On existential crisis, digital addiction, the ten-day Vipassana experience and learning to live beyond the incessant chatter of the mind.
Like most people, I have always lived inside my head. I believed the inner voice that whispered, stated, and occasionally screamed at me. It was the voice of a relentless Grinch. Rarely did it have a kind word to say: “You are not good enough.” “That was a really stupid thing to do—why are you always doing such stupid shit?” “You’ll never be good at poetry like Ngwatilo or Lebo Mashile, or at writing like Bikozulu. Why even bother?”
Then, in 2021, I plunged into an existential crisis. I was turning forty and felt as though I had taken a late-night matatu that had dropped me off on an unfamiliar road, leaving me unable to find my way home. I remember writing in my weekly journal: “Is this what turning forty feels like? A wasteland where nothing happens except looking back at my twenties and thirties as my glory days?” I felt like I was paddling frantically in roaring waters, only to realise I was rowing in the wrong direction and couldn’t tell North from West.
Then I met Dorothy Ooko at the SemaBox studio where she was recording an episode for her podcast, No Head. I had never heard of the concept of “no-headness” or mindfulnes, but I followed her on Spotify and promised to give it a listen.
That podcast set me on a new path as a spiritual seeker. Dorothy’s episodes pulled me into a world where the mind was not as exalted or taken as seriously as it was in my everyday reality. Like many, I had always operated on the belief that I was whatever my mind told me—a victim of Descartes’ famous proposition, “I think, therefore I am.” But as I listened to Dorothy share her El Camino chronicles and the lessons she brought back to the hubbub of her daily life, something inside me began to shift.
I began reading books and listening to spiritual teachers she recommended. Eckhart Tolle’s The Power of Now, Sadhguru’s videos, the Ten Percent Happier newsletter. I also began to practice guided daily meditations. Slowly, I realized I had been a slave to my own mind. Our minds are constantly oscillating between an imagined future and a ruminated past, fiercely avoiding the present moment. The present moment forces the mind to be still, rendering it useless. And the mind hates being rendered useless. It wants us to believe it calls all the shots, that the body exists to serve it, and that our true essence resides in our thoughts. That is the fundamental fallacy that only seekers begin to unpack.
The first time I tried reading The Power of Now, the words flew right past me. No matter how hard I tried, reading each chapter felt like trying to catch raindrops. I put the book aside for months and committed instead to ten minutes of guided meditation every morning. Over time, I could observe my breath for a little longer before my mind began to wander. When I finally returned to the book—which I have now read four times—I realised why I had struggled initially: the first time, I simply wasn’t ready. Through Tolle’s teachings, I finally understood what that internal shift was—an awakening.
Vipassana: Ten days of silence, surrender and self-observation
Around that time, I also had to confront an unhealthy attachment to my phone. Like any addiction, my first reaction was denial. When my husband, Richard, casually pointed it out, I instinctively flared up and became confrontational. For a long time, I justified it: This is my work. How else am I supposed to do what I do if I’m not online?
Being online had become my identity; I didn’t know who I was offline. After years of building a digital brand, I felt compelled to keep fueling a larger-than-life persona. The internet had been central to my identity since around 2000, back when I worked as a cyber café attendant at Africa Online’s eTouch centers in Nairobi’s CBD. In those days, going online was called “browsing”—checking your Yahoo or Hotmail account was a luxury that cost an arm and a leg.
In 2024, I found myself in an unmoored state, searching for deeper meaning as everything I had relied on to define “myself” began to melt through my fingers. In September, while searching for a meditation event or community, I stumbled upon the Vipassana website. Despite months of living on a diet of talks by Sadhguru, Eckhart Tolle, Shi Heng Yi, and Mooji, I had never heard of Vipassana.
The description—ten days of noble silence, no digital devices, and up to six hours of daily meditation—felt terrifying yet strangely compelling. My spiritual growth felt stagnant, and despite my daily guided sessions, an unquenched thirst remained. I still struggled to observe my emotions or quiet the flood of thoughts that rushed in the moment my meditation ended.
Vipassana, which means “to see things as they really are,” is an ancient Indian technique of self-transformation through self-observation. It is non-sectarian, requiring no religious affiliation or conversion to Buddhism. Unlike other forms of meditation, it focuses on observing your breath, mind, and bodily sensations completely without attachment. It sounds simple, but it is not.
Try closing your eyes and observing your breath entering and leaving your nostrils for just five minutes. Most people barely last thirty seconds before the mind drifts into past memories or future to-do lists.
A PhD program in Mindfulness
“A 10-day Vipassana retreat in Lukenya is akin to a voluntary stint at Kamiti Maximum Security Prison without the hard labour, bedbugs and paper-thin mattresses.
You let go of all your earthly comforts.
You surrender to pain and discomfort.
By the 10th day, you know pain by its first name. You become friends.”
You do not speak to anyone for eleven days. Every day starts at 4:00 AM and ends at 9:30 PM, with only two meals: breakfast at 7:00 AM and lunch at 11:00 AM.
I knew I would do whatever it took to finish the ten days, but I didn’t realise how deeply I would have to surrender.
The physical challenge was gruelling. Sitting on a concrete floor with nothing but a small cushion and a slightly larger one—no backrests, no chairs, and no water during sessions—brought intense discomfort. At times it felt cruel, even inhumane. I questioned my decision, wondering if I had jumped off a spiritual cliff into some extreme ritual requiring suffering as a rite of passage. Is this really necessary? I thought. Isn’t there an easier, more humane way to achieve this?
Then, on the fourth day, the heavy clouds of pain, doubt, and resistance began to dissipate.
Vipassana is like a PhD program in mindfulness. It is not for the faint-hearted; it is for those who have experienced enough suffering to reach the end of their rope, ready to surrender to the unknown. You have to know what it feels like to be restless, empty, and aware that nothing external—no object, person, or status—can truly grant you lasting peace.
By uprooting the underlying triggers that drive our cravings and aversions, Vipassana detoxes the mind. It trains you to see every moment as it truly is. It acts as a gym for the mind: the more you practice, the less reactive you become to mental stimuli.
Since returning from the retreat, I have maintained a daily practice: at least an hour of meditation in the morning, and twenty to thirty minutes in the evening. The result has been a newfound ability to observe my thoughts and emotions without getting swept away by them. My knee-jerk reactions have softened. I listen more and talk less (which, for an extrovert, is nothing short of a miracle).
When our phones were returned on the tenth day, I noticed something surprising: I had no desire to log back in. The urge to scroll through social media or check WhatsApp messages was no longer as debilitating.
Getting my phone back felt like being asked to step out into a storm right after taking a hot shower and putting on a warm sweater.
What Vipassana taught me about my mind
The retreat also altered my relationship with daily vices. Cravings for weed, alcohol, and coffee—things I previously couldn’t imagine living without—simply faded. My daily smartphone habits shifted too. I began leaving my phone in the sitting room at bedtime, switching off after 9:00 PM on weekdays, and pausing whenever I felt the urge to reach for it as a distraction. Instead, I started reaching for my Kindle or a physical book.
Of course, I still fall off the wagon occasionally. I used to beat myself up when I stumbled; now, I gently remind myself, “You can do this.”
Maintaining a daily meditation practice requires deep discipline. Some days I wake up at 4:30 AM to get my full hour in. Other days, I split it into twenty-minute micro-sessions spread across the day, or settle for fifteen minutes in the morning and fifteen at night. I can always feel the difference in my mental calm between a fifteen-minute sitting and a full hour.
What you put into meditation trickles into every aspect of your day. It is the difference between being a puppet pulled by every passing thought of the past or future, and having enough equanimity to watch your mind act like a restless toddler without reacting to it.
Yet, no matter how many years you practise, meditation is not a destination. Never expect to arrive at a point where you, now an enlightened being, can go without it for a few days and still be okay. It becomes your breath.
Then, when you think you’ve nailed it, life throws you a grenade.
The Kenya Vipassana Meditation Courses run thrice a year during the school holidays (March, August & December). Thereafter, new students join the community for weekly in-person or virtual sittings.