Silent Retreat: A Grateful Heart & A Clear Mind [3 Days Near Berlin]

Your Haven of Peace Amid the Pre-Christmas Stress of December: Spend a Weekend in Silence
Take a deep breath and find your center amid the hustle and bustle of the Christmas season. In this retreat, we’ll focus on what truly matters, cultivate gratitude and loving-kindness, and get in the right frame of mind for the upcoming holidays. We’ll also use this retreat as an opportunity to reflect on the past year and consciously shape the transition into the new year.

What to Expect
On the day of arrival, we’ll begin at 4:30 p.m. After dinner together, we’ll go over all the important details in the evening so that you can safely sink into the silence and fully connect with yourself.
 
Until the morning of the day you leave, we’ll envelop ourselves in dignified silence, focusing entirely on introspection. Looking inward. Listening. After lunch, there will still be time for sharing and fellowship.
 
Generally, you can expect a moderately intensive meditation practice that is well-suited even for those with little experience: we’ll sit for a maximum of about 25 minutes at a time, approximately 4–5 times a day, together in silence—sometimes as guided meditation.
 
The meditation practice is inspired by Buddhist traditions and combines mindful awareness, qualities of the heart, and mental focus.

To complement the meditation practice, we’ll practice yoga—as a gentle physical balance and to prepare for sitting. The focus is on passive Yin Yoga, supplemented by calm, mindfully performed Hatha Yoga exercises. The practice is intentionally slow and inwardly focused; dynamic or performance-oriented forms of yoga are not part of the guided program. Personal practice is welcome outside of group sessions.
 
The program is supplemented by various contemplative elements (e.g., short talks, stories and food for thought, contemplative exercises, journaling, group walks); the specific structure varies from retreat to retreat and draws from the themes I am currently exploring in my own philosophical practice and studies. Each retreat concludes with a practice designed to integrate the experience.

About Regina—Your Course Leader:
Ever since I first became fascinated by the strange phenomenon of consciousness some 30 years ago, I have been engaged with philosophy, psychology, meditation, yoga, and all such things. It is the search for truth and for answers to the ultimate questions of human existence that has always driven me: I want to explore and understand consciousness, life, and what it means to be human in all their depth.

With great joy and dedication, I have been creating experiential spaces since 2020 that are inspired by this quest—spaces where people can move from doing to being and find peace, encounter and question themselves, and thus sharpen, enrich, shape, and expand it—ultimately leading to a more joyful and peaceful life. In this way, I hope to contribute to a more peaceful, conciliatory, and humane world.

Here’s what a former participant had to say about my retreats:

The weekend of silence was a highlight for me this year, and I hope the aftereffects will last for a long time to come. Despite the usual Christmas stress, I’m already approaching many things a little differently, meditating every day, and writing a bit in my journal in the evenings. It was such a wonderful weekend—I’d love to experience it again in the future—and we were so lucky with the group! Thank you again so, so much for your fantastic introduction to silence, Yin Yoga, and so much more. — Marisca M.