Written by Candace Tozer, Soul Aligned Quantum Life Coach
Candace Tozer is a uniquely gifted soul aligned quantum life coach, her passion lies in seeing her clients thrive not just survive, moving them out of the mindset and embodiment of limitation into the realm of possibility.
A couple of months ago, I had the privilege of attending a darkness retreat centre and had the most profound experience, an experience that I could never have begun to imagine in my wildest imagination and one for which I could never have prepared.
“Darkness is not the absence of light, it’s the absence of vision. The darkness is where the magic happens, it’s where transformation takes place, where we confront our fears and where we find our strength.” Catherine McNulty
The above quote couldn’t be truer for my experience in the dark.
What is a darkness retreat?
To begin at the very beginning for those of you, who have never heard of a darkness retreat. A darkness retreat, is just that, a retreat into the darkness, the centre in which I had my experience offered the facilities of an ensuite room, that had a double bed, a kitchenette and a bathroom, with basic amenities for food prep.
The room had a built-in ventilation system and had complete blackout of all light, this meant that once the lights were off there was no light, not a morsel of light.
When we think we experience darkness at night, we truly do not, generally at home in your bedroom, you may ambient light from the outside permeating through the curtains or the light of an indicator switch on a plug or the flow of the alarm clock, the invasion of light is huge when you look for it, however, we have adjusted ourselves to living with it, in general, it is not pure darkness, the rooms at the darkness retreats, in contrast, are pure darkness.
Why go into the dark?
Before going into the dark, I had many curious people ask me why? Why would you want to go into the dark to have a retreat experience? Couldn’t you experience the same in a normal retreat setting? at the time, my answer was, I was not sure, as I truly was just open to having a new experience. In looking into going into the dark, I had listened to many testimonials and read up on the benefits of a lack of light exposure, but nothing truly prepares you for what your experience will be. It is so truly unique and individual that whilst there are guidelines on what seems to be the consensus of the experience, you don’t truly know for sure what it will be like.
Very early on, I decided in preparation for going into the dark that my intention would be to rest, reset, digitally detox, and just meet myself in the dark in whatever way arose.
Being a quantum alchemy life coach I was sure that I had all the tools to navigate anything the dark would through at me, being a master at alchemy, nervous system dysregulation and spiritual practices, what did I have to worry about? It was this belief system that had my Ego very comfortable going into the dark, but in truth, nothing can prepare you.
My journey in the dark
I began my journey in the dark in the evening, taking in the last glances of the sunset before sealing the block out on my door. I took the time with the light on to unpack and visually remember where I had put everything, created a space for yoga and meditation with my essential oils easily accessible, had a bath, and then turned the light off, surrendering into the beginning of being in the dark.
Having started the retreat in the evening it was easy to acclimate as I just hopped into bed and went to sleep, which made it a very easy transition into the space. The next morning, I awoke to the sound of chickens and assumed that it must be morning, although there is zero concept of time in the dark and I was purely going on assumption. I decided to get up move my body, stretch, do some yoga and meditation.
Navigating the dark was the easy part, its amazing how when you don’t have your sense of sight, your sense of touch heightens and I found moving around really easy to do, of course, there comes the frustrating moments where you knock the toilet roll off the holder and you know there is a good chance you will never find it again, as happened to me, or you drop something and you feel like you spend hours trying to search a huge area for it, where in truth you’ve remained in exactly the same spot and the item was just in fingers reach. You must have your wits about you and navigate with a lot more caution, of course, you do bump into things and receive some trophy bruise reminders of your stay, but for the most part, navigating the dark, even making tea with a kettle, yes, boiling hot water, in the dark is easy. What is not easy is the absence of stimulus and the lack of awareness of time.
My unraveling into surrender
In preparing for the retreat, I truly felt that I was fully equipped to face everything that could come in the dark, I was prepared for shadow work, for boredom, for over thinking etc but what I wasn’t prepared for was the resistance I went into. As someone who knows deep surrender and can do it all day everyday in the light, surrender was not something I could find in the dark, until it found me. The ego completely ran the show until I was ready to surrender.
I found myself becoming fixated with distracting myself, let me wash my face, let me draw, let me write, let me move my body, anything I could do to clutch onto the security of doing, however once that is all said and done and you have nothing to do but to be, how deeply you are forced to surrender. One of the profound revelations I had in the dark was how we measure our success by our productivity, feeling that success can only come from being busy, and I was determined that my dark retreat would only be a success if I kept myself productive and busy. So many levels of programming came up to be dissolved.
In truth, I was just distracting myself from being with myself, from allowing the darkness to show me what I needed to see, which seems ironic because in the dark, you can't see, but you can, you have a whole new internal navigation system that allows you to see, and you see through feeling the emotions, you see through feeling the trapped density in your body, you see through witnessing your inner child, you see through hearing your still calm voice of your higher self and it was only once I broke, once I surrendered into the discomfort of no longer being in control, no longer being able to distract myself, could I truly begin to see.
It was in that moment that I was shown hidden trauma from before I was 3 years old, a wound that had shaped my entire being into this now moment, so of course the ego was in resistance to me witnessing it, for it would change my life forever and it has.
As someone who has willingly shown up to work through my shadow, integrated my trauma and embodied my light, I had no clue that there could be something as deeply buried as this was, and I truly believe to the core of my being that the surrender into the darkness was the only place I was ever going to be able to uncover it.
So whilst the experience was deeply uncomfortable at times, not in the physical sense as the rooms are beautiful and the amenities more than sufficient, it is in that discomfort that you are able to, without distractions, without stimulus, without anything, truly experience seeing, and seeing in a way that I cant even begin to explain. I saw the depths of my pain, my joy, my programs, my limiting beliefs, my grief, my unhealed wounds, I saw the depths of ME, my fully present multi-dimensional self and for that I will be eternally grateful.
Whilst a darkness retreat is not for everyone, if you are someone that truly wants to experience what I means to meet yourself fully, and deep dive into sitting with yourself and seeing yourself, then I cannot recommend enough booking a dark retreat experience. I often get asked I should have prepared differently, knowing what I do not. Absolutely not, there is no preparing that you can do, the darkness will show you exactly what it needs to in accordance with what you are open and willing to receive.
Would I do it again? Absolutely!
To conclude, the darkness taught me the depth of surrender that I had known prior was only the tip of the iceberg, that in truth, surrender is a never-ending place to explore, and just as you think you have found surrender that you can go deeper, that there is a beyond the beyond. It taught me how easily the Ego comes into play even when you think you’ve mastered keeping your ego in full sight and how there is very often store trauma that is unavailable to be seen until you fully give your commitment and attention to it and in my case the darkness was necessary to gain access to it. I came out of the darkness with many profound revelations and questions that I am still embodying the answers to as I integrate my experience. The darkness really illuminated my light in a way I didn’t believe or even knew was possible.
Candace Tozer, Soul Aligned Quantum Life Coach
Candace Tozer is a uniquely gifted soul aligned quantum life coach, her passion lies in seeing her clients thrive not just survive, moving them out of the mindset and embodiment of limitation into the realm of possibility. Candace’s coaching focuses on teaching her clients to embody spirituality at the mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual level, ensuring an all-encompassing experience and a holistically sustainable way of being in everyday life. Candace shares the tools needed to reconnect and establish a deeper connection to one’s true self. Session areas of focus on cultivating a connection to presence, meditation, breathwork, nervous system regulation, detox and the art of alchemy.
