THE ACCRESCENT™ PODCAST EPISODE 209

TA Ep. 209 FINAL

[00:00:00] Hello. Welcome back to the Accrescent Podcast. I’m your host, Leigh Ann Lindsey. I was so excited for today’s episode because I have followed Sky Cave retreats on Instagram for a while now, and every video they post of individuals going to these darkness retreats just are so moving and powerful. And so I knew I wanted to have the founder, Scott on to talk about how did he get into darkness retreats?

What are some of the powerful shifts they might be seeing for individuals going on these retreats? And so a quick introduction to Scott. Scott Berman is the founder of Sky Cave Retreats, the first darkness retreat center in the US Throughout the last decade, he has spent over two years in self-guided solo retreats in remote wilderness.

He did his first darkness retreat in 2012 and has spent over 70 [00:01:00] days in multiple solo darkness retreats, including a couple with his wife Jill. Over the last five years, he has supported over 600 people in their dark retreats and has been pioneering the darkness retreat movement at his center in southern Oregon.

I was so excited to explore a number of different facets from this, and what I have to say, as you guys will see from the conversation, is I loved Scott’s nuanced approach. To this two retreats. There’s no, there’s no ego involved in this. We talk a lot about how my depth, psychological approach and the way that I work with clients in connecting with the psyche, connecting with the unconscious is very gentle and gracious.

And it’s not about forcing our way into things or through things. It’s actually about leaning into where there’s fear and listening to that, not necessarily trying to override that. And so I just was so impressed with [00:02:00] his approach to this work. I feel like sometimes there’s a lot of elitism in spirituality in some of these things.

Like I, you know, I’m, I’m so much more committed because I forced myself to do this really hard thing. And so he talks about how there are so many different ways they support guests. In these darkness retreats, and it just absolutely blew my mind. It’s something I would love to do myself at some point. Um, and I think you guys are gonna be totally blown away by this.

So we talk about just what is it? What is a darkness retreat? What does his, what his facilities look like? What can someone expect when they first arrive on site? And over the next couple of days, how they take such a nuanced approach, how it can still be something that is incredibly supportive for someone even like myself, who’s experienced trauma, particularly sexual abuse trauma.

So we even talk about [00:03:00] how, you know, for someone like me, the darkness can actually be very scary and triggering how, how they support that and how this could be something that is still really expansive for them. So with that, please enjoy this conversation with Scott Berman. Well, Scott, welcome to the Accrescent Podcast.

Thanks for having me. My coordinator Kelly, who coordinates booking all the guests, which is such a gift, I, I sent her your guys’ page on Instagram. I’ve followed you for a while, and I was like, this would be such a fun conversation to have, because I see the posts that go up for Skype, cave retreats, retreats and, and just kind of the experience people are having.

But Sky Cave retreats, that’s the first time I even ever heard of this concept of a darkness retreat, even though I know it’s kind of rooted in some ancient practices. So I’m just really ecstatic to be able to dive into all of that. But I think if we can, starting with a little bit of your origin story, how did [00:04:00] you, you know, what was some of the journey, I’m sure there’s a million things you could talk about, but what was some of the journey that led you to founding Sky Cave Retreat?

Some of your own experiences? Yeah. Um, in short, when, in my early twenties or late teens, I had, uh. A painful breakup that led to more like a, a disillusionment with kind of, I mean, it actually more led to a freeze response that ultimately that then led to a disillusionment with the world. Um, so I guess I couldn’t say it was a totally, um, inside out disillusionment, but regardless, it led to a, it led to a turning inwards.

And at that time I discovered the spirituality and meditation. And I don’t think I’ve ever told this story this way, but I would say, and, and I certainly wouldn’t [00:05:00] have seen it like this a couple years ago, but my inception to spirituality was to escape pain in a sense. Mm-hmm. I, I never would’ve seen it that way.

And yet now, like, and, and I’ll go backwards, but fast forwarding to now, what we notice is a lot of people who have turned towards spirituality is a way to make the, their self feel better. Mm-hmm. And not there’s anything wrong with that. Everyone wants, you know, I, I want myself to feel better too. And, um, does feel, is feeling better more important than the truth that I don’t feel good?

And what does it look like to directly meet the parts that don’t feel good without trying to change them? And that’s something, you know, we’ll, we’ll dive into because that tends to be a pretty primary orientation [00:06:00] of how we support people and how we’re with people where our orientation here is not, and.

We’ve done our best to pull anything on the website that would even allude to saying that the darkness is a healing, transformational awakening experience. Like that’s not our orientation. That tends to be a byproduct of being honest with what’s real that happens on its own. We’re not here to wake in, heal or transform anyone or even really necessarily move towards that.

Our orientation is more having the humility, the honesty, cultivating the capacity to be honest, uh, yeah, to be receptive, to be available, to be intimate with what’s here. And so going back in my late teens or early twenties, it was more a freeze and a collapse, and [00:07:00] then discovering spirituality and then.

Kind of orienting in a way of not really ever processing or being with those parts that were hurt and kind of mm-hmm. And grasping almost like, which I notice a lot in myself historically and others who come that spirituality can take like, uh, it can be moved through our very western lens of something to accomplish something, to achieve something, to, to, to get that’s great and grand and we’re gonna like, feel good about ourselves when we get there, and all those things.

And that was totally my journey for probably about 20 years in that. And I started spending a lot of time alone. Um, I’d spend for about seven years, for about three to six months every year I’d be alone up in the mountains in southern Baja, north of Cabo. There was this magical little oasis that I’d discovered.

Then in Northern [00:08:00] California in Mount Shasta, I spent a lot of time in the summer alone. Mm-hmm. And in 2011, 2012, somebody mentioned a dark retreat to me. Uh, there was somebody in Northern Oregon who still does them offered, would offer, was offering dark retreats. Um, he had just kind of stumbled on them on his own.

He was a vet who had PTSD. He would go into a room with a little red light and found it really soothing for his nervous system. And somebody said to him, you know, this is like an ancient Tibetan Buddhist practice. Why don’t you turn out the light and see what the dark’s like? And so that was his kind of movement into it.

And we had some similar circles and somebody who knew him shared with me and I was like, well that’s totally right up my alley. I love exploring in the dark. Um, came to find that I really loved isolating to keep myself from being hurt again, but I wouldn’t have seen that. It was about 20 years until actually, [00:09:00] uh, discovering part of my propensity to isolate.

Um, and there was a sincere thread in there that knew something deeper, that there was something more meaningful than kind of the material world. Mm-hmm. Um, and so I did my first dark retreat with my wife in 2012. We blacked out our house. We went in for five days and I was quite moved by the experience.

And so then I went back down to Baja on this land where I would spend some of my time before going. Um, as I transitioned up and down the mountains there and I helped finish build this little small earth bag dome that was, uh, underground. We built like a few steps underground. It was an eight foot diameter dome, and I spent 10 days in there for my first.

Unassisted Dark retreat, which I do not recommend that anyone does unassisted. Dark retreat [00:10:00] unassisted. Yeah. Yeah. I think, yeah, and I’ll share more on that later. I think actually doing ’em with people who are really experienced, not just in dark retreat themselves, but I think even more important is experienced in witnessing other, like being with other people and actually understanding what happens for people completely.

Uh, and not like channeling people through and like attempting them to have a certain kind of experience because then you’re kind of missing what’s actually happening for people in there. And the nature of humans is that like we look to others to validate our worth. I mean, a little baby is looking to its parents all the time.

Nothing wrong with that is kind of built into like there is a needed sense of belonging to feel safe. To feel secure. So we, we reference that through others. And so when someone goes into the dark, they [00:11:00] are referencing that through the, the support and how the containers have. And so if somebody is positioning the dark retreat as a healing transformational experience, that person in there is not going to really be able to access most of ’em.

95% of people aren’t gonna be able to access the parts that are afraid, the parts that don’t like it, the parts that are lonely. Because if they’re having a transformational healing experience, the person on the outside’s going to be happy and proud. They’re going to feel that. And so there’s going to be some level of performing it and there’s gonna be some level of kind of manufacturing it, but also kind of feeling it to be real.

I mean, that’s kind of what we do in culture and we kind of base like. Our self worth based on culture, it’s all pretty mm-hmm. Arbitrary of how we feel about ourselves is how we kind of rank in culture or subculture and, and again, nothing wrong with it, but that’s the slippery [00:12:00] slope that we have found and that we’re constantly discovering in the way that we hold the container of just the subtle ways that we influence people in there.

And so we’re constantly doing less in a sense. Mm-hmm. I mean, even it’s been a whole process for us of desing, the process of somebody coming out of the dark, of turning on the light. And we have a whole process that we go through with people because longer is not deeper. Mm-hmm. The longer someone stays in the dark is not deeper.

We actually tend to find that it tends to be the opposite because it can be severely dysregulating and if somebody like through and through. Doesn’t have the permission to come out of the dark different than somebody being like, you can come out. But there’s like a whole process around that. It’s actually not a failure that doesn’t, and still some people are like, I came here to do this thing.

I’m not coming out. But we’re able to reach [00:13:00] many people and that creates an entirely different experience. And so I, I did in 2013, I went in for 10 days. Um, it was an eight foot diameter little dome. I eight for five days. I fasted for five days because I just didn’t have anyone there to really support me.

And, and, and I stayed that too. I mean, I guess I like. Um, people who maybe like wear the, like a badge of how long they’ve gone in the dark tends to be maybe a sign that it’s very much in the capitalistic western mindset and most likely kind of missed mark of depth and quality over like, uh, quantity and some sense of like conquering.

Yeah. And so I’m sharing the 10 days more as a, like my first, uh, three times that I went in the dark were all for 10 days. And as I started witnessing, people go through, [00:14:00] and I’ll mention Adrian many times in this, who’s my like, um, business partner in this, like the co-facilitator who’s incredibly perceptive and.

Totally shifted how we do things here. As I started to witness what was happening and as she supported me in actually attuning to what was happening for people as to, as opposed to overlaying what I wanted to happen for people. Mm-hmm. I stopped going in for 10 days because I was like, whoa. I probably managing my experience and having these hidden ways of kind of enduring and getting through that I didn’t realize.

And when I went in for that first 10 days, prior to that, I had just spent 40 days up in the mountains, completely alone. My wife brought me food further up the mountain and we didn’t see each other and I could, I would sit on the same rock meditating for 12, 14 hours a day, and then I [00:15:00] went in the dark and I wasn’t able to really meditate.

And which is very common. We find a lot of, most of the long-term meditators who come, whether they’re 15, 20 years practicing Tibetan Buddhists or whatever their meditation is, most of them, the majority of them find that they’re not able to really do their practices in there and have an incredibly hard time, in many cases, much harder than somebody who has no meditation experience.

And we can kind of explore that as we go on. Yeah. And that really hit me, like, I was like, why, why is this so hard? I’m like, on paper, one of the more prepared people to like go into the dark in terms of amount of time and solitude and meditation experience and it didn’t matter. And I, we come to find 600 people in it doesn’t matter.

Mm-hmm. And it can actually, probably more often than not, act as more of a, an impediment [00:16:00] than a benefit. And so anyway, for myself, it was like, I was surprised by how challenging it was. I was moved to how much sensitivity I had without doing anything. And there was a sincerity of like, I’m missing something.

I don’t know what it is. And like, I wanna build a dark retreat. And so six years later, five years later, we landed on where we’re at in southern Oregon. And the intention was just to build a dark retreat for myself. And I thought I could convince a few friends to come. Like, it wasn’t like, let’s set out on a, a healing business venture.

Uh, I was just like, I wanna go in the dark. We built it and we built the first one with windows just because my family was like, no one’s coming to your dark retreat, and let’s just not build a building that is not getting used. And so we put windows on and blacked them out. I put it on Airbnb right when we started and was just thinking we’d pull the black shades off and [00:17:00] people would come and, but um, we were surprised that right when we started, which was in the spring of 2020, it, it took off.

And we have not in five and a half years taken off the blackout shades that we put on the windows. As we’re easing outta summer, whenever we come into a seasonal change, I always like to do a number of different cleanses, and for me, quarterly parasite cleansing is a staple in my wellness habits, my wellness routine.

I’ve seen so many different types of parasite cleansing kits and supplements. I’ve tried a good chunk of many of them. But the one that I think is the easiest to use and the most comprehensive is Rogers Hood Apothecary. I actually had Kim Rogers on the podcast a few weeks ago, if you missed that conversation.

It’s episode two oh [00:18:00] one, two hundred and one. It was such an amazing conversation. She shared her story of how parasite cleansing was a huge root cause in her chronic illness. But in that episode, we really talk about how her parasite cleansing kit and products are so different from a lot of what’s out there on the market.

And for me, what really stood out is a lot of parasite cleansing kits are kind of falling into one of two categories, either A, they’re. Going directly after the parasites, but there’s no binding or supportive nutrients, or B, it’s more supportive nutrients and not enough things that actually go after the parasites.

And so what I love about Kim’s products from Rogers Hood Apothecary is there’s products that go after the parasites. There’s products that help bind and flush them out. And then there’s products that help support the organs that are doing all this detoxing work. And all of her supplements, mo, almost all of them, are in liquid form to make them even easier to take, even [00:19:00] easier to digest and absorb.

So check the show notes below and use discount code Leann 10 for a discount, a checkout. Wow. I love that. Okay. There are so many things I wanted circle back to and weave in and touch in deeper with. ’cause there’s so much gold in what you’re saying here. What I do wanna start with though is what I love, you know, you’re talking about, I, I say I’ve done these 10 day retreats.

It’s not to toot my own horn. What I love is I, I have to do the same thing. I have to have the experience before I can really share or even try and tell someone else about it. Anything that I’ve ever recommended to a client, it’s something I’ve experienced and tried and done myself, and it completely just changes the way that I approach that.

So, just what I hear in that is like, yeah, I, I kind of was a Guinea pig. I experimented with myself. I’ve done some of these things in different, I’ve done whatever, 10 days, five days, three days, one day, all the different things. And there’s an [00:20:00] embodied. Knowing of what those experiences are like or can be like.

And that’s part of what you bring to everyone who’s coming to your retreat. So I really love that. And I just think more than anything, it speaks to that embodied experience you yourself have had. And that brings a knowing that goes far beyond just an intellectual understanding of a process, I think.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. You know, and on that, like in short, the first two years, it was just me like being with people here and all I had was my own experience. And at that time I didn’t have much of a capacity to really attune to I, I mean, I didn’t really have much of a capacity to really attune to myself because I was so focused on the idea of how I thought I should be.

Through my own distorted spiritual lens. This is how I’m supposed to be, which had [00:21:00] me not being able to have really access to much of myself because I was living in like an ideal, and which I think we all do in all, all our different ways. But people would come and if somebody asked me back then those first two years, what’s it like?

Are people afraid? I would be like, no, no one’s really afraid. Everyone’s having these amazing transformational times. That’s what everyone was telling me. That’s what I was seeing. That’s what I was expecting. That’s the container I was holding. And then Adrian joined me, who I’ve known for over 15 years, and she is incredibly perceptive and she, she resides at a very deep part of her being and a really simple, humble way.

And she can see deeply from that. And so people would come out of the dark and I’d share with her like, they had an amazing [00:22:00] time. They were so grateful when they came out, it was so transformational. She’d have a session with them, which she now does before and after people go in the dark and she would then come back just to share.

Like that person was actually in freeze. They were completely shut down. Their nervous system was totally dysregulated, and they were having an unbelievably challenging time the entire time. And they were in the most of the time, they were in the dark. And that would happen person after person, after person.

And it was like, whoa, I’m, I’m totally missing something. Mm-hmm. And it took for a while. I mean, Adrian felt for a while in the beginning, like, I don’t know if it’s actually good for people to go in the dark. Like it is very dysregulating for the nervous system. It’s different now because of how we’ve evolved and refined the offering, the support, the pre and the post, the whole container.

And so. We could then see, well, Adrian could, and then through her support, I could then begin to see what was actually happening for people [00:23:00] underneath what they were doing, what their survival response was, their survival pattern, their safety strategy. Because being alone in the dark is extremely, um, activating for the animal in us.

Like if anyone got put in a wide open meadow in the middle of the night, even if they had all the armor and all the ammunition, they’re gonna be on guard. Mm-hmm. They may not say that they’re afraid, they may not even be aware that they’re afraid, but they’re on guard because there’s a potential threat.

And so someone goes in the dark and. When I see now, like other dark retreat places popping up and they’re presented as this healing, transformational, it’s so amazing. All these positive things and just like, it makes, I feel a little uneasy and conflicted, especially because we’ve, you know, popularized it in certain way and the [00:24:00] way that it, like the darkness is not necessarily relaxing, transformational, healing.

It, it, it’s, that has completely to do with someone’s orientation. That’s like saying, go meet this, go meet this person and they’re gonna make you feel happy and relaxed and calm. It’s like there’s no universal human that does that for everybody. Right. And especially the darkness, which like at a really, at our animal level, it’s actually stimulating.

We rely on our visual field. To kind of confirm in the moment that we’re safe, there’s the boundaries. Like it is if somebody was right up in our face, we would feel really uncomfortable, and the darkness is right up in your face. And so there is a response in the nervous system of fear. There is a threat.

But then when that happens and someone’s like, I’m staying in the dark and I’m not coming out [00:25:00] because that’s how the container’s held, or there isn’t much around a weaving in and out, then somebody’s ex, somebody’s experiencing an inescapable threat. And when you experience an inescapable threat, your choices are very limited of how to be in that.

You’re going to go into fight, flight, and freeze. You’re going to endure in some way, or you’re going to like. You, you’re gonna go numb and then you might draw on your positive positivity or whatever it is. And so what I was interacting with those first two years was mostly people’s survival patterns and their safety strategies ranging from really calm and relaxed.

’cause someone’s gone into numb to like, whatever it is. That’s not to say that people like, certainly it’s very different now. Mm-hmm. But back then it, it wasn’t that people were in that the entire time, but it was potentially the majority of [00:26:00] the time. And most of them were unaware that they were afraid or overwhelmed.

Yeah. And so now our entire orientation with people is again, is not rooted in healing, transforming, fixing, changing, because that has somebody kind of being at odds with what’s here. It’s more supporting someone and seeing for themselves. When they’re overwhelmed, when they’re scared, when they’re uncomfortable, what it’s like to start to move beyond your capacity, what it’s like to then turn towards nurture.

And so in those early days, Adrian was sharing all that and she started to build a map over the years of what was actually happening for people in there and then how we could start to support people. And that started to shift. And so it’s been a real evolution over the years of Yeah. Of how we’re with people and people’s experiences in there.

Mm-hmm. Well, and I’ll, I’ll add to that for a sec. And then I do wanna come back to, [00:27:00] let’s just give the audience present day what they might expect if they were to show up kind of from start to finish. Some of the structure, how it looks, present day even. I wanna wrap my head around it a little bit more.

Sure. But one thing I will just, I expand on what you said really quickly is. There’s kind of a couple things I’m hearing. One I do wanna touch on, you know, you can feel, like you said, there’s a feeling of like, I’m, I’m trapped. It’s inescapable. And that I think can be a reiteration of old wounds they’ve experienced in the past of, I experienced something that I had no autonomy to protect myself from.

And so I went into whatever coping mechanisms my, you know, little unconscious brain and nervous system went into. So I love that there’s an awareness around that of this actually could be re-traumatizing if it’s not supported and educated and held and facilitated in a really intentional, thoughtful way.[00:28:00]

And to that end, there’s kind of two things I’m hearing in this, maybe modes of mechanism, if you will, of one. I do think just the power of being in a room, and we’ll talk more about this without all the common. What I would call soothes. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Or even distractors. Sure. The phone, the tv, the books, all the things.

In some ways when, when we quiet all the soothes, to your point, that that tension comes up, that hurt comes up, that discomfort comes up, and you guys totally have a depth psychological approach to this, which is there’s communication in that. That’s not just like a negative thing that we’re trying to get rid of, actually.

We’re trying to go, oh, my inner self has something to say. Mm-hmm. And actually, if I lean in and maybe even amplify that discomfort, there’s a lot of insight site. But even, even more than that, just connection. Mm-hmm. I, I always say like at, at our root, our [00:29:00] inner self, our unconscious, our psyche just wants to be seen and heard.

Sometimes that’s 80% of the battle. It’s not so much like, and I need you to solve this for me right away. There’s so much safety and peace I see comes in for people when that inner self is allowed to just speak freely and uninhibited without us trying to jump in and immediately expand it with positivity or hope or all the good things, right?

Mm-hmm. That are also powerful. So there’s that. There’s, I’m, I’m separated from all my normal soothes and that’s giving me this opportunity to listen and dialogue with and relate to my inner self in maybe a much more intentional, deep way. And on the flip side of that, there’s just the experience itself of being in darkness and the activation that can create that might shed a light on with even more specificity.

My limited like [00:30:00] limiting coping patterns. Mm-hmm. And what, you know, and I think it could just be really insightful to go, I’m feeling a little, and here’s what I wanna do. I’m wanting to reach for a computer, I’m wanting to disassociate with fantasy daydreams, I’m wanting to, whatever it might be. So there’s kind of those two modes of mechanism directly from the darkness and then indirectly from that sort of separation from our normal soothes.

Totally. And, and I think like if and when Dark Retreat gets presented as this healing, transformational kind of awakening, it’s gonna, however it is that I’ve, as I’ve perused some of the other newer dark retreats, how it’s presented and even sometimes like have the DMT experience that has somehow got associated with Dark Retreat, which we have found.

Not really to be true in the way that it’s presented, nor is there any scientific research around it either. Um, and not to say that it’s not real, [00:31:00] but we just haven’t seen it and it’s certainly not connected with length of time as it has been like touted online. Um, is that, uh, when it’s like, and also like in that vein, some people come here and they’re expecting it to be like a DMT plant medicine experience or like, there’s a sense of it’s gonna be a peak experience and those expectations are quite crippling for people in there because Right.

It’s, it’s not a peak experience and it’s a little misleading. And we do say it on our website where we let, where we, um, show all the mask off reveals is that these are misleading. This portray, this portrays a peak experience. Someone is coming out of the dark for days. Like there’s a huge dopamine surge.

It’s like, it’s an extremely peak experience that is not what it’s like to be in the dark. And [00:32:00] so, right. And so, and to the point of what you shared those things, like when, like one of our fundamental orientations is honesty and humility, because that then allows somebody to see clearly as opposed to, this is what I want and it looks like this.

Then we kind of miss what this actually looks like right now. Mm-hmm. So to share more about what the actual experience is like, um, after having people come for all varying lengths of time, especially in the early days, it was kind of like. I don’t really know. I mean, it was just me. I was like, I don’t really know what I’m doing.

People can book for however long I went in for 10 days. 10 days is amazing. So we had a lot of people come for 10 days, um, 10 days, 20 days, 25 days, 30 days, 40 days. Wow. Uh, and now it’s three days. Like that’s it. We don’t [00:33:00] actually find that longer is more beneficial. We find that in, in almost all cases, that it detracts from, uh, the connection because it’s incredibly, it’s enough for someone to go in the dark for a short period of time, and then the mind gets involved.

Then it’s like, okay, I’ve got like five days, or 10 days or 20 days. Like it’s really overwhelming and people. People who are going in even for, for two or three days, like they already notice they’re strategizing how they’re gonna fill the day. Yeah. And so one of the things we start to turn towards is that’s totally fine, strategize and just perhaps acknowledge what’s happening.

When you’re strategizing you’re likely uncomfortable. Mm-hmm. And so you’re strategizing as kind of a mechanism to insulate from the fact [00:34:00] that you’re uncomfortable or like Totally, um, out of your element, which is obviously naturally you’re in the dark. It’s like you’re in a foreign planet. And so right now we’ve kind of, kind of landed in three days, four nights is kind of the, the core of the dark retreat.

And people come for 24 hours before and after. So five days, six nights, somebody arrives in the afternoon. Um, a, a new edition is, which I had some resistance to initially just due to my more like, um, historical, colder, masculine, spiritual orientation. But Adrian, after she kept, uh, pressing, we, we now have man coloring books.

Oh my god. Written puzzles and, uh, amazing. And so these are things that we, and then there’s like journaling prompts that we have with journaling paper, and just ways in which we’re supporting [00:35:00] people in slowing down. Mm-hmm. And. To, to do something that is meaningless, that has no purpose, it has no payoff.

I mean, people love art, but that’s, you know, to say like that, um, to, but for many people, like that’s not a thing. And it’s just like this full on, like how long I’m sitting and meditating, how long I’m in the darkness equals how deep I’m gonna go or how awake I’ll be or whatever the thing is. And so we have these things now that support people in those first 24 hours to slow down, to do nothing special, to just really land in the space.

And, and so a non dark. Or cap and Yep. They arrive in the afternoon. Just let’s say arbitrarily somebody arrives on Monday afternoon and they’re in the, they’re in the space where their dark room is, but there’s also lights and candles. There’s [00:36:00] part of, there is an attached room that has some light, they can sit outside.

And then there are these kind of, the coloring books, the puzzles, the journaling prompts. And um, and they have, they may, most people don’t usually go into the dark that first day, but they’ll go in that night. Mm-hmm. So we encourage people to go into the dark that first night, and then come out sometime the next morning, like to get a taste of what the darkness is like.

Mm-hmm. And then come out, people spend that, that first full day Tuesday, if you will, weaving in and out of the dark. And how long they go in or what that’s like is really just, we really support people in listening to themselves and we really try to strip away the sense that like staying in longer is gonna have you land in something, actually, what’s gonna have you discover something new is you turning towards your own, kind of your own interior, your own system, and really [00:37:00] landing in a genuine felt sense of safety.

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Click the link below to learn more and receive 20% off your first order. [00:39:00] When you say go in and out of the dark, what does that mean? Is that they’re, they’re actually exiting the cabin or they’re opening up shades or turning lights on Both, um, going in where they go into the dark room and then they come out into the light side of the, of the space.

Or they sit outside or they turn on the light. They light a candle. We have these little, um. Book lights, you know, that clipp to a book with a red light. We have those in there as a way, we call it like the pressure release valve. Mm-hmm. Um, because enduring and inescapable threat really does nothing for somebody, but reinforce their survival patterns and, and safety strategies that we do in the world.

And in the world. We’re faced with overwhelm and pressure and sometimes it is inescapable and we have to do it. So those mechanisms are so familiar. They almost, they form part of our personality of how we function under pressure. They’re hard for us to notice that we’re [00:40:00] actually underneath that dysregulated and beyond our capacity.

So we really like are with people in a way that support them to notice those things. So there’s that little light. So in that day. Of people weaving in and out. They may light the candle, they may turn on the light, they may step out. There’s, um, that’s kind of whatever feels right for them. Mm-hmm. And then that day there’s usually a, a two hour session with Adrian.

Mm-hmm. Somatic based and her, her own kind of thing. Birthed out of Yeah. Where she’s at, what she’s come to know. And then she also distills down like the years of experience of witnessing intimately being with all these different dark treatments and then uniquely customized to that person, to your unique nervous system, to your unique styles and strategies for managing pressure and overwhelm and your expectations and all of [00:41:00] those things.

So that really prepares someone for the time in the dark. Yeah. And then that night, Tuesday night, they would go into the dark. And so three days, four nights in the dark. I’m coming up every morning and evening and there’s a check-in where we hear, we talk through the door, through the wall. It may be 10 minutes, it may be for an hour.

It’s just kind of whatever is appropriate to what’s happening. And so the person would be in the dark Tuesday night, Wednesday night, Thursday night, Friday night, and then Saturday morning they’d emerge from the dark. And then that day, the next 24 hours is the time for integrating. We have a sauna, uh, except during the summer months.

That’s wood fired down by the creek. People will go down to there, they’ll go for walks where we’re out enfolded in a hundred plus thousand acres of wilderness. And so there’s a lot to Roman explore. And then there’s another two hour [00:42:00] session with Adrian that like supports people in digesting what was made.

Still stimulated or stimulated in the backdrop kind of landing in what they’ve come to newly know, um, things like that. And then the next day, morning, Sunday morning, um, they would leave. Mm-hmm. And so there a couple more things just to give you more of a picture of the room. Like there’s, there’s a flushing toilet, there’s a sink, there’s a bathtub for hot baths.

Um, there’s one of these chairs, like a reclining zero gravity chair, a weighted blanket. There’s a foam roller and a yoga mat. There’s like a low table where with cushion, um, there’s the bed, there’s the Tibetan singing bowl, and there’s the food box where we pass food through. So it’s kind of like a double closet cabinet door, if you will.

Like I open mine, I put in all the food, I close it, and then they open theirs from their end and that’s how they get the food. Yeah. [00:43:00] I love this so much. What I, a question I do have is, is it because there’s a part of me that’s like, okay, if it’s pitch black, you can’t even really get around the room, you’re bumping into things.

Is it that level and you just kind of adjust? Or is it sort of like there’s just very, very low grade lighting, but it’s still reflecting that darkness? Yeah. Um, your eyes never adjust to see your hand in front of your face. Wow. So it is total darkness. And surprisingly, most people report that. They find, they, they get around the room and attend to all kind of the, the essentials with ease.

Wow. Um, there’s nothing else to do. You’re not in a rush. And you actually, you’re forced, when you’re at least moving around the room, you’re forced to be mindful because you have to. So people are moving really slow. They’re feeling around, and people tend to be like, wow, I really [00:44:00] was able to get around the room and do everything I needed to do with way more ease than I thought.

That was the easier part. I had something to do too, when you’re moving about the room. Totally. So it tends to be one of the few activities of, uh, of the day. Yeah. Yeah. I love all of this, by the way. I just have to say in in depth psychology mandalas are like incredibly important. And Carl Young would say the mandala is a way that like psyche comes through and the unconscious comes through art, drawing, sand play, movement, all these things.

So I love that you, I don’t know if it was intentional or unconscious, like have weaved in sort of these practices that actually helped the unconscious and that inner psyche mm-hmm. Start to be able to come out and express a couple things. I wanna highlight more. I really appreciate the transition into the darkness where they come for that first day.

It’s not just a, you know, you got off work [00:45:00] yesterday and now tonight, boom, you’re in the darkness. Total deprivation there. I think sometimes, and we’ve, we’ve kind of talked about this indirectly without saying, it is almost a, an ego to, well I did this really hard thing and I just went from A to B zero to a hundred so quickly I didn’t need the transition.

And I think to your point. Letting that ego wash through and harder isn’t better. Mm-hmm. And more abrupt isn’t necessarily better. And I actually think being able to give the mind, body, and spirit, that gentle transition in that gentle transition out makes it much more fruitful and, and kind of impactful and, and so that the bo mind, body, and spirit actually can metabolize and then integrate and embody that experience.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. I love that component of it. Yeah. I think that’s really important. There is so [00:46:00] many other things I wanna get into here. Um, oh gosh. I’m like, where do I even begin? This is so exciting. Actually. I think what I do wanna go to is, there’s a part of me, and we’ve also kind of talked about this, of. I imagine you’re experiencing all different types of guests and participants who are coming.

I am particularly interested in someone who’s coming with maybe more severe trauma history. I’ll, I’ll actually just speak for myself and I’ll tell you the resistance that comes up in my mind. ’cause everything about the Sky Cave retreats, I’m like, this feels like such a nourishing experience. And then there’s a very fearful little inner girl in me who’s like, that feels really scary.

I was sexually abused by a caretaker as a child for many years. And so actually the darkness is a very scary thing for me still because there was a lot of abuse that happened in darkness and, and so what I do, I think what I’m hearing [00:47:00] already even in what we’ve talked about is that’s very much what that pre-integration or like pre dark experience with Adrian is about.

It sounds like I could be able to chat with her and go, Hey, here’s what I’m nervous about. Here’s some of my history. When I get frazzled, here’s what I do. And she might be able to talk me through. Yeah, here’s more of what you personally might experience and how you might navigate that. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I mean, and you know, we’ve, I mean, I wasn’t aware, and maybe it’s just the audience who’s been coming, but there’s been an incredible amount of people who have come through here who have had sexual abuse history and trauma.

Mm-hmm. Um, men and women, and, um, and there’s been lots who it happened in the dark. Yeah. And so that’s really present too. And so, yeah, in that session with Adrian, that is some of the stuff that. [00:48:00] Because it’s uniquely customized to where that person’s at, the fears that are there, all of those things too.

And uh, someone’s gone in the dark already a bit before the session, so there’s like context of like, right, what was like, there’s a bit of a sense of how it was and it’s really, you know, for when, I just think of a few of the people who come to mind who have had sexual abuse trauma and it happened in the dark and they came here in the dark.

It was different. Like they weren’t, um, the darkness was not, it, it didn’t stimulate the fear that they thought it would. Yeah. These specific people that I, that come to mind, and for some of ’em it actually had it, like where it completely flipped it for them, where all the, because they had related to the dark in a certain way because of that trauma.

And then being in there. [00:49:00] It totally kind of rewired that for them. They had a new relationship with the dark. Mm-hmm. And I mean, one of our fundamental, uh, things that we return to here is what would nurture do? And that’s like, that’s kind of the one of the core of when we’re, when somebody’s considering turning on the light or coming out and then to go back in or whatever is happening in someone’s system, we, we ask that question of what would nurture do in a movement to like where there’s like enduring or there’s like turning towards nurture.

And what we’ve discovered is for some people, one of the most life-changing things they can do is step out of the dark. And that’s been, for some who have done that, who have kind of fit into that [00:50:00] category, it’s completely changed. Uh, a program, uh, an unconscious way that they endure difficulty when they’ve been in and inescapable threat and they’ve learned to like freeze, unconsciously freeze and go numb and endure.

All of a sudden they’ve stepped out and it’s like freed them in a way. And then those people, they, they tend to go back into the dark. Mm-hmm. And what’s different and what’s different is there’s such a, a very clear difference of I want to be in the dark, as opposed to I should be in the dark. Yeah.

That’s something we really explore with people too while they’re in there, so that they on their own, in their own way, can attune to the unique difference of, I want to be in here, or I should be in here, or I could be in here. Mm-hmm. But like, I [00:51:00] truly want to be in here. And what happens when I genuinely follow that sense of want, which is going to, especially under pressure and in threat, is gonna be more of a movement towards connection and nurture.

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Non-invasive is backed by science and is so, so accessible. Click the link in the show notes below and you’ll get $60 off your Apollo or use discount code the Accrescent for $60 off. I can completely see how having the, not that they need it, but the [00:53:00] permission and the ability to bring in any kind of resource they might need, whether that’s light or communicating with you guys or stepping out, reframe the unconscious beliefs and imprints that come from past trauma related to inescapable experiences.

And the beliefs that get created might have been something like, there was nothing I could do, or there was something I could do but I didn’t. And then maybe the guilt and the shame and the, the rupture with the self that comes from that. But then those beliefs get extrapolated onto everything, even present day.

And so I can absolutely see how empowering it is to be able to go, I’m in fear, I’m scared there is something I can do, and I’m allowed to do that. I can do that. I am going to do that. Yeah. I mean we see that often with people who, there was a woman here recently and she was, [00:54:00] uh, really dysregulated while she was in there, but she was also simultaneously, she had the, she had a lot of humility and through those waves when she was not severely dysregulated, she was seeing so much in herself that she had never seen.

Mm-hmm. And so I, I was hesitant to really strongly invite her to come out because the level of her seeing was so, it was so deep. But we had that conversation and she was a little hesitant ’cause she’s like, but I don’t wanna give into fear and discomfort. Like, I don’t want to come out because like, I mean, she was, she was also like, it was an open conversation.

She’s like, but would I just be like, I’m feeling uncomfortable and if I come out, is that just weak and me giving into discomfort, like, I should stay in here and like, you know, make it through. And as we talked about it more just like out of nowhere, she was just like, but I can’t [00:55:00] leave my mom. Oh. And I was like, I was like, what?

And then we, as we expect that more, she was like, oh, when I was younger it was really not a good situation at home. I was kind of the rock with my mom and I wanted to leave, but like, I, I didn’t because I kind of, I had to be there. And, and now here she was in a situation where if she was honest, she wanted to leave, but she had a lot of ideas of why she should stay and all these things.

And once she told me that, I was like. You’ve like, we’ve gotta bring you out. Mm-hmm. And let’s do it in a way where I said, just put the eye mask on and let me bring you, and you can sit outside and you can stay in the dark. Yeah. You don’t have to come outta the dark. And I was like, think about it. You know?

’cause at that point for someone, if someone’s able to make that decision on their own from the inside out, it’s gonna be [00:56:00] way more powerful than them just like complying with someone else of what they think they should do. So I came back half an hour later and she’s like, I’m ready. And so it brought her out and she sat out there and just like, she just cracked.

Yeah. And for the rest of her time in there, she wove in and out of the dark. Sometimes she turned on the light. Sometimes she came out with the eye mask. I don’t think she ever came out into the light. But she, when she would turn on the little red light or light the candle when she was in the room, like she found a way.

And she totally, she was like, I discovered my capacity. Like I’d never, I just blow past my capacity all the time. And so anyway, that was just an incredible example of for me. And there’s been so many like her too. And there’s been some people who were able to actually come out and they were up against all their childhood trauma when they couldn’t leave home and they had to endure it and they [00:57:00] just, some who weren’t able to and, and now we, after having a few of those, like we learned so much from each person who comes through, we then like, okay, moving forward we’re gonna orient more like this in this situation.

’cause we’ve seen how it plays out. And so whether it’s being more direct to invite somebody to come out or more direct to really ask somebody or just the different nuances because everyone’s so different. And ultimately. We’re just here to support people and them discovering from the inside out, what kind of brings the deepest felt sense of safety and connection.

That’s it. A hundred percent. So much of the orientation with my clients is, and I’ll weave this back into the spirituality, I talk a lot with them about spirituality as emotional bypass and religion as emotional bypass, and there’s absolutely a place for all of those resources. But to the point you were making at the very [00:58:00] start of our conversation, when something uncomfortable rises and we immediately switch to gratitude or positivity or you know, tapping into a higher source and going, well, none of this really matter, whatever it is, there’s an inner chance for relationship and connection with that inner self that just got completely bypassed.

And I always like to talk about how the unconscious, the inner self, the psyche is. Only ever here to protect us and relate to us. And so that example you gave of the woman being like, but it’s the fear. I don’t wanna give into the fear. And so it has all these kind of underlying negative connotations to it, rather than actually that fear is probably like the 10-year-old you who couldn’t leave her mom.

And if we switch it into that perspective, it’s not this like bad negative low frequency thing that we need to overcome and fight and strong arm into our will. It’s, [00:59:00] oh, actually, how would I show up for a 10-year-old who’s really scared? Mm-hmm. How would I show up for a three year, three-year-old or a 17-year-old?

And I think it completely changes the way we empathize and relate to that part that’s surfacing. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And so often the, I know we’re staying away from this word, but the healing or the repair or the, I like the word expansion. Comes from being able to give that part, whether it’s an angry part, a fearful part, a guilty part, the response it couldn’t have mm-hmm.

In some of those core originating experiences. Totally. Yeah. And we don’t like the healing, the transformation, the repair. Like those things happen here all the time. It’s just we stay away from that being the primary orientation. It’s a byproduct of connection, honesty, [01:00:00] intimacy. Mm-hmm. Authenticity. It’s not, that’s the primary orientation.

And then those things, the healing, the transformation happens. Um, but it’s a, we find it to be a slippery slope because, like you had said, then it becomes a, it becomes more about fixing what’s bad or feeling good as opposed to being with what’s real. Mm-hmm. What’s here? Yeah, completely. I think a closing question I do wanna bring in is, is there anyone that you would say this is not for or not for right now?

Whether there’s a particular, maybe like someone that you’re not able to serve, or even just kind of a mindset that they might not be ready to step into? Um, I mean, people who have, uh, manic episodes or bipolar who have had psychotic episodes, those people, we wouldn’t really feel comfortable with them going [01:01:00] into the dark.

Um, them like dipping their toes in and like weaving in and out could be fine, but like there is a real, what it actually is, we don’t know, but there is a real brain chemistry shift that happens while someone’s in the dark. Mm-hmm. There’s a lot of melatonin that gets produced in the beginning. And so people do tend to sleep a lot.

They’re very sleepy. And so to the point of some dark retreats that present, this is really relaxing and rejuvenating like it can be in the very beginning because of all the melatonin production. Mm-hmm. For many people, in the very beginning it is, it’s restful. Not, not everyone, ’cause some people freak out the moment they step in, so, but for some people there is a lot of melatonin and it’s very relaxful and rejuvenating.

But that might last just one night’s sleep, or it might last that whole first day. It tends to not go into the second day. But once that happens, there is [01:02:00] some brain chemistry shift and then the melatonin production stops. And as a dark retreat goes on and it starts to get into the third or fourth, maybe the fifth day, people tend to have a hard time sleeping.

And likely to some kind of brain chemistry shift. And there’s some people who see lights and visuals and orbs and all those things that can tend to happen as the dark retreat goes on a bit, but it doesn’t have to. We just had someone here a couple weeks ago and he had the most visual psychedelic experience of anyone who’s ever been here.

And it started for him on the first day. Yeah. And he was spiritually oriented person, completely out of the tech world, kind of a visionary in the tech world. And so it’s kind of like what I was just like, why, like why do you think this happened for you? And so it, it seems to be a little more arbitrary, but what’s interesting is most people who as it goes on until the third or plus day when those, the visuals [01:03:00] happen, almost everyone wants them to go away.

Because what they’ve discovered in the dark is through the subtleties, is through the simplicity. They’re able, one’s able to attune to these deeper levels of nuances in the subtleties and the delicacies and the softness. And like, if there’s these flashing strobe lights and glowing lights, they tend to, people find them really distracting.

Mm-hmm. Um, so it’s not like some people are like, I’m coming for the lights. And it’s like, well, most people don’t get them. And most people who get them want them to go away. And, um, so there is, uh, oh, now I remember your question. Um, so people, because of the brain chemistry shifts, like people who have manic episodes and things like that, we tend to feel like probably not best.

Um, and, uh.[01:04:00]

You know, I don’t, there’s been, I can’t think of like off the top of my head, any other kind of things like that where we would be like, that’s just not, like we’ve had a full range of people who have had different kind of traumas, traumas that happened in the dark too. People who are claustrophobic or who have A-D-A-A-D-D who have, um, yeah.

All these different kind of things in their system. Mm-hmm. And many of ’em have been fine in the dark. And I think now the way of how we’re continually evolving the unique approach to each person, we are able to meet someone where they’re at. We did just have somebody here recently who had been hospitalized twice for, uh, psychotic breakdowns.

Mm-hmm. And like. They went in the dark [01:05:00] just for some hours during the day and then they came up and we, there was like a lot more support and attention to really like being with them, monitoring them and making sure they weren’t in the dark for too long. They went for long walks outside. Like there was a way they were able to experience the dark but not go into a place where they would just kind of unknowingly kind of go over the edge because you don’t have much perspective.

Yeah. When you are alone in the dark. Yeah. Oh my gosh. It’s so, it’s so powerful. There’s so many other threads I could take us down, but I think for now, to close it out for the audience, for anyone who’s interested or wants to know more, where can they reach out? Where can they find more information? I’ll make sure it’s linked in the show notes too.

Yeah. Uh, sky cave retreats.com and Sky Cave retreats on Instagram. And, and YouTube as well. Those are kind of the places to find a lot of the videos, [01:06:00] different stories from Retreatants and information. Mm-hmm. Well, Scott, thank you so much. I cannot wait for the audience to hear this. ’cause I think I’m very impressed with the level of intention and as you said, kind of evolution that you’re continually bringing to this.

To be able to not just come at it from like a, an ego thing of, oh, we’re all here doing this really hard thing and we’re forcing ourselves through it. But really, really, I think, attuning to the psyche and the mind, body and spirit in a way. I’m, I’m super impressed with it. It is really, really cool to hear.

Awesome. Well thanks for having me here. It was great to, great to chat with you.