Into The Stillness

“A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.”
                                                                                   -Mark Twain

A friend asked me the other day for some insight into why she drinks. The only thing that came to me that was both powerful and simple is that it is easier to drink than to be with the stillness. It is easier to drink or eat or go out or whatever than to be with our uncomfortable feelings. We don’t look to be still and to feel what is underneath our facades. We are taught to look for happiness and that something or someone else will make us happy. So we do that. We emulate our parents and those in our community. Does it work? Are we happy? Do we have good marriages, and do we feel truly, inside happy? 

The answer is not often. The truth is we have to go into the stillness to know ourselves. I watched a 4-minute video called, Will You Marry the Wrong Person (http://bit.ly/14EbPT0). It is a great video, and I heartily recommend watching it. It talks about knowing ourselves before we marry; knowing our madness. Yes because, in a way, we are all a bit mad or weird or crazy, whatever word you prefer. It is crazy to keep doing the same things and expecting a different result. Yet we do that all the time. What we don’t do is go into the stillness. We are often afraid of what we will find there. 
What we do find there is of great value. We find our places of emptiness, our places of loss, our places of feeling lost, our places of hurt, etc. We often react out of those places instead of responding from them. We attack when we feel hurt, for example, instead of feeling our hurt and helping ourselves and possibly telling another that we are hurt. We get into relationships and marry from familiarity more than from a place of greater understanding. It is familiar for us to be controlled or to control; or to be blamed or to blame, and so on.

What helps us understand our crazy places is to look at what is familiar and see how we also have come to embody certain beliefs in our lives. So we look at our parents, for example, and see them through how they acted and reacted and taught; with a much larger perspective. I look at my parents and see their patterns. My father was an egomaniac in which everything centered on him. My mother centered her life around him, he was always right, and he demanded her full attention. This took most of her energy, and there wasn’t much left for anyone else including herself. Dad was very controlling, and mom was controlled by him including how she wore her hair, how she dressed and what she believed. Dad thought he was more intelligent and mom thought she wasn’t intelligent. Under the surface, my father had great anger that he was ready to let loose on anyone who countered him or caused him trouble. These are just a few patterns that were represented to us, their children. 

If we don’t go into the stillness, we don’t see these patterns, how they affect us, and how they affect how we eat or drink, or who we marry. I saw these patterns by going into my stillness. By being still, I see my patterns within my relationships to others and to things. I see how I married someone quietly controlling with a rage burning deep inside him. I see how and why I react to others instead of just responding. I become less afraid of myself. My choices become more informed and I understand them more fully.

What happens when you go into your stillness? What do you see and feel and learn?

Recommended Resources:
Our best resource is us. When we begin to feel uncomfortable inside, take a few minutes and just sit and listen. Don’t react, and don’t eat or drink something, or don’t argue. Just sit and breathe and listen….for as long as you can. Sit in the stillness. Afterward, take a few minutes and access or write down what you thought, saw, noticed, and learned about yourself.

The second resource is one I spoke of in this blog. I recommend watching the 4 minute video, Will You Marry the Wrong Person: http://bit.ly/14EbPT0!

I would love to hear your reaction to the video if you are so moved!



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