Misogi - This japanese concept can change your life

[koops]

I found this western version of Misogi.

Its as simple as this:

Some examples Im thinking about and some other ideas:

-10 day solo retreat

-multi-day solo hike

-run a marathon/triathlon

-10K race barefoot

-amateur boxing fight

-quit alcohol & smoking

-1 week fast

-biking across the country

-publish a book

-give a speech to +100 people

-perform an open mic

-solo travel

-live for 1 month in other country (different language)

-climb a high mountain.

-climb a 100 foot tree

-deep-water scuba diving

-psychedelic retreat

-launch a business

 

Whatever.

Can be a physical, mental, emotional or spiritual challenge. Or even better, a mix of those.

You can decide the difficulty of it, but this is the key rule:

 

 

 

My personal experience:

I realize this is true when I did my first 3 day solo meditation retreat. Nothing super difficult, but still. Is challenging.

When I did it, I haven't meditate in a year, so it was tough going from nothing to full time.

So I realize that for the next one, I had to do daily meditation practice, eliminate cravings, quit social media & spend way less time on phone and online, resolve personal life problems, simply my life, and be confortable eating no meat/fish and drink less coffee (since I do no coffee and veggie food on retreats).

Doing a retreat, or that 1 thing, forces you to live your day to day with a higher focus on better habits, so you can thrive in that retreat/challenge.

Is like an exam. If forces you weeks-months to study hard if you want to pass. School structure was ritght in that sense.

 

 

Contemplate on it.

What is your 1 thing for this year or 2026?

 

 

Edited June 28 by koops

[Joshe]

This is a really cool idea, thanks for sharing. I’d like to bump it up to 2-4 times per year. I really like the deep sea diving idea. Something about scuba diving is very spiritual. Never been to the deep though. Calm is a requirement and can cost you your life if you break protocol. Lol. I like that for some reason. 

[koops]

Yeah, it makes sense to do more than 1 a year depending on the difficulty.

I found this concept thru this guy and he advocates to try 1 big/year and 4-6 mid/year.

 

1 hour ago, Joshe said:

This is a really cool idea, thanks for sharing. I’d like to bump it up to 2-4 times per year. I really like the deep sea diving idea. Something about scuba diving is very spiritual. Never been to the deep though. Calm is a requirement and can cost you your life if you break protocol. Lol. I like that for some reason. 

I also thought about diving. Just started some breath holds and CO2 tables.

The tree climbing sound great for me also. Recently climbed some safe trees and stayed there contemplating and connecting with it. Found it very spiritual also.

There is that depth flirting with death even if its with safety measures.
Thats why the 1st rule of this challenges is: 'Don't die!'

 

[Loving Radiance]

Awesome. Thank you.

[Basman]

Japan has a bunch of nifty little self-improvement/health terms and concepts baked into their culture. Like "kaizen", meaning cumulative gradual improvement, or "hara hachi bu" which means to only eat till your about 80% full. 

[koops]

On 29/6/2025 at 1:58 AM, Basman said:

Japan has a bunch of nifty little self-improvement/health terms and concepts baked into their culture. Like "kaizen", meaning cumulative gradual improvement, or "hara hachi bu" which means to only eat till your about 80% full. 

Yeah, after learning this term I asked chatgpt for 10 similar japanese terms. Very interesting. Kaizen was one of them.

Very interesting culture.

[The Caretaker]

So, did anybody have any success with the concept this year?