stillness

"Peace and contentment are feelings that take practice to achieve. They are not a consequence of being successful or being in love or being thin. They are, among other things, a consequence of stopping in the present moment and looking around." - Geneen Roth

i have been thinking about stillness. radical t sometimes asks me if i have tried being still. being still and listening. 

listening not to the sounds of the loud neighbours bbq, or the dog barking, or the tv blaring, or the ticking of the clock ... but listen to the voice inside of you. 

“Everything takes time. Bees have to move very fast to stay still.” ― David Foster Wallace

change within yourself isn't fast (unfortunately). it takes time. my friend D describes it like a swan ... on the surface there is calm and beauty, but under the surface the swan's feet are paddling like crazy just to stay afloat. 

taking the time for myself this year was the hardest and best thing i have ever done. putting oneself first isn't something that people are taught to do - especially women. so taking time off work and doing self-reflection and self-care was scary, difficult, and wonderful. 

“Being still does not mean don't move. It means move in peace.” ― E'yen A. Gardner

being still doesn't mean sitting cross-legged on the floor and meditating. being still means taking the time to listen to the voice inside of you; listen to what it has to say about your life, about what you are doing, about what you are thinking. being still means trusting yourself to tell yourself what you need - and what you need to know. 

“Sometimes you need to sit lonely on the floor in a quiet room in order to hear your own voice and not let it drown in the noise of others.” ― Charlotte Eriksson

there are times, however, when sitting cross-legged on the floor can be a good thing. meditation is a great way to be still. and yet, you can be still and listen inside without having to meditate. 

“Be the silent watcher of your thoughts and behavior. You are beneath the thinker. You are the stillness beneath the mental noise. You are the love and joy beneath the pain.” ― Eckhart Tolle

trust that you know yourself better than anyone else does. trust that you know both your mind and your body. trust that you are the expert on yourself and your life. and trust that, as nosy nora likes to tell me, you are the boss. you are the boss of yourself, of your life, and of your choices. 

“In the stillness the voice inside is louder, much louder, and cannot be ignored.” ― Diane Brown

taking the time to listen to yourself takes practice. and with practice comes the ability to hear yourself. that inner voice that is screaming to be heard becomes soft and calm and tells you what you are waiting to hear. for years, my inner voice screamed at me wanting so badly to be heard. the more is screamed, the louder it got, the harder it was for me to hear. inside was all noise and scrambled sounds. 

taking the time this year to be still has given me the ability to hear myself for the first time. and boy do i ever have a lot to say ...

be kind to yourself, 

xoxo

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stories

i want to write about stories:

the stories we tell ourselves, the stories we tell our families, the stories we we tell our friends, the stories we tell the world ...

DS mentioned something he learned about memories, and how each time we tell a memory, we change a little piece of the memory. and that the most pure memories are the ones we can't remember. 

i think it is more than that. i think that we tell our stories for so many different reasons. 

the stories we tell the world, are the stories that make us look good. we aren't going to tell the world that we are mean, and angry, and selfish. we edit our stories to make us sound like the good little people we want to be. 

the stories we tell our families are edited. we leave out the shame. 

to our friends, we tell stories that cast us in various lights; trying to balance our shame, our truth, our joy, our sadness ... 

and then there are the stories that we tell ourselves. these are the stories that our inner critic narrates inside our heads. and although we believe that all the other stories we tell are the altered stories ... it's the stories we tell ourselves that are the most distorted. 

the inner critic in my head is an on-going monologue ... more like a diatribe - a forceful and bitter attack against myself. my inner critic is mean, angry, shaming, loud, nasty, and doesn't know how to be quiet and listen. my inner critic is debilitating.

http://audacium.com/i-thought-my-inner-critic-superego-was-bigger-than-yours/

when i tell myself a story, or retell a story to myself, the inner critic takes over and analyses everything and then tells myself that i was stupid, or embarrassing, or worthless, and therefore i AM stupid, and embarrassing, and worthless. 

so what do we DO with our inner critic? how do we stop her from ranting and raving inside the very core of ourselves? Zed and i talked about the inner critic yesterday (welcome to being quoted in the blog!). Zed suggested that perhaps the inner critic needs to be killed. She thought perhaps drowned. and we agreed that drowning her with ice cream, and chocolate, and chips, and candy, and french fries, and done nothing except make me fat. 

so i decided to ask Zed about her inner critic ... who is this voice? why is it so mean? and how do you silence this voice?

my inner critic? well she isn't as loud as she used to be. growing up, i was always the 'smart one.' i never thought i had much talent in anything. my middle sister was amazing at everything. i felt like i wasn't good enough. BUT ... that all changed as i got older and i realised that looks and beauty are fleeting, and it's what counts on the inside. i had many anxieties about new situations. like, you wont get that job, you're not qualified ... blah, blah, blah ... i could go on ... the inner critic is like this pimple on your face that is massive. sometimes you can cover it with your hair or make up, and sometimes it's out there for the whole world to see and you can't do anything about it. mine is like a tiny red mark on my forehead - there, but no one really notices it. 

so the inner critic lives in all of us. the question is how to silence her. is it with therapy? is it with medication? is it with mediation? is it with hate or with love? 

Zed said that her husband sees something in her that she didn't see "for the longest time." so now when her inner critic is speaking, quietly, she smothers her with a pillow. maybe being loved fully and deeply quiets the inner critic. maybe it is love that is smothering her, and not a pillow at all. 

AG, on the other hand, tries to listen to the inner critic. like she's a little girl who has something to say. and that she needs to be listened to, and treated with compassion, and given what she needs. and by discovering that, she can be quieted. 

i try to listen past the anger and hurt of the inner critic. but she is so loud. so persistent. and so mean. 

the stories we tell ourselves are not all lies. they are distorted versions of the truth that make us feel safe in the familiar. it is safe for me to tell myself that i am undeserving. it is safe for me to tell myself  that i am not good enough. or that i am just not enough. it is safe, because if i changed the narrative ... if i began to tell myself that i am good, or smart, or worthy, or enough ... if i began to have a voice in my head telling me that i am deserving ... well that would just be crazy! i would start to think that i deserved things. i would start to want things. i would start to ASK for things. and that would be such an enormous shift in my reality, that i don't even know what that would look like and it is terrifying. 

i am "leaning into" the terror ... how do you quiet YOUR inner critic? use the contact form on the right to tell me your story, or leave your comment for others to read. because, after all, sharing your stories is what frees us from the loneliness and the silence. 

xoxo

...

being still ...

“I said to my soul, be still and wait without hope, for hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love, for love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith, but the faith and the love are all in the waiting. Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought: So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.” 

- T.S. Elliot

last night i was chatting with K.M. about being still and listening ...

i am trying to learn to be still. it feels like an insurmountable task. 

to me, T.S. Elliot's definition of being still means turning off my brain, sitting in silence, and waiting for something magical to happen to you ... 

... it feels impossible ... i can't turn off my mind. 

ever.

... i used to believe that stillness meant sitting without movement and thinking about nothing. for 3 years i have lay on Pokey Sue's treatment bed desperately trying to clear my mind, to still my thoughts, to think about nothing ... pokey sue always tells me to be kind to myself while she leaves the room ... and i would lay there beating myself up for not being able to turn off my mind; for not being able to be still ...

Brene Brown wrote: "stillness is not about focusing on nothingness. it's about creating a clearing. it's opening up an emotionally clutter-free space and allowing ourselves to feel and think and dream and question."

... Brown's definition allows for my tumbling mind that is open during those treatments - my mind that feels and thinks and dreams and questions. 

perhaps stillness isn't sitting here trying to make my mind stop. perhaps stillness is letting my mind wander and seeing where my thoughts take me. LISTENING to my thoughts and getting a better understanding of what is going on inside my (jumbled) head. perhaps being still means letting the inner-critic finish her rant, and waiting to see what voice speaks next; listening for that gentle voice, and waiting to hear what she has to say ...

today i invite you to be still. 

i invite you to take time, 5 or 10 minutes out of your busy day, to sit with your thoughts and see where they take you. 

maybe you will discover something new about yourself, or about your path ... you have nothing to lose. 

be gentle with yourself, for as i have learned, stillness doesn't mean silence or a lack of movement. 

it means listening to the thoughts in your head without judgement, and allowing your thoughts to communicate themselves freely.  

xoxo

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