Let’s define, still. I define stillness as being able to pause, come to a complete stop. It is both a mental and a physical act. It’s the intentional act of being present.
I’ve always struggled to feel comfortable with being still. It wasn’t something that was encouraged when I was young. Sitting around doing nothing had negative connotations.
Lazy, who me? Never.
I learned to pride myself on my ability to produce, and problem solve. I could sit for hours fiddling with arts and crafts, the computer, doing my homework, perfecting my drawings, writing poems/short stories, reading, coloring, redecorating my room, etc.
As I’m writing this, I’m reminded of the time my dad build a wall-mounted shelf and desk unit in my room. And at 11 years old, I decided I wanted to spruce it up a little by adding contact paper to the unfinished wood. My parents wouldn’t agree to me painting.
I did not have an X-ACTO knife or any fancy tools. I used a regular scissor and a credit card to make my vision come true. I didn’t even ask for help. I enjoyed the challenges and was proud of my artistry.
My dad was a skilled masonry and welder by trade and general contractor. My mom often reminds me that my brother and I would scare her with our hammering and nailing as kids. We were a product of our environment. I grew up in a home where it wasn’t unusual for us to have “projects” that we were working on. This could be a school or personal project.
Why am I sharing all this? It is to give some backstory on how being busy was ingrained into me from a young age. I didn’t know anything different. It wasn’t until later in life that I realized I felt shame and guilt when I attempted to be still. I had schemas that associated stillness with stagnation. And frankly, I didn’t see value in stillness of mind and body.
I can physically bring my body to a still state, but I wasn’t skilled at bringing my mind to a standstill. I also discovered the struggles and challenges of truly being in the moment, as I preferred being in thought –somewhere in the past or the future, but never in the moment. I hid out in the notion that I had things to do that required planning, a.k.a, thinking for the future.
The physical toll of not relaxing my body is real, as is the mental toll. I get the most intense back, neck, and shoulder pain, which serves as a reminder to slow down or come to a complete stop.
I’ve also battled insomnia for years; my busy mind wouldn’t allow my body to rest and rejuvenate itself. It’s a lose-lose fight. The exhaustion I felt from lack of self-care was enough to scare me into wanting to do something different.
I’ve tried quieting my mind by being in the moment and practicing meditation. I can’t tell you how much I disliked quiet meditation. I gave it a shot, like a real shot, and always fell asleep in the process. I would wake up and feel amazing afterward.
But I didn’t get a chance to observe my thoughts and create distance between them and myself. Deep down, I always felt as though I was wasting my time. I gave up on quiet meditation and forget guided meditation –It’s too distracting for me.
I’m bad at knowing when I need to slow down without the intense psychosomatic pains. I often have to remind myself of the importance of stillness. It wasn’t until the pandemic that I could truly relax my body and find comfort in taking a midday nap to re-energize my body and rest my mind. My sleep time has grown to 6 to 7 hours –which is a great improvement from what it was before. But this wasn’t enough, as it didn’t address to root cause, my overthinking.
I prefer to do walking meditations to bring my mind to stillness or gradual halt. There is a calmness I feel when I admire nature. I cannot get my mind and body at a standstill simultaneously; It requires too much work and only results in frustration on my part. It might be psychological. I need to distract myself from the feelings of wasting time or stagnation. I also prefer to get my senses involved –touch, sight, smell, etc.
Having to unlearn the guilt and shame associated with schemas that run counter to my needs has been challenging. I’ve continuously underestimated my need to simply slow down and stop. In the last few months, I fell off, and I suffered for it. I felt exhausted, like I was running a marathon. I was operating like a machine.
Being able to rest my mind helps me work on resetting my thoughts. And being present in the moment allows me to feel calm. And if I’m completely honest, tapping into being still also helps me address my overthinking and overanalyzing.
I lost my ability to be inspired. I have directly correlated my ability to quiet my mind with my ability to receive inspiration. There is a level of calm, focus, and awareness that comes with being still, which is my conduit to inspiration. Without this break, I’m a machine.
I’d fallen into the pattern of running myself ragged then performing a massive reset. I realized that I was waiting too long to bring myself to stillness or wasn’t accruing enough time to meaningfully impact my needs. I’ve learned that approach is faulty. It results in me falling into lows longer than I need to be.
I started being more intentional with quieting my mind. I’ve also started paying attention to my thoughts and realized that it was a lot of busywork-style thinking. Ideas that didn’t serve me; dates, appointments, and deadlines, and breaking task down into smaller components, etc. I’d taken on some additional responsibilities and realized that I didn’t have the compacity to continue like this.
I decided to help myself by addressing the worries on my mind. I have gotten myself organized and started utilizing my calendars, and To-Do’s more efficiently. For the past three weeks, I’ve seen a significant difference in my ability to get organized, and this alone has freed up space and time for me to lean into my stillness practice.
Overthinking takes up time.
I’m not perfect and will continue to work on my self-awareness practices. And as I figure out the sequences of events, I can work towards discovering my needs sooner. As I learn, I will share.