Power of Stillness

You might be thinking power in stillness? What has stillness got to do with me feeling better or solving my issues? I get this a lot and most people resist the notion. Most people think they have to do something about their discomfort. This is what makes stillness so powerful. I get it, the idea is paradoxical. You mean that if I sit still, I can heal? I am not saying that action is futile, it is important, it is only futile when the action comes from reaction. This is where stillness comes in.

There is a reason it is so hard to sit in stillness, everything that we have ignored and suppressed comes up to the surface. Often triggering our fight or flight responses. Our bodies react like there is a threat because it is remembering. The body keeps score. All our accumulated distress feels threatening. This is why when we just sit, we can feel the urge to move or follow a thought. It seems instinctual and right to follow. However, sitting with the discomfort becomes the gateway to self-discovery.

To begin healing we need a sense of safety. We spend so much time trying to find this in the external world, instead finding ourselves bumping into all kinds of situations that trigger our survival strategies and before we know it, we are either shrinking from the world or trying to fight it. We are constantly in states that go against ourselves and each other. This is due to how our nervous systems were shaped to respond to our world. If you are lucky enough to grow up in a healthy environment, your nervous system is regulated, relaxed and responding to the moment. This is our natural state.

However, for most of us we found ourselves in dysfunctional families that taught us the world is not safe and our nervous systems were shaped to respond to threats leaving our bodies and minds in constant hypervigilance. Stillness not only helps to regulate the nervous system and move you out of fight or flight, it moves you into rest and digest. In this state, your body begins to relax and soften and the simple act of sitting without forcing calm or chasing thoughts becomes the first real act of safety we give ourselves. It's here you can begin to truly listen. Sitting still and observing our bodies and thoughts can show us everything we need to know to begin to change our reactions and begin to act more from our natural state.

When I first began the practice of sitting still, it almost felt like torture. Every cell in my body wanted to get up and do something. I would look at all the things around me that my mind told me was more important. I’d sit in my garden and I couldn’t resist getting up and pulling a weed or attending to a plant. Or if I was inside, I’d start cleaning or get in front of a screen. Or if I wasn’t moving towards a distraction, I was following thoughts and getting lost in more thoughts upon thoughts. It seemed there was no end, no relief, no escape and that I wasn’t in control of myself or my thoughts. In the beginning there was so much noise it was hard to sit with myself.

It wasn’t until eventually I stopped resisting sitting with myself that I had my first breakdown or should I say breakthrough. One day, as I just sat and listened to what was there, I was able to for the first time in my adult life see behind my own mask. Underneath “I’ve got my shit together” was years of repressed emotions. Suddenly I was curled up underneath a tree bawling my eyes out howling. It was the first time I cried where I felt a physical shift in my body, it was my first real raw honest cry. I’d cried plenty in therapy before but I always held back and pulled myself together. This was a pivotal moment because I used to hold the belief that if I let myself really feel, I would never stop crying. I not only stopped crying but felt relief for the first time in my life. This moment changed everything!

The more I sat and honoured what was there, I started to notice how the more I sat, my mind became less noisy, there was more relief. The thoughts eventually slowed down and as my mind slowed, I’d notice my body responding with deeper breath. I didn’t know at the time but this was my nervous system responding and shifting into rest and digest and the first time feeling safety.  Something happens when we can begin to regulate our nervous systems. The body starts to speak clearer, we begin to get in touch with ourselves and our innate intuition. When we start to turn our attention inward, we eventually notice our natural reactions to our environments that have always been there but were shut down.

I started to notice when I interacted with certain places and people, I would respond with a tightness or freeze I had never noticed before. I was so used to being wound up and in a state of unease that when I experienced what ease was, I was able to recognise when my body was signalling to me that something was coming from a reactive state. I noticed my compulsions were not my own, like a virus in a computer it had a mind of its own. I discovered it was not me. It was a program installed that once upon a time served to keep me safe that no longer served me. Here I began to understand my programming and began the process of deprogramming (unlearning).

With building up the ability to be with myself I noticed my beliefs and behaviours around people pleasing and being the “good girl” to keep myself safe. Keeping people around me happy, never saying no, never stepping out of line, always doing what I “should”, smiling when unhappy, staying in hurtful situations, never rocking the boat, never speaking up, and negating my needs and values for the sake of others. I had not realised that these beliefs have dictated my actions and behaviours pretty much all my life. This gave me the power of choice and agency. Something I didn’t know I even had.

Like a stack of dominoes, the more I would go back and just sit I would discover more and I got to the point that I was no longer fearful of sitting with myself. It has instead become my source of comfort and safety no matter what was happening in the external world, I can at any time come back to self. At times even becoming eager to sit with what is there to see what I can discover. When a compulsion comes to do something or not do something, I can now check in with myself and ask is an old belief driving my reaction. Is this something that resonates with me and gives me a sense of ease or does it cause dis-ease? For instance, when an old pattern of saying yes to everything pulls at me, I now pause and feel, does this leave me expanded and calm, or tight and drained? That body signal has become my truest guide.

Through this process, I have rediscovered my voice in writing this now. I have always had the natural compulsion to write but allowed fear to stop me putting anything out there. I can now see the fear for what it is and it no longer controls me. I went from somebody who could not sit with myself, constantly distracting, chasing, and running, to somebody who has gained a sense of peace by being still. I never thought this possible from where I was to where I am now. All through the simple practice of sitting still.

When you start to regulate and dismantle beliefs, it can be scary. It’s like losing a much-beloved security blanket that once gave you a source of comfort. But if you persist in this simple practice, a space opens to discover the essence of who you are and that is your true safety that nobody can touch. Our true self is something that is and will always be even when hidden under layers of programming, it sits waiting patiently for us to reconnect.

If any of this resonates, I’d love to hear what shows up for you when you sit. You don’t have to do this alone, there’s a small community here if you ever want support. You’re welcome in the Synergy Circle whenever it feels right. No pressure, just presence.