All my life I have placed enormous value on doing … taking action, being productive, making things happen, finding solutions, striving harder, working faster, filling time and grabbing every moment available. Don’t get me wrong, it has served me well for a very long time. But constant change, challenge and adversity can test your reserves … and it is during the past four years that I truly discovered the value of stillness.
Initially it was hard. Who would have believed that sitting in stillness would turn out to be one of the hardest things I’d ever done. My active inner critic came alive (hey you …what are you doing?); my busy mind went into turmoil (hello …we’ve got things to do!); my gut squeezed (what’s going on? is there a crisis? why have we stopped?); my heart ached and longed for distraction. I don’t think I would have done it if I wasn’t completely exhausted. I don’t think I would have learnt to stop, to listen, to notice, to be still.
Total exhaustion gifted me the realisation that simply sitting in stillness is when we truly see, hear and emerge ourselves… in all our pain and all our joy, in all our gifts and all our ordinariness, in all our strength and vulnerabilities, in all our uniqueness and sameness.
“You have a treasure within you that is infinitely greater than anything the world can offer.” Eckhart Tolle. Yes Mr Tolle, I believe we do … but you will never find it if you can’t sit still with yourself and pay attention to what emerges.
Gabi Lowe – July 2017