Stillness, pause, and waiting.

Reflection: what does it feel like to be still, practice presence, and allow things to grow?

Be Still.

Physically, being still: Let’s use yoga as a visual for this concept of being still. During meditation, the goal is stillness. So instead of movement, you choose to ignore the impulses to shift your body. This is not quieting your thoughts, but instead listening to them. You “become the observer” by choosing to listen without response.

Mentally “Surrender”: or to listen to your thoughts/feelings without effort to fix or change what you hear. Consider your brain is a highway and your thoughts are all the vehicles whizzing by. Instead of chasing the cars— following a thought— you sit and watch them come & go.

Emotionally experiencing: without shame or the desire to change how you are feeling. Emotions often act like waves crashing on the shore, they barrel in with energy and they roll out usually as swiftly as they came. Being still emotionally could be as simple as crying without a narrative, feeling anger without taking action, or feeling lost without reaching for a coping mechanism.

So, you can listen to your impulses, your thoughts, and emotions, and then choose to do nothing about them. Of course you will need some sense of self control, agency, and maybe even discipline depending on the occasion, but stillness is always a choice- like sitting calmly next to a raging river of your thoughts.

Practice presense.

This is difficult for many reasons but the main one is our innate desire for more. Our desires keep us sentient, they keep us from being content with starving because the view of the beach or the mountains is too pretty to walk away. Desires keep us moving along, looking to meet our next need. Always wanting more ensures that things are temporary. There is also the Ego. Imagine Ego is a rabid creature panting and waiting for us to speak on what we want— careful! because once it hears a desire, it takes off running, and you’ll spend however much time running after it trying to retrieve it. This imagery helps explain why people get wrapped up in the pursuit of something, only to receive the object of their desire with little interest in it. Ego heard you and Ego does whatever it does to get what Ego thinks you want, like a loyal dog waiting for a command. 

This mucks up the waters when it comes to being present because you are often thinking about the next thing. People have come to understand this aspect of our minds have been exploiting it. Social media algorithms encouraging swiping to the next thing. Now with all this content to compare your own life to, some moments are experienced as not “good enough” and you always need something else.

However, you can practice presence. You will not always feel in the moment and sometimes you won’t feel well in the moment (headaches, weird adult body ache, or overstimulation) which can also make you feel removed or cause you to disassociate. This is OK. This is normal.

Check in with you:

Use the breath as an anchor into the present moment. Breathing in deeply, breathing out slowly.

Engage your senses. What do you: see, hear, feel, smell, maybe even tastes.

Let thoughts pass.

Allow emotions to come without trying to change them.

No replaying the past. No worrying for the future. Choose to be here, now.

Allowing things to grow

We have talked about balancing your growth with creativity before so this philosophy applies here. 

Surrender vs. Strategy, both are great and necessary in particular instances.

Surrender- letting go of control and resisting less; no fighting, no forcing, no overthinking the outcome.

Strategy- taking deliberate & organized action toward a desired outcome. Planning, deciding, choosing the steps to create what you want.

Surrender without strategy can feel “passive’ like you are waiting for life to happen.

Strategy without surrender can feel rigid and exhausting when trying to control outcomes too tightly.

So it is a balance of creating your own luck by planning what moves you want to make, but surrendering to the outcome. Allowing things to grow really means creating the conditions for life, ideas, and projects to unfold naturally without forcing them to adhere to expectations of growth. Engaging with them responsibly while trusting that with patience & active care— everything will happen for you.

Plant your seeds. Tend to your garden. Exercise patience to allow space & time for growth.

Do not internalize experiences, optimize.

(conclusion)

what does it feel like to be still, practice presence, and allow things to grow?

It feels alive with emotions, thoughts, and impulses. There is no such thing as a wrong way to feel. Welcome them all, and let yourself grow with patience and grace.