The Power of Stillness

Can you remember a time where you stayed absolutely still? I mean no walking, running, lifting, or talking at all. That moment of stillness whether the only thing you can actually hear is the sound of your own heartbeat pulsing throughout your stationary body. And it’s not a trick question or anything, because we’ve all had those moments in our lives. Whether its the moment right before, or after, you fall asleep or even that very sharp brief moment where you got caught in the act of doing something you shouldn’t have been doing in the first place. Shame on you! Nevertheless those moments are very true and authentic and we all experience more than a hundred times in our individual lives. Mastery over stillness set apart the inconsistent actors from the working actors.

Many people find it difficult to reach any level of stillness without the assistance of physical fatigue or substance like alcohol, and that Mary Jane. We go through life constantly running, and moving from point A to B, from chapter to chapter, trying to reach the high and lofty goals we’ve set for ourselves. However, if you’ve got any form of anxiety, like me at times, finding physical and mental stillness is a MANDATORY piece to a healthy way of living. No one should ever feel the need to be at a level 10 at every sec of the day. THERE’S NO WAY you can perform optimally.

So I remember when I first started practicing meditation in my college dorm room at Howard University. One night I can home from a little get together, and I was tired, but not tired enough to go to bed. My room was just silent. And dark. I paused in that moment, in that darkness, and closed my eyes and all of a sudden I could visualize all the heavy traffic of loud thoughts that plagued my mind. And I knew that I needed to find a way to really quiet my mind and my spirit. I sat right down in the middle of my room, and turned on my pandora station for tibetan meditation sounds. I laid on my back, and allowed the music and sounds of meditation bowls to encircle and encompass me about. While each musical note danced across on my skin, one by one I watched all the stresses I had stored within myself float away down the calmer outer rivers of my spirit. As the last ship of worry departed from the docks of my mind, both my body and spirit felt a sense of peace and stillness as I re-opened my eyes.