Stillness is not experienced when your mind feels ahead of your body. When we wake up in the morning, sometimes we experience that our mind is racing, while our body is relaxed and at rest. Thus, you don’t feel stillness.
Other times, your mind is at rest, while your body is energized and ready to go. In this case also, you don’t feel stillness. This is due to the contrast and friction between mind and body. Both should be at rest in order to experience stillness.
So, how can we cultivate stillness in these cases?
The 5-4-3-2-1 Practice
This practice is very quick and easy to do and thereby make makes stillness accessible to everyone.
- 5 things you can see
Stillness is like a mental picture. A picture is by definition still, unlike a video, which is also why we sometimes refer to them as stills. This step is about how you take a mental picture, in order to find mental stillness.
Wherever you are, all you have to do is look around and take note of five things you can see. You want to look at them more closely than you usually would. Pay attention to colors, shapes, shades, and try to really immerse the five things you have picked out to consider with your eyes. This can be particularly beautiful if you do it out in nature.
- 4 things you can touch
You start to feel things around you. You pay attention to the textures, the temperatures. Notice the difference between e.g. your shirt, your chair, your hair, your skin.
- 3 things you can hear
Perhaps you hear the sound of e.g. a fan, some distant chatter, the sound of your own breath, or the sound of shoes meeting the surface, a bird chirping in a tree somewhere.
- 2 things you can smell
You may sense the smell of fresh bedsheets and the slightly burned bacon in the pan, coming from the kitchen.
- 1 thing you can taste
Perhaps you can still sense the taste of e.g. the breakfast you just had still lingering in your mouth.
If it any moment you are struggling to find stillness, then focus on five things you can see, 4 things you can touch, 3 things you can hear, 2 things you can smell and 1 thing you can taste. If you do that, you will immediately access stillness. This is because stillness simply means feeling the sense that you are here right now. The starting point of being still begins with being present. You grounding yourself so that you can take in the present moment.
However, being completely still takes more work and is about being rooted in clear intention and purpose. Thus, a purpose-driven individual can be considered still, such as Martin Luther King Jr. since you could not move him from his purpose, dedication and determination. Still is not about not moving physically, rather it is about being solidly rooted in what you are trying to accomplish. Your purpose. A tree is still, not because it cannot move, but because it is rooted in the purpose of growing, giving shade, shelter to birds/squirrels/etc., taking in sunlight and creating oxygen through photosynthesis, and creating carbon dioxide during the night, sprouting leaves and giving fruit (in some cases).
Credit
This practice was first brought to my attention by Jay Shetty.
Leave a Reply