First of all, is that even a thing?
Seriously...
I feel like it is a totally new behavior. I mean, I am a being in constant unremitting motion.
Like since birth.
But this time that I have taken to allow life to unfold, has brought this new understanding, well that might be overreaching, this new experience (much more accurate description) of being still.
Holding.
Waiting.
Remaining.
Allowing what will be, to just be.
I literally have no place to go and really nothing to do. More so than I have in such a very long time. I have no work deadlines, I really have no deadlines whatsoever. I am just waking every day to a new day that will bring whatever it shall bring.
It is lovely and hard at the very same time.
Turns out you can learn a lot by just waking up. No agenda. No plans. Nowhere to be. Nothing that MUST be done.
I have found a part of myself in the midst of all this nothingness, that isn’t really nothingness, it is somethingness, somethingness that I have never lived before.
It is the life that is lived in between all the hustle and bustle. It is time to do things that I would not normally do...like ride my horses which I have not participated in for the three years I have owned them. I mean who owns a horse for three fucking years and never rides them, not once? Me. I do that.
But the riding is something that I found in the midst of all my nothingness. Horses are something that I found in the space I created in my life. And I am falling in love with that, them, and the new experiences they bring.
My children. That is also something that I have found in the space. These teens that I have lived with the whole of their lives, new and interesting to me. People that I care to spend time with, people I care to get to know better. People that I am happy to just be here for and wait for them to be interested in doing something with me.
They were a burden before. I hate admitting that. But seven years ago when I found myself smack dab in the middle of single parenthood, while I was struggling to reclaim my own life, from the clutches of a married life that felt like a chokehold, my kids were just another thing to do. Hard to admit but they were.
Today they are challenging for sure but I love them. I love hearing about their lives, I love participating in their lives. I actually choose to do things with them. To be with them. And that feels like such a turn towards something that I ran from for a long time.
I have found time. Time that I didn’t know existed with sitting still. I have rekindled my meditation and yoga practice and found myself there. Living in my skin and body while also residing in my mind. I sit with myself every day. Religiously. I just sit there and watch the fantastic show my mind puts on every day. And no matter what it tells me, I just sit there. I do not get up when my mind tells me I should. I just thank it for the thought, and keep on just sitting still. And you know what, I have come to love this time. This time that used to just be another thing on my never ending things to do list. Now has become, well, sacred. Time spent with myself, on myself.
And the yoga, my body craves it. It wants it. It needs it. It is a different version of being still, while moving. I mean I am moving my body, stretching it ways that feel good and at the same time pushing it in ways that cause it to grow. It has allowed me an intimacy with myself. A great feeling of ease and comfort within my own skin. The war with my body, somewhat in a ceasefire, perhaps even in peace talks with my head. The long fought, hard won battle of being ok within the body host for my spiritual experience, paused. Perhaps maybe a permanent ceasefire? Feels a little too soon to call it a complete surrender and peace. But a ceasefire feels like progress.
Turns out there is a lot to learn in the stillness of being still. I have discovered horses, my body, my children and myself which is a lot of things and beings to find in what appeared to just be a great amount of space and time.
Sometimes sitting still, is the busiest I have ever been. Not in the productive, get shit done kind of way, but in a moving forward within myself kind of way.
Life today feels good even though there is much unresolved. Much to do. And much to learn. I feel the peaceful abiding that eluded me for so very long. I feel at home, in body, mind and spirit. And it only took 52 years! And I am grateful for that. Some people never find that in their entire lifetimes.
Sitting still has given me this interest, fascination even in what the day might bring. It can bring anything because I am open to it all. Whatever comes, be it brilliant or painful, I can deal with it because I have space and time and grace to do so today. And I found all of that, the space, the time and the grace, sitting around my home doing absolutely nothing...one day at a time.
"Simply wait, be quiet, still. The world will freely offer itself to you."
Franz Kafka
Comentários