What 1 Week of Solitary Darkness Taught Me About Joy & Relationships
Jacques 2.0 was born in a cave-like stone building at the Hermitage, somewhere in rural Guatemala.
Adopt a new approach to well-being.
Understand the benefits of play.
Overcome the ‘toxic productivity mindset.’
Overcome the sense of time scarcity.
In this article, I chronicle the birth of Jacques 2.0 in a cave-like stone building somewhere in rural Guatemala. This was the most extreme self-development program I’ve ever done and it transformed my approach to happiness. If there’s one article you read on my LinkedIn, choose this one.
There’s no doubt that I like to take an extreme approach to spiritual development.
In 2019, I did a ten-day silent retreat, during which I meditated for 10 hours everyday. In 2020, I practiced cold water immersion daily and started doing ice baths weekly. In 2021, I tried high-dose psilocybin as a method for exploring my mind, while wearing blindfolds. You can read about my integrations from that experience here.
In 2022, the opportunity emerged spontaneously to partake in a darkness retreat at the Hermitage Center in Guatemala. I know, the name is appropriate right? Doing a darkness retreat is like voluntary solitary confinement. You are in a room with no light. Alone. With your mind. For as long as you like. I chose 8 days. On a whim.
I had no expectations. The upcoming week, I was attending a relational skills training by Authentic Relating International. This involved many human connection games and meditations. In other words, I was immersed in a highly physical world. It was keeping me distracted. But I was not really afraid of the darkness. After my terrifying hero-dose psilocybin journey, I had confidence I could handle 8 days of it.
I was almost right.
On the 16th of January, I packed my bags, said my goodbyes on social media, and walked along the lakeshore to the Hermitage. I had proclaimed jokingly to everyone, in these words, that Jacques was going to get reborn: “You will never see this version of Jacques again. Say your farewells.” I said.
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I arrived. Severin, the host and founder, greeted me. He gave me a detailed manual to read. Therein I read “The Darkness retreat is an INTENSE experience and is best approached with zero expectations […] You will have virtually nothing to do inside except some form of spiritual practice. Here are some suggested meditations…”
I signed at the bottom. “Hell yes. Intense. My favorite word.” I thought to myself.
Severin guided me to the room. He lit a candle and we entered a hobbit cave. It was a stone building with a small wooden door. Severin encouraged me to get comfortable. He lit an incense. We both sat down on the floor and I remember his words exactly:
“The darkness retreat is for facing things. […] Whatever comes up, remember you are safe. I am holding this container for you from the outside.”
He explained the pristine earthquake safety and air filtration systems of the building. He passed me over a flashlight and then said his final farewell. I would not see another human for 8 days. I set up my room, including my supplements and notepads. I was ready to go.
I turned off the light. Then nothing…
Over the next 8 days, I would sleep 12 hours daily, relive many childhood memories, ponder life’s deepest questions, and make several declarations to myself. Th retreat marks the advent of Jacques 2.0, as written on my darkness retreat journal:
“Jacques 2.0. New hair. New pronunciation”
Since exiting, I have given the darkness retreat meaning. I have created a narrative that I was reborn in that hobbit cave. I chose to make this a significant milestone in my life, just as a birthday is. Now, I have two birthdays. Jacques 2.0: January 24, 6:28AM.
My Experience In The Cave
Day 1. I got into the groove of practicing open-awareness meditation. I let my thoughts emerge and filtered them for gold. I walked around the room with a blanket over my head, meditated with my feet up, and did mini workouts each time after I went pee. During all of this, I was filtering my thoughts and documenting my insights. There were times of active brainstorming. And times of waiting patiently for inspiration.
I answered some significant questions. The answers helped me decide the behavioral upgrades of Jacques 2.0. The first question was related to what I was like before I became an entrepreneur.
The question: What did Jacques do with his time before he had started his business?
The behavior change for Jacques 2.0: Jacques will create more space for leisure in his life, especially real-life games and weekend adventures.
Jacques the kid had time for things he enjoyed. He played sports, mountain-biked, hung out with people, and collected Pokémon cards. Once I started my business, this all ended. I became a time-scarcity-driven workaholic who always prioritized productive business activities over fun. I expand on this later in this article.
The question: What can Jacques do to spend money on his well-being?
The behavior change: Jacques will invest in acquiring health technologies (such as a sauna and the best mattress on earth), creating a nourishing physical home base (such as customizing his home office), and hosting retreats for his friends.
Two related questions I contemplated were: What would Jacques do if he were a billionaire? And, what memories are the highlights of Jacques’ life?
The best memories were all related to hosting events. Retreats, camping journeys, and ski trips for my best friends. One vision that was particularly powerful (it made me laugh) was being in a rowboat with all members of my men’s group on the Sunshine Coast — where my dad owns a cabin. I hosted a men’s retreat here. We hiked, swam, and hot-tubbed.
On the rowboat, one of the paddles broke while I was rowing hard. I stood up in the middle of the boat, took the one paddle, and yelled: “Venice style, Baby!” All my brothers laughed their guts out.
Another vision was from a ski trip to Whistler. During the first night, we all piled into the king bed and giggled together. I facilitated some touch games from my arsenal and everyone felt safe.
I feel most alive when I am creating experiences for others. Not just event experiences. Adventures, journeys, or retreats over many days with the same people. So the implication here is to spend more money on creating group experiences.
When I thought about what I’d do if I was a billionaire, I envisioned acquiring a big house where I could host my friends and create experiences for them for free. I would buy an infrared-sauna. I didn’t come up with much other than this surprisingly.
This lack of wanting is consistent with what I say again and again.
The more self-work I do, the more I fall in love with life as it is
And…
The more experiences I have, the more I realize the best ones are free
The question: What lifestyle does Jacques want to adopt in his future?
The behavior change for Jacques 2.0: Jacques will cultivate community for the long-term in one geographic space.
A lot of different lifestyles came to my mind.
Being a permanent digital nomad. Moving to a new city entirely. Living in two places for 6 months each. Traveling to festivals and events all-the-time. Starting a family and settling down.
The one that spoke to me the most was living in Vancouver and hosting potlucks, games nights, and dance parties on a recurring schedule. My visions here evoked a strong pull to go home for me. For a sudden moment, I felt homesickness and intense anxiety. I wanted to get out, fly home, see my family, and eat all my Nut Butter in storage! But, this feeling faded swiftly.
In my Vancouver life, I visualized having groups of people over at my place hanging out, watching movies, playing authentic relating games, and cooking food together. Every week. I visualized spending quality time with my family.
It is now clear to me. I want to live a life of building community on a consistent basis. In my back yard. I pictured one of my best friends who is a great role model for this. He works as little as possible and initiates as many weekend back-country adventures as he can. He also has a lot of fun going on dates and creating experiences for his friends.
The question: How does Jacques want to show up romantically?
The behavior change: Jacques will embody a facilitator and creator of experiences in his dating life as much as he does in his professional life. Jacques will embody more playfulness, initiative, and masculinity.
In the dark, I realized that I had never really had a dating life or a long-term romantic partner. I had also never made explicit moves on women. This made feel disheartened and I wondered if this was a symptom for a deeper psychological problem. In this moment, I started to feel a pressure to have a more active dating life. I was ‘shoulding’ myself and feeling guilty. It was uncomfortable.
In the end, I came to terms with my desolate dating history, declared to myself “I will not put pressure on myself to get laid,” and opted for a healthier dialogue with myself: I want to spice up my dating life. I want to ask more women to explore intimacy with me. I want to spend more quality time with women.
I want dating to take up more space in my life. And it will be fun. Characterized by more experiences, games, and adventures. One memory that came to mind for me was when I climbed a giant tree on a date. We then asked each other deep questions at the top while overlooking the city.
Finally, I envisioned the women with whom I want to spend quality time. I will admit. There were fantasies. But that’s for the X-rated version of this article. Not for Linkedin…
The question: What does Jacques have to worry about?
The behavior change: Jacques will not worry about things outside the here and now. They are not problems unless he CAN and WILL solve them in the present moment.
Being in the dark room showed me how much I worry about things I cannot practically solve. You cannot do anything in the darkness. You cannot fix relationships. You cannot make investments. You cannot do work. Yet, I worried about all these things.
The worrying led me to see problems differently: Problems are situations that are being dealt with in the here and now.
Most of our mental problems are not being dealt with or cannot be dealt with in the here and now. So there’s no point thinking about them. This insight was particularly true for me when it came to evaluating my financial investments. Yes, what a wonderful thing to think about…
I had a full day of replaying investment decisions in my mind. It was painful. I pictured some of the most painful days of my life over and over again. At the end of these cycles, I declared to myself: “I am financially abundant right now. And I consciously spend money. With an awareness of opportunity costs.” Opportunity costs are the possible alternative expenditures with the same amount of money.
But I’d often catch myself. “Not relevant right now.” I’d say to myself.
The question: Why does Jacques experience nostalgia for particular moments?
The behavior change: Jacques will take breaks from being an entrepreneur and will simplify his productivity systems so that he doesn’t feel time-pressure.
For most of my twenties, I had time-scarcity. A sense of urgency. A sense of needing to be productive. This relationship to time created two patterns: 1. rushing through sweet moments and 2. wishing to relive past moments in which I was carefree. That is, when I had no feeling of pressure to do or be anything.
The sense of time pressure emerged when I became an entrepreneur. I realized my to-do list was endless. I became obsessed with productivity and self-improvement. I created complex systems and habits for advancing both areas of my life. I consumed content by progenitors of hustle and workaholic culture. Elon Musk. David Goggins.
I had been optimizing my life for productivity. Google Calendar, Trello boards, many social media platforms. The complexity of my productivity system and the rate at which I checked it was creating the psychological pattern of time-scarcity. This was leading me to want to go back in time and have certain experiences again. Back in time, I had more time to do things and get ahead.
This insight had the largest implications for my mindset and lifestyle.
There’s more. In darkness, I realized how consumed by ‘toxic productivity mindset’ I had become. I was trying to squeeze the productivity out of every hour. I was a workaholic to the extent that I had quit all my other activities. All the things I did as a kid, before becoming an entrepreneur. I cancelled my enjoyment activities for the sake of being productive. Because.
Because there wasn’t enough time.
Compulsive checking of a complex productivity system was the cause. I had developed the habits of constantly checking my communication channels and to-dos. You see, I had been checking my system and apps on my phone many times each day. I was reminding myself of the to-dos and unread messages, again and again and again.
I learnt the lesson the hard way. In a cave in solitary confinement.
Well-being is not measured by your career productivity nor your messaging response time.
And so Jacques 2.0 is uncomplicated. He checks his phone sparsely. Limits the number of apps he uses. And his to-do list is simple.
The question: How did Jacques connect with others as a child?
The behavior change: Jacques will play more games, go on more adventures, and participate in more sports.
Children. They don’t have time scarcity. They do not apply pressure on themselves to be productive, so they spend more time having fun. They don’t have fun by talking. They just play, explore, and pretend.
In my relational development, I’ve noticed I’ve become more of a talker than a player. I want to reinvigorate my playful self in my social habits. I want to talk less and play more. I want to embody little Jacques on the playground instead of intellectual scientist Jacques, who is impressive, achievement-driven, and entrepreneurial (spoken in a arrogant tone).
There’s so many things to do together other than talk. Watch the children. They are on the playground, they play sports, and they explore.
The question: How does Jacques want to show up differently in his relationships?
The behavior change: Jacques will write more letters and express more love for his family members and best friends.
This was when I cried. I remembered the time I wrote my first love letter. A heartfelt adoration note for a woman in my life. She told me it had made her cry. In having this vision of her crying, I started to cry. I realized how few love letters I had written in my life, for my dad, mom, and brothers-from-another-mother.
I want to explore a more tender version of myself. One that expresses more affection for the people in my life. One that practices more quality time — with no pressure to be productive.
I want to write more letters like this one. This was written by my roommate and shared with me at a good time. I cried so hard. I want to be more like Charlotte.
The question: How does Jacques want to steward his wealth?
The behavior change: Jacques will monitor his portfolio, set targets for liquidations, and choose assets with higher upside.
I realized that I’ve been a passive investor. I invest and then forget. I would be a lot wealthier if I took an active, educated approach. So during the retreat, I considered different asset classes and their annual percent yields. The apartment I own gives me a very low yield, and it has already appreciated massively in value. So, I decided to sell it and invest in something different. Or at least real estate with higher upside.
The options I generated were as follows: An Airbnb-able apartment in an all-year-round tourism destination, a two-bedroom apartment in Vancouver, high-APY staked crypto coins, and The Party Scientist business. The last one I contemplated for the most time. I could run adds, I could buy leads, I could pay for referrals, I could purchase better equipment.
The more I delved into my business, the more I realized relationships matter. My success depends really on a few key relationships within FANG companies: Facebook, Amazon, Netflix, Google. So, I made a note to send customized voice notes to my contacts there.
I noticed another thing about my business. I was not taking my referral network seriously. Anyone who works at an organization can refer me business! Yet, I haven’t made it clear they can or how to do it. I need to clarify the steps for my cheerleaders to refer me.
I want to ask for referrals more often and make it clear who people can refer me to: innovative virtual event creators at large conferences and companies.
The last piece from my financial reflections was about monitoring assets I intend to liquidate. And then liquidating them at the right time. I’ve made some mistakes here… errrr #pussycoin. I’ve learnt the hard way to pre-decide the ‘right timing’ and set up an automatic alert for it.
My exit from the hobbit cave: High-on-Life
So. It’s Day 7.
I was getting hancy. I had slept horribly the night before. I was hungry for more food. I was suffering constant allergies. I really wanted to get to work, write this article, and update my organizational systems. This was when it got hard. My mind wouldn’t stop racing, so I decided to spend the last day meditating on body sensations. I kept getting distracted by visions of freedom. I wanted to get out.
When these thoughts emerged, I would switch locations or start to pace. 8… more… hours. I finally laid down. Another horrible sleep. Waiting in my bed to fall asleep. I slept probably 2 hours.
The morning that Severin woke me up was a relief. I had something to celebrate. I did my morning routine, took a cold shower, and went outside. Instantly, I started smiling and laughing. I was free! “I’m so high!” I said to myself.
But I was dizzy and my eyesight blurry. I stumbled up the hill and looked at the sun rise slowly.
I said to myself: “This darkness retreat is the birthdate of Jacques 2.0.”
I went off on my day, journaling vigorously. And the first time I looked at my phone, it made me feel sick. Telling, hey? After 8 hours, everything would be normal again.
So do I recommend this experience?
Based on my insights above, yes. Book a spot at the Hermitage, make the pilgrimage, and tell Severin that ‘Jacques your messiah’ sent you.
Keep working on yourselves, friends.
Final Recommendation
Take time in your life to not stimulate yourself with information.
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