How to Actively Listen: What a Silent Breakfast Taught One Retreat Leader

Last year, a yoga teacher named Sanne hosted her first retreat at Ubuntu Bali. She arrived prepared for everything: the perfect playlist, a beautifully structured schedule, thoughtful journal prompts. She wanted her guests to leave transformed.

By day two, she was exhausted. And something still wasn’t landing.

“Everyone was polite,” she told us. “But I could feel them holding back. I didn’t know how to reach them.”

On the third morning, we suggested something simple: a silent breakfast. No phones, no talking. Just eating together, slowly.

Sanne hesitated. “Won’t it be awkward?”

It was—for about five minutes.
Then something softened. Guests began looking at each other differently. One woman started crying quietly over her papaya. No one rushed to soothe her. The silence held her.

After breakfast, the group gathered, and the conversation that followed was unlike anything before. Real stories surfaced: a divorce, a miscarriage, fear of going home.

Sanne realized she had been filling every corner with words and activity. She hadn’t left room for presence.

The Gift of Not Fixing

As retreat leaders, we want to help. We want to guide. But sometimes the most generous act is to do nothing—just to sit with someone without reaching for a tool or a solution.

One guest told Sanne later, “You didn’t try to make me feel better. You just sat with me. That’s the first time anyone’s done that.”

What We’ve Learned at Ubuntu

The retreats that truly transform people aren’t the ones with the most workshops. They’re the ones led by people courageous enough to slow down, stay quiet, and trust that space itself is medicine.

Since that first retreat, Sanne has hosted three more with us. She schedules less now. Her mornings begin slower. She builds in what she calls “empty time”—hours where nothing is planned and everyone is free to swim, nap, wander, or feel whatever wants to be felt.

“I used to be scared of empty time,” she said. “I thought people would be bored, or feel like they weren’t getting enough. But the opposite happened. That space became the most meaningful part.”

One guest, a lawyer from Hong Kong, told her, “I haven’t had an afternoon with nothing to do since I was twelve. I forgot how good it feels to just exist.”

A Practice for Retreat Leaders

Before your next session or class, try this: Sit in the space where you’ll teach for two minutes. Don’t prepare. Don’t plan. Just arrive—fully, energetically, quietly.

When you’re present, your group feels it. They open.

And people leave different—not because you gave them more, but because you gave them space.

We honor that kind of spacious leadership at Ubuntu Bali, offering a home for retreat hosts who want to bring their community into a setting that supports depth, presence, and real connection.

When Space Becomes an Invitation

At Ubuntu, we’ve seen again and again that when someone slows down enough to truly listen—to themselves, to their body, to their energy—something awakens. Sometimes softly. Sometimes powerfully.

For those ready to explore presence on an energetic level, we have an upcoming session that speaks directly to this kind of inner listening:

Life Force Energy Activation with Deva

A channeled transmission to vitalize your energy system.

Your life force energy is the current that animates your whole being. When you learn to connect with it—not just as an idea, but as a felt, embodied experience—it becomes a pathway toward vitality, clarity, and deeper self-awareness.

In this session, Deva Angel guides you into direct connection with your own energy. Her work is a living transmission, cultivated through over a decade of energetic embodiment and channeled facilitation.

Who it’s for:
Anyone ready to explore their life force energy in an embodied, experiential way.

Tuesday, 16 December at 5:30–7:30 PM at Ubuntu Bali.

Whether through silence, movement, or energy work, presence is the thread that connects every genuine transformation.
And when we create space for it—real space—people naturally find their way back to themselves. Join our circle!