Finding Stillness

What Silence, Slowing Down and Buddhist Practice Are Teaching Me About Life, Leadership and Memory

This month’s newsletter is a little different. It is more personal, more reflective and perhaps more vulnerable than some of my recent editions.

In early December, I stepped away for sixteen days of complete silence at the Lenang Meditation Centre in Chiang Mai. Lenang is not a monastery in the traditional sense. It is a remarkable working meditation centre where monks, nuns and lay practitioners practise side by side. It is a place of deep discipline, simplicity and devotion, centred around an extraordinary Sala where practice begins before dawn and continues late into the evening.

Silence there is not an idea. It is a commitment.

I did not go to escape life.
I went to learn how to live it differently.

I was drawn back to Thailand because I love its people and deeply respect the Buddhist philosophy of kindness, presence and acceptance. I feel safe here to try new approaches to life. To quiet my mind. To experiment with stillness. To listen more deeply.

My dear friend Khun Siriporn has inspired me profoundly on this journey. A committed Buddhist and a true soul mate, she has shared her lived experience of mindfulness with extraordinary openness and generosity. She encouraged me to explore this path and supported my acceptance into the programme. I am deeply grateful for her wisdom, honesty and friendship.

I am equally grateful to my lifelong friend Ruth Owen, one of the strongest yet softest women I know. Her quiet strength, emotional intelligence and unwavering support grounded me as I prepared for this experience. She reminds me that strength does not need to shout to be felt.

This retreat was never about disappearing.
It was about learning practical techniques to carry peace back home.
To recreate stillness amid the pace and pressure of modern life.

And perhaps that is why Thailand feels like the right place for this chapter. They do not call it The Land of Smiles for nothing. There is a gentleness here that does not deny hardship, but holds it with grace.

Finding Stillness, Not Escape
Over the past weeks I’ve been sharing reflections on what happens when you truly slow down, step out of noise, and practice presence.

If you missed them, here are a few that have shaped how I’m thinking about stillness, leadership, presence and what it means to live well:

🔹 A pause for deep growth before the retreat began and why I felt this experience mattered
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/harrietg_a-pause-for-deep-growth-later-this-week-activity-7400481117402779650-ZXf6

🔹 Buddhism, mindfulness and Thailand the context of this tradition and what it invites us to notice
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/harrietg_buddhism-mindfulness-thailand-activity-7408415937327964160-LBmU

🔹 The unanswered questions after 15 days in silence what stayed with me, what I’m still learning, and the questions that don’t yet have neat answers
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/harrietg_the-unanswered-questions-after-15-days-in-activity-7409156199465553921-cG7G

Taken together these posts are less about retreat as a special event, and more about how stillness becomes a practice, a way of paying attention in everyday life.

Slowing down reveals what we overlook when we rush. It reveals the patterns of our attention, memory and reactivity. It reveals where we lead from instinct and where we lead from intention.

I’m grateful for all the responses and shared reflections. If you haven’t yet read those posts, I hope you’ll find something in them that invites you to slow down with purpose, not to escape life, but to deepen it.

How I Felt and What I Thought for 15 Days in a Silent Thai Meditation Retreat

I shared at the start of this journey that I hoped it might allow me to live my life a little differently from here on in

The experience of the last 15 days, immersed in Buddhism, learning and practising hours of advanced meditation, has been intense, humbling, and at times harder than I imagined. Physically. Mentally. Emotionally.

Silence, surrounded by monks and masters, and the extraordinary team at the Lenang Meditation Centre, challenged me in ways I did not expect. I learned so much and had the privilege of one-to-one guidance with the Master of Meditation, Laung Por Prajak Sirivano.

Strengthening the mind by observing and acknowledging every movement is powerful. As you slow everything down, you begin to know yourself. You can detach from pain and the body’s reactions. This approach, rooted in Buddhist philosophy, can be practised by us all.

The Buddhist faith teaches that when our body perishes, we will be born again in different forms. That belief sat with me deeply.

The Lenang experience has been a privilege. Intense and exhausting, yes, but also joyful. I moved through a wide range of emotions, from lucidity to doubt, from happiness to learning how to accept discomfort, and then letting go.

I needed more courage than I expected to work on some of my suffering and to sit with the process. But new chapters opened. A clearer understanding of karma, mental strength, and how childhood experiences still shape us far into life.

I leave with gratitude.

Gratitude for the Master Laung Por and his wisdom and humility. Gratitude to Khun Siriporn, who made this experience possible and believed in me. Gratitude to the Lenang team, staff and volunteers, who are world class. Thank you to Khun Nan, my translator and guide into Buddhist wisdom. And thank you to Graham for encouraging me to make this happen and for holding things together at home while I stepped into something big for me.

This has been a journey of learning, unlearning, and quiet transformation. One I will carry forward.

Slowing Down and Seeing Clearly

One of the first questions people ask me is simple.
What does slowing down actually mean?

The honest answer is that it means relearning how to do very ordinary things.

At Lenang, distractions were removed. No phone. No books. No television. No conversation. No external agenda. Only the rhythm of practice and the discipline of attention.

At first, the mind rebels. It searches for stimulation. It invents urgency. It clings to habit.

Then something else happens.

Attention deepens.

I noticed it in the smallest moments. Showering, for example. In the early days, I rushed through cold showers, half-present, half-resistant. Later, as I slowed the entire process down, I realised something quietly revelatory. The shower control turned anticlockwise, not clockwise. When I turned it as it was intended, the water was piping hot.

A tiny moment.
A powerful metaphor.

Or the orange incident. On the simple buffet were oranges. I realised I rarely eat them at home because they take too long to peel and I find the pith irritating. At the centre, I had all the time in the world. I peeled the orange slowly. Ate it with intention. It was utterly delicious.

Slowing down changed the experience entirely.

This is mindfulness in practice. Seeing with intent. Moving with awareness. Letting go of unnecessary resistance.

Memory, Attention and the Gift of an Uncluttered Mind

One of the most unexpected outcomes of this retreat has been my relationship with memory.

As distractions fell away, memories surfaced that had been inaccessible for decades. Not dramatic moments, but precise details. Faces. Names. Feelings.

I set myself a quiet challenge. I wanted to remember my first detention when I was six years old. I did not force it. I simply held the question gently in mind.

Eventually, her name came to me.
Miss Comeley, the canteen assistant at my primary school in Andoversford, a tiny village in the Cotswolds.

This surprised me.

What became clear is how modern life fragments attention. Constant switching between tasks, messages and screens does not just exhaust us. It clutters the mind.

Meditation created space.

With that space came clarity. Mental conduits felt clearer. Thinking flowed more easily. Memory strengthened. Judgement softened but sharpened at the same time.

This clarity has stayed with me.

For leaders, this matters deeply. Clear memory supports good judgement. It allows experience to inform decisions without trapping us in the past. It supports discernment rather than reaction.

We speak endlessly about learning.
We speak far less about remembering.

Meditation reminded me that wisdom lives in integration, not accumulation.

Practice, Not Performance

Since returning, I have focused on practice. Not perfectly. But consistently.

Every few days I commit to set meditation. Sitting meditation and walking meditation. Forty minutes each. Slow walking. Deliberate movement. Attention placed on breath, sensation and intention. Always on the floor, on a mat. Never elevated. Always grounded.

Some days are peaceful. Others are restless. There are moments of irritation, boredom and resistance.

That is not failure.
That is the work.

The Buddhist approach is not about transcendence. It is about awareness.

Before speaking or writing, I now apply what I think of as an awareness filter.

Is what I am about to say helpful.
Is it kind.
Is it true.
Does it need to be said.

This has reduced my words.
Sharpened my listening.
Changed my leadership.

I am less interested in filling space.
More interested in holding it.

Less driven to respond immediately.
More willing to pause.

Meditation is not an achievement.
It is a relationship.

Everyday Movement as Meditation

One of the most powerful learnings has been that meditation does not end when you stand up.

In everyday movement, you can meditate.

Intending to rise, then rising.
Intending to walk, then walking.
Knowing where you are and what you are doing.

This has changed how I move through the world. There is more intention. More acknowledgement. Less rushing.

Emotionally, something has shifted too.

I feel lighter. Looser. Calmer.

Not detached from life, but more fully present within it.

Support Beyond the Retreat

One of the greatest gifts of this journey is that it did not end when I left Lenang.

I am deeply supported in my ongoing practice by Luang Por, the meditation master, and Khun Nan, my Lenang translator and guide. Each week, I share feedback on my practice via WhatsApp and email, and receive guidance in return.

Last week, for example, I was exhausted during meditation. Their response was immediate and compassionate. Exhaustion, they reminded me, is not the aim. Awareness and balance are.

This ongoing support is invaluable. It reminds me that practice is not solitary heroism. It is relational, guided and deeply human.

I will return to Lenang again in December this year to continue this work.

Stillness, Leadership and the Courage to Pause

One of the more uncomfortable realisations I had during the retreat was how rarely we allow ourselves to truly pause, particularly in leadership roles.

We talk about resilience and wellbeing, yet design lives and organisations that reward constant motion. Stillness is often misread as hesitation. Silence mistaken for disengagement.

At Lenang, there was no such confusion. Stillness was not the absence of action. It was the foundation of it.

Clarity emerged not through effort, but through restraint. By not reacting immediately. By letting thoughts arrive and pass.

This has profound implications for leadership.

Many organisational failures stem not from lack of intelligence, but from lack of pause.

Stillness creates a different kind of authority. One rooted in discernment rather than dominance. Listening rather than broadcasting.

The leaders we need now are not those who move fastest, but those who can hold complexity without collapsing into urgency.

Life After the Retreat

Life now looks different.

Every other day I cycle between fifty and fifty-five kilometres early in the morning. On alternate days I practise yoga or play tennis. I eat lightly. I no longer drink alcohol. I eat breakfast and lunch, but no supper.

I am tired. Happily tired.

My sleep is shorter but deeper. My mind feels washed clean.

I socialise less. Speak less. Tell fewer stories.

Some might say I have become dull.

I feel the opposite.
I feel more alive.

Continuing the Conversation: A Podcast on Mindfulness and Stillness

As part of integrating my time in silence back into everyday life, I recently recorded a long, thoughtful podcast conversation with Steve Ware, a long-standing mindfulness practitioner and a host who creates real space for reflection rather than soundbites.

In our conversation, we explored what meditation has genuinely changed for me, not in theory but in practice. We talked about slowing down in a world that constantly rewards speed, the role of awareness in leadership, how attention and memory shift when distractions fall away, and how Buddhist practices can support modern life without requiring withdrawal from it.

What I valued most was the quality of listening. There was no rush to conclusions, no pressure to package insights neatly. Just time to reflect honestly on what stillness has revealed, what has stayed with me, and what I am still learning.

If you would like to listen or watch, you can find the conversation here:

Podcast on Spotify
https://open.spotify.com/episode/2YxEKOJnlkkukFfbW5pNGP

Conversation on YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCrFVXLxI8Q

I hope it adds another layer to this ongoing conversation about presence, leadership, and how we live well in complex and demanding times.

The Science of Stillness

Neuroscientists now confirm what the world’s oldest philosophies have always known stillness rewires the mind.

Meditation has been shown to reduce cortisol levels, strengthen the prefrontal cortex (our decision-making centre), and improve emotional regulation.
In simpler terms: we become calmer, clearer, and more creative.

But science aside, what fascinates me most is that stillness restores balance. In a world of acceleration, it’s an act of quiet rebellion to pause and to let the brain rest, reorganise, and renew.

As Harvard’s Dr Sara Lazar wrote, “Meditation doesn’t turn you into someone else. It helps you become more of yourself.”

Letting Go and Trusting Flow

One of the earliest Buddhist teachings I encountered was impermanence.

Letting go has never come easily to me. But I am learning that letting go is not giving up. It is trusting flow.

It is caring without control.

And perhaps that is what this season of stillness is really about.

Why Meditation Matters Now

Meditation is not a luxury. It is becoming essential.

In a world of acceleration, fragmentation and noise, meditation strengthens our capacity to meet life rather than escape it.

It trains attention. Softens reactivity. Restores choice.

Above all, it brings us back to ourselves.

Carrying Stillness Forward

This retreat has changed my life.
Quietly. Lastingly.

I am committed to integrating stillness into leadership, relationships and everyday movement.

As always, I would love to hear from you.

What helps you slow down.
What brings you back to yourself.
What wisdom would you share as I continue this journey.

Warmest,
Harriet