Just be Still

Remember as a child, being told, “Now, just be still?” I do. Mother’s and caretakers are sages. They know things that we as a child couldn’t even imagine. Stilling your mind, can lead to a steely resolve needed to make critical changes in your life. Changes you may have lacked the focus to carry out because your mind was in such fast motion. Stillness can lead to greater creativity and even productivity. Are you wondering what this crazy post is about? I can just imagine that because everything in our 2014 world says to stay constantly in motion. There is the subliminal message that if you don’t keep moving you will die.

No, I’m not being dramatic. That is the latest wisdom. Being sedentary, sitting around for hours on end can lead to an early death. Sitting around for hours isn’t what I’m advocating. We are all so accustomed now to sound bites. You hear a little something on the news or read it and then go with it. The kind of stillness I’m advocating is found through doing yoga and meditation.

Yoga invites us to notice and not judge. A form of practice like Restorative Yoga is very calculated in its movements. It is a rather a still time and can last well over an hour. You might find yourself wondering about calls you missed on your silenced cell phone or even start glancing at the clock, if one is available. Where does this busyness of the mind come from? Is it our society or is it some message we’ve internalized?

At the meditation place where I use to go, sometimes there were only two of us. On rare occasions there were three. It was a free class, so why so few? Meditation often gets canceled at other facilities.  This particular place I’m talking about, which I use to love, has closed down. Why the hating on meditation? It is probably because it asks us to do something incongruous with what the rest of society tells us. We must do, build, go, network, work, run, talk…anything but be still and quiet within ourselves.

As a part of my spiritual journey towards weight-loss I am noticing the benefits of stillness. Being still within myself has enabled me to slow down my thoughts and really concentrate. Concentration has led me into believing I could achieve rather large, long term goals, like losing almost 100 pounds. We are no longer the chatty children, bopping each other over the heads in the backseat of our cars. Are we? We can continue to benefit from wise words of our parents/caretakers and just be still.

For more on this topic see the following posts:

Spirituality and Weight Loss

Quieting Down the Monkey Mind