Posts Tagged ‘stillness’

A Question of Pace

Friday, July 10th, 2009

Sometimes I have noticed that it isn’t that the ‘wrong’ things are happening, simply that they are either happening too fast or too slow for us.  I’m not sure which is more challenging.  Too slow and we get impatient and try to force things to happen; too fast and we go into overwhelm.  Dealing with Change is a much a matter of getting the pace right as much as the sequence.

Champion athletes are lucky enough to have access  to a pace setter, we don’t have this luxury, so we have to master the twin arts of waiting patiently, and the stress of handling it when it comes at us from every direction at the same time.  I think one key is trust.  Trusting the Universe to give us what we need, and trusting our own ability to handle what it chucks at us.  After all, as Nietzsche observed “that which doesn’t kill us makes us stronger.”

At the moment I seem to be having to deal with both extremes at the same time!  Some elements are  just taking forever to work out and I find myself wondering if I have, somehow, got it wrong; and at the same time, the other day I was inundated in a sh1tstorm of epic proportions!  And today, the pendulum seems to have swung back to its middle position. 

Do you have any helpful strategies in dealing with the pace when it gets out of hand?

“It is always the simple things that change our lives. And these things never happen when you are looking for them to happen. Life will reveal answers at the pace life wishes to do so. You feel like running, but life is on a stroll. This is how God does things.”   Donald Miller

 

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Full Stop

Friday, June 26th, 2009

Over the last month or so I have found myself magnetically drawn to the pond.  Now we have a small waterfall, the sound of water splashing is deeply satisfying.  The new koi are a constant source of fascination whether cruising in the depths or leaping out to seize flies.  We have dragonflies buzzing, and damselflies dancing in their neon skins.  Tiny bluetits grab the bullrushes and bees are drinking perched on the weeds.  One way and another, it is a real treat for every sense.  I’m not that good at sitting doing nothing but I have created somewhere that makes it really easy. 

I think we all need to find a place where we can be still.  The world rushes past us.  Mobile phones and PCs bring this frenzy ever closer.  Whether you are into meditation or not, one way to enable change in your life is to just S T O P…. let all the sediment to settle, and then enjoy the clarity this brings.  If you don’t know what to do, if you don’t have enough time for everything, try stopping.  You maybe surprised how much more you achieve.

“One’s action ought to come out of an achieved stillness: not to be mere rushing on.”D.H. Lawrence

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Stillness

Wednesday, February 4th, 2009

I’ve been lucky enough to get out into the snow the last 3 days and apart from the sheer beauty of the sunlight on the snow and the novelty of the blanket of white over our usual landscape, the thing that I was really struck by was the silence and the stillness.  These are rare qualities in this crazy modern world and the more precious for that. 

I was up on Puttenham  Heath today and as it is reached by driving up a little used B road that was sheet ice even today, there had been relatively few visitors to fabulous place.  In the quiet and in the stillness we come face-to-face with our thoughts, feelings and intuitions.  We can listen to ourselves.  Take the time to listen to the insights of the silence.

 

“The most basic and powerful way to connect to another person is to listen. Just listen. Perhaps the most important thing we ever give each other is our attention…. A loving silence often has far more power to heal and to connect than the most well-intentioned words.”  Rachel Naomi Remen

“Your innermost sense of self, of who you are, is inseparable from stillness. This is the I Am that is deeper than name and form.”  Eckhart Tolle

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You can never get in the same bed twice…

Sunday, December 28th, 2008

I think that, at least for me, a key part of the importance of this time of year is the pause it gives you between the frenzy of Xmas and all that leads up to it and the beginning of the new year.  I don’t believe we are really designed to go straight from one space directly to a new one; that just feels like more of the same.  Think about it like traffic lights, between the green and the red you have amber; a space to change your state and expectations.  We all need that, I know I certainly do.

Whilst there are busy days over the holiday, I value the ‘do nothing’ ones just as highly.  Spending time in bed in the morning when there is nothing but hunger to make you rise from that little warm nest.  However, every time I promise myself that I’ll come straight back after I have eaten, somehow I never do.  Once that passive state is broken, you can’t recreate it just by going back to bed.

Make sure that you treasure and use the non-doing time this holiday and use it to prepare yourself for the sleigh ride that 2009 is sure to bring!  Good Luck!

“The art of Being, the art of Non-doing is very subtle. Non-doing is not merely a lack of activity but an energy experience of stillness.  This Non-doing is your presence, your very amness, the positive experience of being truly alive.”

Resources:

  1. Taoism & Non-doing

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