getting quiet, getting still
I’m sinking into a space of deep listening, these days. I’m noticing this: the world does not always lend itself well to listening. Often enough, I have been part of the go-do-make-go-go-go cycle, and when I step out of it and get quiet, I find it jarring to have to make decisions or respond quickly. I taught a class this week and could feel in my body how being on a time schedule, needing to get through XYZ concept in order to make sure that we are on schedule for the semester, was all wrong. My energy felt scattered. Everything in me wanted to just…slow…down… and of course I can make that choice, and I did, though I noticed that I haven’t yet found that intersection between slowing down and reacting quickly enough to mange a classroom. I felt acutely that I wasn’t focused enough to really clearly communicate what I wanted to communicate to the class.
I am in an odd, yet beautiful flow (and I notice that it seems like a lot of other people are, as well. Are you noticing this, too?). For me, it is a flow of surrender and since my tendency is towards action, I am less practiced in surrender, so there is an awkwardness to it. “Your life speaks to you. You have to learn to listen” (Iyanla VanZant). And I keep listening, and listening, and I notice that an old impulse comes to me, to do this or try this or think about that. Following that impulse is a bad habit. I added some psych classes to my load this week, hoping to work on some prerequisites that I would need if I applied for an MFT program, again with this idea that I would not make any concrete decisions but would instead cast my net wide…and then I had a splitting headache. The headache lasted for two days and I noticed that every time I thought of these classes, it intensified. I dropped the classes and felt like I could breathe again; the headache went away.
“Your life speaks to you. You have to learn to listen.”
My life is saying: just listen. Don’t make a move.
My life is saying: your body tells the truth, every time. (I also love this quote by Anais Nin: “When one is pretending, the entire body revolts.”)
My life is saying: however you choose to ‘do’ what comes next, do it in your own way.
I was out with a friend last week and we walked past a spiritual shop and on impulse, I had a candle dressed. We went with clarity, release of attachment, and from there I cleaned off my entire art table, packed away all the supplies, and set up my spiritual altar on that table. I wanted a place for that. I did a sage smudge in the house, added a white cloth, symbolic rocks, earth elements–wood, and especially water–my Virgin of Guadeloupe candle (several years ago, while receiving my first Reiki transmission, I saw a vision of the Virgin of Guadeloupe. No lie.)–this new candle that had been dressed, thank you cards, pictures of the ancestors I wanted to honor, a small Buddha statue.
My life is saying: spirit spirit spirit, get quiet quiet quiet, listen listen listen.
Yup. I totally get how nutty that sounds. But it is my truth in this moment. In the car, I feel myself listening. In my house, I feel myself listening. As I write, I feel myself listening. The listening is somewhere beyond ears and is more of a sensory or felt experience. I have no idea of what I’m listening for and frankly, no attachment. It is the strangest thing to recognize that I am in the midst of surrender. I have always planned out my life. I have always declared what I wanted to do and who I would be and taken action.
Now the only action I crave is that of listening, being quiet with myself. What I describe here is not sadness or isolation so much as it is cocooning myself a bit while something else is trying to get itself born.
Where in your life do you crave stillness?
Please take a moment to:
