Stillness

© Andreiuc88 | Dreamstime.com

Yesterday I was out in the woods in the snow. I was hiking with a small group of people and we paused on the side of a hill to catch our breath. As we stood there, we heard the knock-knocking of a woodpecker on a tree. It was as if there was a hush over the forest and we could hear everything. We stayed and listened for while. It was quiet and still.

The coming of winter in New England seems to invite stillness. The days become darker and colder. The snow comes, perhaps forcing us to slow down even if we are in a hurry to get somewhere. December can be a time of pausing, reflecting and waiting. Waiting for the winter solstice when the days begin to lengthen once again. Waiting for the holidays, the new year. 

December can also be a time of busy schedules, family obligations and holiday get-togethers. Depending on your traditions, it can feel like too much, too much stuff and too many things happening. How do we find stillness in the busyness? How do we nourish our souls in the midst of the dark and cold?

Embracing the Quiet Within

For me, finding stillness comes from pausing, noticing what I am feeling, and practicing bringing kindness to each experience. In those moments, my body relaxes, something shifts and I slow down. Stillness also comes from setting aside time to simply be. How often do you allow yourself to be still with no agenda? How often can you give yourself permission to not have to do anything? All of this feels nourishing to my soul and connects me to a place of deeper quiet within.

Here is the thing about stillness and quiet: it is not always easy. Sometimes it feels unattainable. Even in those moments, we can practice meeting ourselves with kindness. We can say to ourselves something like, "Here I am. I feel rushed and busy. My head is spinning and I feel restless. I can be gentle with myself here, too." As counter-intuitive as it may seem, it is this kind of gentle attention that brings about subtle, beautiful shifts and opens us to the possibility of stillness and quiet.

In the words of Jack Kornfield and Christina Feldman in their book, Soul Food: Stories to Nourish the Spirit & the Heart, "Our growth as conscious human beings is marked not so much by grand gestures as by extending loving attention to the minutest particulars of our lives. Every relationship, every thought, every gesture is blessed with meaning through the wholehearted attention we bring to it."

© Chernetskaya | Dreamstime.com

We cannot force ourselves into stillness. We can gently invite stillness to come and wait for it to arrive. When stillness comes, we can gently welcome it to stay awhile.

In these dark, cold days, we can pause. We can pour ourselves a cup of tea, light a candle and sit quietly in the dark. We can embrace the stillness of winter, with its invitation to slow down. We can notice when we are rushing around and set aside time to breathe and be, even if it is only for moments at a time. We can practice returning to ourselves, listening and waiting. 

Self Care

© Kryzhov | Dreamstime.com

For many of us, the election last week was hard, to put it mildly. I went through periods of grief, heartbreak, rage, disbelief and fear, among others. These emotions are still percolating in me in varying degrees. What I am most aware of as I sit down to type is an underlying feeling of uncertainty.

What do we do when things happen in the world that feel scary, unbelievable or challenging in some way? We can feel devastated or defeated. We may feel powerless, angry or scared.

For me, today, it is hard to know what to do. I cannot say what will happen in the coming months or how our country may change as a result of this election. I think it has already begun to change - or perhaps I am seeing things more clearly than I had before. Still, I do not know what the future will be.

What I do know is that I want to be part of the group of people who are committed to coming together and standing with those who are most vulnerable among us. I know I want to include my heart in any actions I may take. I know I want to be available to those who are hurting.

Given all that, what do I do? The title of this blog gives it away. I can practice taking care of myself. I can listen to what I need so that I may be more in myself and present regardless of what happens. Some days I simply need comfort wherever I can find it. This can be the healing salve that allows me to go on in the face of uncertainty and fear.

Below I share some of the things that bring me comfort and joy. Even when things are hard, we need to remember there is love and goodness, too. And, sometimes, the most comforting thing can be to allow ourselves to feel our pain with another who knows how to feel their pain.

© Verastuchelova | Dreamstime.com

Finding Comfort

Here are some of my comforts. I invite you to consider what comforts you, as well.

I will start with the trees, the moon and the stars. The other night I was driving home and saw the Orion constellation rising on the horizon. He was flat on his back, parallel to the ground. I wanted to say, hello dear friend. Nice to see you again. Winter must be on its way.

I find comfort in connecting to the parts of the world and the universe that seem beyond time. Giant, old trees. Big rocks in the middle of a river, shaped by time and water. The brilliant full moon, which continues to wax and wane, again and again. All these things give me pause and remind me of the grandness of life. Then, in some paradoxical way, I feel less small.

Music is next. Music can speak to me and express something in me I did not even know was there. Some songs cut through all my exterior boundaries and land squarely in my heart. I am grateful for that. I can cry and sing and move and, somehow, feel renewed.

I had the experience last week of singing with a group of women, singing so loud I was almost shouting, tears streaming down my face, and I felt alive. I felt powerful in my pain and glad to be surrounded by others who shared my grief and rage and understood.

Lastly I will include two seemingly opposites. I find comfort in community and in solitude. I need both. I need to hold and be held. I need to connect with others and know I am not alone. I also need times to sit in silence by myself, to reflect and take stock, and to feel into my inner quiet places.

I offer all of this as possibilities of nourishment as we journey into whatever is next. May we find our way together. May we go in peace.

Everything Changes

I had a rough summer this year. I was treated for Lyme disease and the whole process had a significant impact on my ability to do the things that I like to do. It took a toll on my body. There were days I did not want to do anything and would have been happy to stay in bed all day.

I experienced swelling in my joints and other physical complications. There were several weeks during which I was rarely outside and could not walk around much. 

In the midst of all this, I experienced a lot of worry and fear. For some of my symptoms, it was hard to know if they were related to the Lyme or if something else was going on. I felt uncertain about the future and unsure how, when and if I would feel better. When would I feel more like myself again?

How many of us have been there? It can feel scary when our bodies experience pain, injury or illness. For those of us that have a history of previous or chronic illness, it can also touch old feelings about how we were treated in the past or old fears that we will not be okay.

There were times over the last few months when I wondered if this was my new reality. Would I have to give up hiking and dancing? I had memories of when I learned I could not tolerate gluten, even in the smallest amounts, and how fundamentally life-changing that was. Was this like that or would it pass?

Perspective

For me, this time, it did pass, by and large. I went for my first significant hike since August last weekend. I was still cautious, especially when going down hill, and I was so pleased to be out and about, hiking in the woods. I walked for hours, pausing and resting here and there. As I hiked, I felt more confident in my body again. "I can do this," I thought. I found comfort in knowing I did not have to give this up.

As I hiked, I reflected on how far-fetched this reality had seemed only a few weeks prior. I touched on another feeling as well, the feeling that healing is possible. It takes time - it can feel like it takes forever - and, eventually, things change and something shifts, one way or the other.

People's State Forest, Connecticut

We are not static beings. The world around us continues to move, grow and decay. When I was stuck in my apartment for days on end with little movement, it was easy to forget that life continues to change, always. It is not always for the better, but sometimes it is. And sometimes there is grace and okayness even in the center of something that feels awfully not okay.

Recently, I was reading Grace (Eventually): Thoughts on Faith by Anne Lamott. In one chapter, she describes an experience she had with her son when he was ten and nervous about sleeping so far away from her in their new home. She set him up with a sleeping bag and pillow on the floor next to her bed. Over the course of several nights, he was able to move farther and farther away, scootching his bag down the hall, through the living room, and, finally, into his new bedroom. A few times, he had to move his sleeping bag backwards to be closer to her.

Lamott writes that grace is like that, "scootch, stall, catastrophic reversal; bog, bog, scootch." That captures how life feels to me, too. We scootch along, doing our best, get stuck, backtrack and eventually end up at a new place. Then we do it all over again. We can fight the whole thing - sometimes I am completely committed to the fight. Or, we can ride the waves, knowing that there will be peaks and valleys, scootches and stalls, and that life keeps happening, changing and shifting. 

Why I Love to Dance

© Facesgroup | Dreamstime.com

Last Saturday I taught a Mindfulness and Movement workshop. I guided the participants in meditation, stretching and qigong. I invited each person to feel into their own movement impulses as I played songs with various rhythms and tones. We moved and danced, together and separate, around the space. Connecting with my body, my creative expression and others in this way is one of my favorite things.

My body loves to move. The more I move, the better I feel. I used to run cross country and track in high school and college. I loved it. My body felt strong. The rhythmic quality of running was always something that calmed me and reset my mood. Over the years, running started to feel too hard on my body. I looked for alternative activities and could not settle on anything that gave me the same feeling, physically or mentally.

Then, five years ago, I was introduced to moving in my body in a whole new way. I attended my first SomaSoul training with Dan Leven at Kripalu Center for Yoga & Health. When Dan put on music and invited us to walk around the room, feeling into our hips, legs and feet and feeling the music, I felt awkward, nervous and shy. It was somewhat like learning to ride a bike - my body did not quite know what to do. Still, I remember going to bed that night feeling like there was something to this that I liked and wanted to explore. 

Being in My Body

That "something that I liked" was a connection to my body. This was new territory for me at first. It was also full of richness, depth and meaning. As I began to experience my body's reaction to music, I could feel a new world opening up. This was a world of emotions, sensations, movement and creative expression.

Moving in a creative way in response to music, i.e. dancing, fulfills my body's need to move. I use muscles I do not usually use. I feel energized and alive. I sweat, I laugh and I feel. I feel my arms and legs. I feel my heart and guts. Emotions bubble up in response to some lyric or tone. I am moved and I am moving.

The beauty of moving in this way is that I am listening to my body and letting it tell me what it needs and wants. When I was a runner, I was generally telling my body what to do. Go up this hill, finish strong, stride out here. Now my body and I have a different kind of relationship.

One of the differences is that I spend more time in the core of my body and less time in my head. This is especially true when I am dancing. My body responds to the music and I follow. I am not thinking, move here and move there. The movement comes from some place else. It feels like what creative people say when they talk about getting out of their own way and letting something flow through them. 

© Sebast1an | Dreamstime.com

Dancing in a group of people also gives us a unique opportunity to connect with people without words. We can dance around others and with others, mirroring their movements or having our own expression. This can be especially powerful for people like me who can feel awkward in social situations and conversations. Here it is our bodies doing the talking, so to speak. We can play and experiment with being together and being apart.

So much can be said without words. Last weekend I also had the chance to attend Night Fall in Hartford. Night Fall is an annual outdoor performance that features dancing and puppets. It was beautiful and moving. I was struck by how touched I was by this story that was expressed almost exclusively through dance, visual effects and music. It went right to my core and my heart.

In a world and culture where we can spend so much time thinking, planning and sitting, we can all benefit from experiences of moving and being moved. Certainly, I need movement and creative expression in my life. They nourish me on many levels. If you would like to join me sometime, check out my Classes and Workshops page to see when I am teaching next.