Note: Thank you so much to everyone who took the time to fill out the survey (it’s still available) and send me your feedback by email. One person mentioned how much she appreciated this post, which was published about a year and a half ago. Here it is again, revised. Consider it as a love letter, or a prayer. Please enjoy.
“Silence is a source of great strength.”
~Lao Tzu
When in doubt, know that stillness permeates your life. Stop…breathe…rest…wait. Be still.
There is no need to rush into things, no need to always know the answer.
When you speed through your life, overlapping one thing with another, you lose sight of yourself. You are alienated from reality. You live in your head – in your thoughts and pictures of what things should be like. And you forge ahead with the power of a tsunami. So exhausting.
How About Stopping?
But what if you were to stop? Stop thinking, stop doing, stop analyzing, stop the endless loop of stories in your mind.
What would you discover? Here are some possibilities:
- Feelings you have been running from
- Clarity about a situation in your life
- The need to rest and take care of your body
- A spark of creativity
- Enjoyment, wonder, peace
- Something completely unexpected
Stillness is a healing balm. It brings space, wisdom, and sanity to your life.
In stillness,
- You don’t need to know
- You allow things to be as they are – effortlessly
- You realize that life continues perfectly without thinking about it
- You recognize that deep relaxation is possible
Stillness returns your attention to the present. You shift from living in your thoughts about the past and the future to the glory of now. You are authentic, real, available, accepting. As you stop strategizing and figuring everything out, there is openness to the reality of your actual experience. Real experience – life, not imagined scenarios.
You see the pain and futility of hiding, pretending, avoiding.
How to Be Still
The how-to is simple. Just be still.
Why not try it right now? Draw your attention away from your mind and open to what is here in this moment. Notice seeing, hearing, touching. Take in the sensations in your body – every tension, every vibration. Make space for your feelings.
* * * * *
Then let go of all the noticing, and just be still. Boundaries dissolve, and you are here – quiet, alive, and completely at peace. Notice that the quiet appears to expand everywhere.
* * * * *
It may seem like stillness doesn’t last. Actually, thoughts, feelings, and sensations don’t last – it is natural for them to come and go. But all experience arises from stillness, which is everpresent, untouched, not disturbable, the ground of you.
* * * * *
Even if this moment is unpleasant in some way, maybe you will recognize the simple truth that you are aware of it. By being still, you wake up to your life, your experience, the reality of you. We put down all the effort, all the trying, and simply be.
* * * * *
Now go the next step. Instead of resurrecting your usual way of being, let everything emerge from stillness. See how everything in your life unfolds naturally, without thinking about it. And at the source is you. Alive, aware you. Eternally fresh, always here.
When in doubt, know that stillness permeates your life. Stop…breathe…rest…wait. Be still.
Comments, reports, questions? All welcome…
Sandra Pawula says
Hi Gail,
There are so many juicy points in this post! I did find “Feelings you have been running from all your life” in stillness. So then stillness became a “healing balm.” Yes, it’s the stillness, openness, and awareness that are “permanent”, the thoughts and emotions just transitory dreams.
I love to rewrite posts and take them to a deeper level. Thank you for editing and sharing this one!
Gail Brenner says
Hi Sandra,
It was so much fun to edit an old post to make it better and clearer. I’m sure you know what that’s like.
It’s so important to get the insight you describe: that awareness is eternal. Thoughts and emotions are the transitory dream objects that you describe. How freeing!
My Peace Of Food says
This comes at the perfect time for me, of course. I bookmarked it so that I can come back to it often…something I’m specifically working on is avoiding the feeling of “chasing peace” and just being at peace. With 2 little ones it can be so hard amidst the crying, the whining, the rejected food, the dirty diapers..I have to constantly tell myself to stay calm. I hope with practice some day I will just BE and project that calm.
Gail Brenner says
Welcome to you, MPofF. So glad you stopped by and commented.
As you can see, chasing peace doesn’t work. Why? Because you are peace. If I said to you, “Could you please step away from your body.” Could you? Anywhere you move is in the wrong direction. But if you look deeper right where you are – beneath, or before, the crying, whining, diapers, and stress, there is peace. Always possible, because it is the ground from which all experience arises.
You might notice if you step away from all the frustrations, that is lose interest in feeding them with your attention, peace is simply here, effortlessly.
Bonnie Perry says
This is a wonderful post – thank you for sharing it again.
I too have found resting the mind and stopping in stillness for awhile can reveal so much about the reality of life’s direct experience. And, then the mental soundtrack and imagined scenarios continue to flow back in (the little picture, as I nicknamed it), of course, but it can be noticed to have no actual effect on the big picture of the reality of our life’s direct experience that we have found to be inseparable from the stillness. We can begin to see that the thinking does not cause the stillness of the big picture to go anywhere or be overshadowed. In fact, the big picture consumes the little picture and clearly reveals it to be imagination. Then we can begin to relax and rely on and trust our own recognition of the inescapable stillness as synonymous with our natural reality, our homebase, if you will, that we never are apart from. We can actually understand from our own experience that our natural presence does not need to be ruled by the unreliability of thinking – one moment this, one moment that. That was a biggie in my experience, but when I continued to keep checking, I never found ‘the little picture’ to be an accurate portrayal of the actual big picture of my reality. I had been overlooking so many gifts of present reality in favor of relying on my little picture thinking without first looking for myself.
Gail Brenner says
So much wisdom here, Bonnie. Yes, the thought-based seeming reality isn’t reality at all. When looked at with a discriminatory eye, it is seen to be false.
And so beautiful that when we let go of what is false, the gifts, the wonder are here. You say, “We can actually understand from our own experience that our natural presence does not need to be ruled by the unreliability of thinking.” Our natural presence, free of thought, is the true home. Which doesn’t mean we need to try to stop thought. Simply relaxing away from it opens the treasure chest.
Galen Pearl says
Thanks for reposting another one of your inspiring articles. Just reading it puts me in touch with that inner stillness. For me, I find that a good reminder is belly breathing. I’ve been using that a lot lately as my daughter is learning to drive! As I ride along, I belly breathe to stay calm myself, and I quietly remind her to belly breathe to help her stay calm and focused!
Not exactly what you were talking about, but that’s what came to mind.
Gail Brenner says
Thanks for this, Galen. Belly breathing is a wonderful stepping stone into stillness. Breathe…notice the space between the breaths…stillness. Ahhhh….
And it’s a great driving technique as well!!
Cindy Aguilera says
Dearest Gail,
Do you recall my question/s about “ineffable knowing”? Truth be told even after making it seem like I was understanding what you were saying my mind kept saying “yes,but…..” (Feel completely free to laugh). It was then that I re-encountered Gangaji`s teachings. I don`t know if the same happens to you but everytime my mind`s only choice is to surrender and I re-read certain pages from Gangaji`s or Eckhart Tolle`s books there`s a deeper understanding. I made a new discovery that I`d love to share with you. My discovery is that awareness is always here. I checked!! Oh…..the thousands of times my mind has ardously tried to cling or search for Consciousness, Awareness, Truth. It`s so tiring ,so exhausting to look for what is absolutely effortlessly here. I wish I wouldn`t forget it. Well I guess that if I do I can re-discover what always remains unchanged and absolutely fresh, right? Thank you so much for being so patient. I`m only 22!! Probably an “old soul”
Gail Brenner says
Hello, Old Soul of 22!
Beautiful discovery you are making – that Awareness is always here. If “you” forget, it’s actually the mind forgetting. And minds forget, thoughts come and go, no problem here. As you keep checking – and you are not checking with the mind – you find yourself always. Where else could you be?
If you realize the mind has forgotten, that is your golden moment. You are home again. And what is it that sees the forgetting and remembering? Don’t give either your attention, then what is here?
wendy merron says
Gail – thank you for such a well written reminder.
It’s so easy for me to forget that “the source is you. Alive, aware you. Eternally fresh, always here.”
I frequently find that being still is a challenge so I turn it into “just slowing down a little bit…and a little bit more…” using this phrase gets me there.
Remembering to do this is important to me and I frequently forget. Somehow putting it on my daily TO DO list seems a bit odd:
Walk dog
See Clients
Be Still
Return emails
Gail Brenner says
Hi Wendy! Welcome to you!
It starts by putting “be still” on the to-do list. These reminders are important because the mind has been so conditioned to be in control. Simply making this entry on your list is a message to the mind that you are becoming more interested in stillness than activity.
Be still for a few minutes, then begin to explore and play. If you look and check, is stillness present when you walk the dog and return emails? Just now in writing this response to you, there are words coming and fingers typing, but it is all happening in the space of stillness. Is it not the case that stillness is always present – whether you realize it or not?
Stillness doesn’t occur in opposition to activity. It is the ground of being, alive aware you. Eternally fresh, always here…
Enjoy…
Cindy Aguilera says
Thank you so much for having The Diamond in Your Pocket in your list of recommended books. I`ve known about it way before I discovered your blog. That was January 23, 2o11. I don`t have my own copy. I check it out from the public library, but like I mentioned before every time I come back to it I see something I hadn`t seen there before. Much deeper- I guess there is endless depth to it. Blessings and a hug from the “22 year old old soul”.
Gail Brenner says
Cindy,
When words flow from truth, there is no end to their meaning. I’m glad you’re following your instinct to return to Gangaji’s words over and over. The deepening is endless….
Love to you…