Ever wondered why it’s so hard to be still and quiet? Why you resist sitting in meditation, or spending time by yourself? Why leaving your phone in another room feels like a medal-worthy act of bravery? Why you get antsy when you drive without a podcast or spotify playlist to keep you company? Or why you get the urge to tip-toe out at the first sign of savasana?
The truth is most of us have successfully engineered our lives to avoid stillness and silence. Why? Because of what’s waiting for us there. The discomfort. The pain. The sadness. The anxiety. The emptiness. Memories. Regrets. The lonesome frontiers. The familiar jab of “I am not enough.”
These cavernous hollows within us become apparent when we aren’t shoveling achievements, accomplishments, and productivity on top. Ticking to-dos, multi-tasking and browser-hopping are all clever tactics stemming from a cunning unconscious strategy to avoid pain, emptiness, fear, and whatever else is waiting for us in the void.
Plus, we don’t feel whole, just as we are, so we shovel load after load of accomplishment to fill the “whole.” Through busyness, we get that sweet hit of feeling temporarily whole. It won’t last long. We know that, so we just make our to-do list longer, overfill our calendars, keep our hands full of devices, keep our playlists primed. That way, stillness and silence are always just out of reach.
But here’s the irony: The key to our wholeness is buried in the depths of stillness and silence, waiting to be excavated. It offers us access to the answers we’re aching for, through the voice of our inner guidance.
So instead of Getting Shit Done, Get Sit Done. Sit down, get still, be quiet. Regularly. Don’t dabble, you’ll run back into the arms of achievement at the first hint of resistance. Instead, commit. Make intentional pauses. Stay for savasana. Sit in meditation. Take five deep breaths. Spend an hour without your phone. Lay down the doing, ‘cause being is where the bounty is AT, yo.
