Dynamic Stillness
‘When you lose touch with inner stillness, you lose touch with yourself. When you lose touch with yourself, you lose yourself in the world’’ - Eckhart Tolle
I’m at my first ever throwing class – pottery, that is. There’s clay flopping right and left, comedy plops and sludgy fingers everywhere. Our eccentric teacher, a sweet greying man in his 50s, keeps repeating one simple rule of physics to his new students: unless the clay is centred, we will not be able to build a stable form. I’m reminded to relax my body and keep my arms supported so that the clay stays secure and steady. And after nearly an hour of practice, I find a way to balance the stillness and movement – my left arm in place, like a scaffold, while the right moulds, shapes and creates. Lo and behold – ta-da! - a pot.
I love this process. First, I have a useful, practical object I can take home and fill with flowers, spare change, or - as my husband joked - pot pourri (I’ve never had it, but if I’m now making pots, who’s to say what’s next?!). Then there’s the meditative quality of making pottery which has left its mark - and makes me want to do it every day, forever. While there are moments of frustration where a pot feels out of reach, I find myself in a space where all the distractions fall away and I enter a timeless, thoughtless state. Actually, when you start overthinking and not feeling what your hands are telling you, you see it instantly; the clay literally slumps over.
As the renowned Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi says, ‘flow’ is our best state for work, where all the distractions disappear and you are fully focused on the task in front of you. You need energy, focus and time to do this. I’m reminded of T. S. Eliot’s famous line, ‘at the still point, there the dance is’. To authentically express ourselves, be truly productive, and take part in successful ‘doing’, it’s only possible when we are connected to our centre, our being, our still point inside. When in that state of focus and flow, our lives become so much more - in every way.
Stillness: The Benefits and Blocks
Meditation is one of the best ways to connect to stillness – and it doesn’t have to be seated meditation: a mindfulness practice can be done literally anywhere, from walking or eating to doing the laundry. As the forefather of modern mindfulness, Jon Kabat-Zinn says, it’s about the ‘quality of paying attention, on purpose, in the present moment, non-judgmentally’. We can connect to this quality at any moment when we become aware of our bodies, feelings and minds without creating the tension that comes from judging our experience: noticing without interpreting or analysing or overthinking. It could be tuning into the colours of the trees in autumn or feeling a surge of love for our children in a moment of connection and laughter. The possibilities are literally endless for when and how we connect to that still point inside, but we need to be alive and awake to our lives for us to realise these moments are actually happening.
My meditation teacher used to point to the space between the words: a practice that helps us remember our true essence and the timeless, noiseless, beingness beneath and beyond all of our usual day-to-day activity and speech. That true essence is always there, witnessing it all, not caught up in the contents of our lives. If the contents are the clouds and the sun is the light of awareness, we remember that the sun is always shining even when the clouds cover it: our awareness is there even when the clouds and daily content take up our attention.
The thing is, even while we may know that we are more than our thoughts, emotions, or body sensations, it can be very hard to remember this when caught up feeling stressed, overwhelmed and busy. We humans are so described as being lost in thought, out of touch with the now. This is where mindfulness can be really useful, reminding us to come back into the moment, connected to the space in which all of life happens, a space of open beingness.
3 Practical Tools for Stillness Everyday
Finding stillness doesn’t have to mean going on retreat for a few days – it can be the moments of relative peace and quiet that exist in the everyday. It could be the short pause before sending an email, being at a red traffic light, focusing on your breathing for a few moments or a quick sit down on your favourite chair in between calls. Before we start ‘doing’ again why not savour stillness for a moment? When we can punctuate the day with more opportunities for stillness and silence, we feel so much more connected inside: as Rumi says, ‘silence gives answers’.
Here are 3 short, practical tools for remembering stillness every day:
Notice the space between the words when you’re talking or listening to someone else talk: the silence behind speech
Become aware of the space in between the inhale and exhale when you breathe: the space your breathing emerges from
Repeat the following phrase regularly, ideally with eyes closed and in a silent, peaceful space:
“I have a body, feelings and thoughts…and I am more than my body, feelings and thoughts.”
After you have sat with this for a while, see what arises and emerges; if you can, write it down.
For other practical tips on finding stillness everyday, you can follow my Instagram account where I’ll be suggesting tools and tips for enjoying and accessing stillness throughout the rest of November.
I’d love to hear how you find this and what you do to connect to stillness!
