Don’t underestimate the power of stillness.
It’s only been in the last year that I’ve been able to slow down and find stillness. I’m not sure if it’s my ADHD or my chronically activated nervous system, but I am always on the go. To be honest, it’s probably both. I am always operating at 110%, whether good or bad, happy or sad. Oh, I could stop and smell the roses, but it wasn’t enough to simply sit and take in their graceful elegance. I’d need to immortalize their beauty by lining up the perfect picture or drafting the perfect poem in my head. I would enjoy the moment, but my brain would still be busy. I didn’t know how to be still.
When my brain is still:
- I’m able to be fully in the moment.
- I can take a break from analyzing the past and predicting the future.
- I’m more observant and in tune with my surroundings.
- I don’t have to do anything. I can just be.
- I start noticing details that my brain would have auto filtered out as not needed, because our brains are highly efficient and like to take short cuts.
- It’s easier for my body to release tension.
- I stop listening to the craziness of this world and its loud messages of fear and anger.
- I find mind body soul harmony.
I have a few different ways of finding stillness.
My favorite by far is spending time in nature. Being surrounded by trees or grabbing a blanket and sitting near water are two quick ways for me to calm my brain. There’s something transcendent about watching a concertina of leaves dancing together on the wind, or contemplating on the continual flow of water, it’s fluidity gently lapping against a shoreline, swiftly floating down a stream, or dramatically crashing as waves.
It’s not always practical for me to go out into nature to capture my stillness. On days where I need to stay closer to home, I might go for a walk in my neighborhood or sit in my backyard. As winter sets in and the days get colder and wetter, I will sit by a window or watch an ambient nature video on YouTube.
When all else fails, I use my imagination.
I close my eyes, put my feet flat on the floor, and imagine I am standing on lush backyard grass, a soft woodland meadow, or on a sun warmed sandy beach. Once my feet are planted firmly in the scene in my mind, I’ll start adding smells, sounds, and mental images to my nature scape.
When I first started out on my journey to stillness, I used breath work and guided meditations to help train my body and my brain to enter into stillness. A year later and I find that my soul craves stillness like water, and the muscle memory from routine practice allows me to find stillness in any moment, because I carry nature and stillness within me.