Need Real Clarity? Be Still.
Be still? Ha! We laugh in the face of being still. Why would we do that? If you don’t know, thanks to the world of technology gifting us immediate answers, all you really need is about 3-5 minutes. If you can bare to wait that long, you will no doubt have opinions and facts to choose from right at your fingertips. Why would we need to go slow when we can move at a lightening pace?
Manasquan beach and this pup, making it easy to be still.
We live in a world where immediate gratification is not just available but expected. Have a question, Google has the answer. Don’t like the answer, look again, you will find the one you are looking for! Need a special food, pick a store, they deliver. Charger broken? Amazon can get that to you today. What time did you say you needed it? And thanks to the simplest version of a complicated world, almost anyone is reachable…now. Go ahead and call them all. Someone will pick up. If not this minute, you will no doubt get a message that they just need five. Long gone are the days we had to wallow in what to do next…all that waiting and wondering. All that unnecessary panic.
I can at least agree that panic, then and now, is almost always unnecessary and more importantly, not helpful in the least bit. Yet the thinking around needing answers now, because we can get them now, has become more harmful than helpful. In fact, just moving at warp speed to get to the next thing could actually get in the way of doing the next right thing. I’m not suggesting that if you hurry into a solution, you will do the wrong thing…but without a little wait time, it just might be the case.
Too busy to be still? Think again. Actually, the busier you are, the more you need to do just that. Recent studies show that taking time for silence restores the nervous system, helps sustain energy and conditions our mind to be more adaptive and responsive to the complex environments in which so many of us now live, work and lead. In fact, Duke medical school’s Mike Kirste found that silence is associated with the development of new cells in the key brain region associated with learning and memory. Not only that but cultivating silence isn’t just about getting respite from the distractions of others, but real sustained silence, the kind that facilitates clear and creative thinking, quiets inner chatter as well as outer.
Just imagine what the mind could think of and create with all that sustained quiet?
Actually, if you are like most people these days, you can’t imagine how slowing down could help and are convinced it might make matters even worse. Is that you? Do you have a system in place that forces you to be in continuous high gear? I know you believe it is the only way to operate, but if you look deeply inside, what is it you truly fear?
I can remember moving my feet as fast as possible at all times when I first began my business. I don’t consciously remember being afraid of anything, but I definitely avoided silence. I mean, I was really busy and being still and silent just wasn’t an option. Can’t choose what isn’t available, right? That was me.
Look at me go! Look at all the things I can get done. Watch how I pull off single-parenting, three jobs, a dog and a dating life. Catch me if you can! I wasn’t discouraged by how busy I was, I was proud of myself for being in action all of the time. I wasn’t running from anyone or anything. Not exactly. But wasn’t I? I mean, no, I don’t have time to sit and have coffee with you. But if you want to go for a short run and catch up, yeah let’s do that instead. Catch up and grab a workout all at one time, that seems much more efficient! Oh, you want to go to yoga? That could be helpful. But I won’t stay for the ending part. The part where you surrender and lie flat on your back and be one with my silent brain? No. I actually didn’t have a silent brain, and I certainly wasn’t going to make time to be with all the racket I could hear a mile away from my own thinking.
That was the thing. I secretly knew that if I sat still for too long, things might come up that I didn’t want to hear. What would that even sound like? Would I question if I was alright? Would I begin to hear the lack of confidence in myself that I kept shoving down? I intentionally didn’t do it because I knew silence was not going to help me stay in motion. No. Silence was a waste of time. Silence was for sleeping and I certainly did not have time for that in the middle of the day.
But I sure was tired.
I do remember the first time I made a decision to be still about one year into my yoga practice. One year of feeling the instructor's eyes burning a hole in the back of my head as I left the class early, just before the silent part began. One year of skipping over the part of class that enabled you to surrender to your life. One year of saying, no thanks, not today.
And then one day, maybe noticing just how tired I was, I made a choice to stay. What was five more minutes anyway? What was the big deal? I had five extra minutes. I deserved just five minutes to rest, didn’t I? Hell, I probably deserved a whole day of rest, but that wasn’t happening for sure.
I was surprised within the first 2 minutes that I didn’t break down into a sob fest. By 4 minutes it occurred to me that I didn’t hear the usual commentary from the back of my brain. And within 5 minutes, maybe for the first time ever, my still body allowed me to just be still and hear the silence. To my surprise, I didn’t feel overwhelmed or anxious in the quiet, instead I found myself wanting more.
And that was the moment for me. That was the moment that made me begin to look at my hurried life and what I was choosing and what was choosing me. It was in that same day, as I quietly rolled up my yoga mat and walked to the door in such gratitude, that I began to wonder how much of my power I actually gave away every day. Every. Day.
I’m not talking about the kind of power that enables me to run the world, I’m just talking about feeling powerful in my life. Like choosing what I want to do and what I don’t want to do in a way that gives me the space of quiet I need. Like making choices to hear my own thoughts. I didn’t realize how much of my life was about listening to voice outside of my own head, barely giving myself the chance to hear what I was thinking.
And that was a hard stop for me.
What about you? What will it take for you to pause, resist the urge to be instantly gratified, and then just listen to what your inner voice might have to say? What if the next time you felt desperate for an answer, instead of reaching outward for the phone, computer or dearest friend, you simply paused, to hear your own thoughts? And what if in that moment, even if you couldn’t hear the answer, you chose to have faith that the answers would come by listening to the silence?
Your own mind, body and spirit might just surprise you, like it did for me. Surprised by how much insight you actually have and just how powerful you are, even in the depths of the silence.
Remember, if you change one thing, it can change everything.