Life is about finding the balance between stillness and an active engagement in our everyday lives. Mindfulness and meditation practice allows us to both enter the space of stillness and turn more deeply toward our daily experience. When we mindfully enter the space of stillness in meditation, we can see our habitual patterns of thoughts, feelings and behaviors more clearly, and in doing so, we open to the freedom to make more skillful choices in our everyday lives.
Find the still place within you. Breathe into the stillness.
To know yourself as the Being underneath the thinker, the stillness underneath the mental noise, the love and joy underneath the pain, is freedom, salvation, enlightenment. –Eckhart Tolle
Notice what arises in your body, heart and mind in response to the word stillness. Does your body soften or tighten? Does your heart open or close? Does your mind become quieter or more filled with chatter? See if you can turn toward whatever response arises with an attitude of kindness and curiosity.
If you encounter resistance to the idea of being still, try noticing where this resistance manifests in your body as tightness. Rest your attention on the tightness and see if you can imagine it softening. If you notice a tendency to want to cling to the stillness as a way to escape your everyday life, see if you can turn toward this response, too, with kindness and curiosity. Try noticing where your body tightens in response to the clinging, and see if you can imagine it softening. Rest in the refuge of stillness with the sensations of gradual softening of the body, and rest in the refuge of knowing that you are one step closer to the freedom you long for.
Contact Jen to schedule a free 15-minute consultation for mindfulness coaching.