Stillness in the Center
Weekly Reading Topic for January 11, 2020: Stillness in the Center
Well, good morning, love! I just opened a Reading for you, my newsletter subscribers and here’s what I heard in answer to the following:
What do my readers most need to hear this weekend? What is the most important message to send to my beloved readers?
The answer was: “Stillness in the Center.”
What follows is your weekly reading, dear one.
Weekly Reading │ Stillness in the Center
Q: What do we need to know about “Stillness in the Center?”
A: Oh, this reading is full of energy! Isn’t that a funny way to begin talking about stillness? But that’s the point: stillness is not an absence of movement, change, and growth.
It’s the culmination of these!
Whoa, there is so much to talk about with this subject. Let me organize myself a little here so I can catch what I’m being given to pass on to you.
I’m going to take just a moment to breathe deeply. I suggest you do that, too.
…
Stillness is the point of everything, loved one. Without stillness we cannot possibly integrate any activity, thought, program, inspiration … anything.
Here are a bunch of examples of how this works in the real world, in our physical bodies:
Our breath has a natural cycle that includes a still, resting point. We breathe in, and oh-so-briefly pause before we exhale. Then we oh-so-briefly pause before we inhale! This happens with EVERY breath, although the more relaxed we are, the longer and more noticeable the pauses are.
Without that pause, we would not give our lungs the time they need to exchange the carbon dioxide and other toxic blood gasses for the fresh, clean oxygen that’s coming in from outside. We MUST pause long enough to make that exchange. If we don’t, we get caught up in a rather dizzying (literally) asthma attack.
Here’s another one: in each and every day we lapse into stillness commonly called sleep. During that time our bodies are extremely active on the inside. Our livers process toxins, our minds sort and integrate our emotions and thoughts, and we generally reset our internal organs for the next day.
Without sleep, we very quickly become ill, disoriented, lose IQ points, and can even expire, if it goes on long enough!
Then there are the ways stillness shows up in our daily lives. For example, yoga. We’re all familiar, at this point, with the concept, right? Stretch and strengthen, right?
NO. The traditional purpose of yoga was not physical fitness so much as preparation for meditation. Truly! The stretches and gyrations were all done to limber up the body before sitting very, very still while letting the mind work itself out.
In a yoga class today, teachers often end with a “corpse” pose, where you lie on your back and deliberately rest for a moment or so. That’s great because it preserves the idea of stillness after activity. But it usually ignores the next step, which is to STAY STILL for a long time while meditating.
The stillness is the GOAL of a yoga practice. Isn’t that odd to our western mind? It’s not the striving. It’s the stillness.
Stillness is where life happens, love. When we take in stillness, we take in life. Without it, we are just motion. And nothing in nature is all motion.
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Motion without stillness is the opposite. Motion without stillness is a kind of living death, and if it goes on for long enough it causes such wear and tear on the body, mind, and spirit that it can literally cause our animal bodies to let go and just … die.
Stillness is where we find ourselves. It’s where we find each other. Think of how your dog or cat reacts to you when you are fully present. You might look at each other, or nap, or pet. But the lack of “something happening” is not the feeling you get from that stillness, is it. In fact, it’s those moments of just being still together that form the basis of your relationship. Those are the moments you remember long after.
Stillness is where the action is!
This year, this marvelous 2020, is so big and bold and busy. It’s full of transitions and crumblings and renovations. It’s a time of rebuilding and redoing. It’s a time to live Who You Are Out Loud.
And the only way to do that well is to make sure you are still, at your center.
The best way to do this, of course, is with meditation. We’ve started seeing people re-embrace their meditation practice lately, and we’re so happy about that, because in the stillness of the body we often find so much, so much, being rebuilt in the mind.
Timing doesn’t matter, even five minutes is enough stillness to remind you of its value. Twenty minutes, twice a day, is the absolute BEST and most time you “need” to spend in meditation. More than that is lovely, but not necessary to re-anchor you in stillness.
And when you are re-anchored, you will naturally be finding those still moments at the top and the bottom of your breath. In between your heartbeats. You’ll enjoy your food more, letting it perfume your mouth before swallowing. You’ll sip your wine a little more slowly, and turn off the television to watch the full moon rise.
Work, yes, because this year is about engagement and change and transition. But don’t forget: change doesn’t anchor in your body, mind, heart, or spirit until you have been still. Make the point of all activity to drop into stillness as soon as you can.
Think of your life as a series of sprints for a while, and it will make your whole world easier.
When you sprint, you run flat out, hard, toes digging into the track, fists pumping, shoulders swinging and breath singing in and out of your lungs. It feels so exhilarating, so enormous, so focusing. It’s lovely to go fast and furious, right?
And then when you are done, when you’ve made it across the line, you walk for just a few steps before you DROP into the grass, or hang your head and rest your hands on your knees. And you let yourself rest completely.
In that rest, which might only be for a moment, you are letting your body, mind, and heart integrate what you just did.
No need to move after movement. Let yourself rest, completely, as if you are so winded from your effort that you can’t take a step without a moment to catch your breath.
This will really help you, during this season of change, to stay centered in your stillness, and still in the center.
Use stillness for what it is: the ultimate goal, the ultimate reward. The best part of life.
No matter what you believe about where we come from before we are born, or where we go after we die, all theories incorporate some form of stillness. That’s because stillness is where all meaning, all love, and all connection can be found.
Be still, and know that I Am You Are We Are.
So much love is in that stillness. Feel it soaking you, like a pool of dark velvet wine, like a pool of sunlight, like a smile from a small child.
Enjoy your weekend, and I am always here to serve in any way I can.
Much Love to You!
Molly
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