In my private practice and in my life I have seen too many human doings and not enough human beings. So many people feel they need to be busy, productive, distracted and stimulated in order to cope with a day, an hour or a moment. I believe meditation has become popular because we now need guidance on how to just be…what does that even mean?
How many of you pause to think about when you took your last thoughtful breath? Our minds are overstimulated by all the pop ups we’ve made important. What to buy, what to do, what to make, what to see…. This isn’t freedom. We are held hostage by meaningless noise in our minds and in the world. Anxiety rules and seeks relief in any form it can find. Did you know you likely have an addiction? There may be something in your life that you turn to, that you make a priority, that helps you avoid the stillness.
When we can tolerate stillness, we can breathe and we can learn from the depths of ourselves what we really yearn for. Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) has a wise a saying:
“You can’t heal what you can’t feel.”
In stillness we can find courage to feel. As human doings we feel little and as human beings we feel the wind, the rain, the sun, the pain, the air, the love, the longing, the hope, the loss, and only in that space will we notice the wind and wildflowers.