Every day I have to sit still. It has become an appetite in me that nothing else will satiate -- this gift of quiet. When I give myself chunks of my day to sit, I experience a deep sense of balance.
I didn't always have this commitment to myself. In my 20s, especially when I lived alone in the mountains, I found it much easier to schedule time for being quiet. But as a mother, wife, home-schooling facilitator, household manager, pet owner, traveler and healing practitioner, I often watched my days divide until little time was left for my self-care and stillness.
A commitment to silence happens gradually. Once I began being quiet in my busy and beautiful life, I felt remarkable changes occur inside. My quiet quenches me and brings ease and grace to my life.
I invite you to slowly experiment with stillness. See what happens in your life when you claim silence for yourself.
Favorite Quotes About Silence...
"Noticing the silence. That in you which notices the silence is not thought. It is not thinking. It is stillness, presence. If or when thought still comes, you can recognize it as the movement of thought, without being completely drawn into it. Allowing this moment to be as it is takes you out of thought. Noticing silence takes you out of thought. Feeling the aliveness of the inner body takes you out of thought. And even noticing a simple thing like your breath takes you out of thought, just noticing that you are breathing. And the thinking that does still happen is just a surface phenomenon, wave movements." ~ Eckhart Tolle
"What do we run away from more than silence? Many of us would rather cling to our ideas, our beliefs, and our opinions - the very things that distance us from truth and reality and life - than to experience this silence. We spend so much energy running away from silence, but silence is the ground from which awakening springs. It’s the ground from which we shift out of this egoic state of consciousness, out of this belief in separation. After all, separation is ultimately just a belief. It’s a story made up in our minds." ~ Adyashanti, Falling into Grace
"May I attain the highest void.
May I maintain, without wavering,
The most profound stillness.
And as the ten thousand things rise and fall
May I watch their turning back."
~ Taoist Prayer