Not the poster that you're replying to, but my story is similar. I did my first 10-day Vipassana retreat while on an extended vacation. Every word GP said feel

Not the poster that you're replying to, but my story is similar. I did my first 10-day Vipassana retreat while on an extended vacation. Every word GP said feels like it describes my first experience. I had some pretty profound realizations while there and expected that it would be pretty life altering. However I took no care in how I re-entered life and the combination of immediately going back to using phone/computer and traveling around in a third-world country was almost more than I could handle. I felt like I was going crazy adapting back to a stressful world from one where my mind was so calm. I did try to continue meditating, but I found I had nowhere near the concentration I needed to get value from the practice. But I resolved to try again, so I attended another 10-day retreat trying to apply lessons learned from my first attempt. The second time, I planned in advance to slowly re-integrate myself into my normal life. I booked a hotel room for a few days after the retreat to lock myself away and start adding back distractions one at a time. This worked better and I was able to keep up my meditation routine (1hr in the mornings, 1hr in the evenings) for 2 months after that. But I found that 2hrs/day mediation is pretty qualitatively different from the kind you get at the retreats (more than 8hrs /day). I still think daily meditation is valuable, but given its lesser impact and the distractions and stresses of everyday life, I just sort of fell out of practice and haven't restarted. I am hopeful to do more retreats and do better at integrating meditation practice into my everyday life. But, suffice it to say, my first two attempts at that didn't succeed in a way that lasted more than the two months following my second retreat.