immovable meditations from early morning to late evening. No cell phones. No writing. No reading. No pens. No exercise, except for a short walk down to the hall where meals were served. Men and women were housed in separate areas and only saw one another from a distance across the vast expanse of the meditation hall.
Something profound happened in the course of those 10 days of total silence. Not a word passed our lips to one another or to the staff who so lovingly curated this experience.
The first few days were excruciating. My muscles ached as I sat for two hours, trying hard not to move. The practiced practitioners sat like statues, sentinels of silence. They looked so peaceful, unlike my aching, grimacing muscles that had never been forced to submit to the discipline of being frozen in aching time.
The days passed, and things got a bit easier. By day five, the aching had settled. One day, I sat for three hours without flinching. More importantly, my body had slowed. My mind had stopped whirring. I was forced to confront the person I had become. Without words, without mirrors, without processes. Just time.
I remember one afternoon, lying on top of a stone wall, just looking up at the clouds. For an hour. When last had I even looked up at the clouds for ten minutes? When last had I given myself permission to look up at all? Looking up became a different version of looking within.
On the last night, during the final meditation, it felt as if I heard a voice from God descending over me, saying with crystal clarity, “Ali, you need to write your story.”
Writing my story became my own deeper journey of finding equanimity, a deeper journey into the world of coaching, speaking, and writing. Shedding the shame that had plagued me for so much of my life, the shame of having let down people who had become my family, who made me feel like I belonged.
After the meditation retreat, my life took a different journey, a deeper spiritual journey, asking myself why I came to earth in this form, in this shape, and in this country.
Silence has a different sound to words. Sometimes we have to bow in silence to hear a different voice. Sometimes we have to tame the barking dog of other people’s expectations, of our relentless drive to produce, to deliver, fueled by our desire for approval, for belonging.
Sometimes we have to surrender in silence to find true equanimity in the stillness of our bodies.
So that we can hear the songs in our souls.
Alison Weihe is an award-winning entrepreneur, speaker, transformational leadership coach, author and philanthropist passionate about bridging the economic, social, and cultural divides. Alison was also a political activist during apartheid in South Africa. She is an award-winning speaker and author of Belonging, where she tells her story of building a small company from a shed in a field to 150 employees, and becoming a multi-award-winning entrepreneur.
This deeply personal account of self-discovery and personal growth tells of the emotional and physical transformation of a sensitive child who never felt ‘enough.’
Interesting parallels are made between Alison’s challenging journey and the turbulent journey of South Africa to democracy. We also meet the people who have shaped and continue to shape her growth.
This beautifully written book aims to inspire you to become all that you can be.
