I’ve been a lifelong mover, in work and in life. Sitting still isn’t something I often do, and I’m not sure if this is something you can relate to?
When I started practicing yoga 20 years ago, I struggled with the ‘savasana’ at the end of class. I’d often get up and leave as it was starting because lying on the ground waiting felt like torture to me. Over the years of yoga practice I have evolved and grown to love the final resting pose. Through learning about myself and the practice, I started to love learning what it felt like to be still and what I learn from my own stillness.
Being still, silent, and quiet are skills. We can learn them in conscious ways, which is what meditation teaches us. Yet there are many ways to learn to be quiet. You don’t have to meditate or do yoga in order to achieve stillness.
Stillness, silence, and quiet are gifts of such high magnitude we don’t easily accept them because of how generous they are. They can feel intense and overwhelming, and it takes courage to sit in their presence. Think of them as great teachers, like the Dalai Lama; when they arrive, instead of feeling unworthy of their presence, sit in awe at the remarkable teachings they inspire within you. Great teachers don’t walk into rooms to impart wisdom on us, their presence invokes a reverence, a remembering of how much we can learn within ourselves. They ask us to look inward instead of outward.
These gifts are often overlooked for their simplicity or provoke fear for the stoic energy that they bring. The silence in your life is not to be feared. It’s a gift of healing. I know it can feel scary to be quiet, but the action has been sent to you to help your tired mind, body and soul.
Take the quiet moments. Allow them to bring equilibrium to your body. Absorb the richness of space. The beauty of no one. Drink in the generous place that lives in doing nothing but breathing and watching. Listen to the tranquility of your heart beat. The serenity of your loneliness.
It’s tempting to fill our time with doing, people, social media, reading, and projects — but the only way to heal our frenzied minds is to sit in the discomfort of our own stillness until it becomes comfortable.
With love, Noelle