Have you ever sat still? I mean REALLY sat still and contemplated nothing? Yes absolutely nothing. To be clear and totally free from thoughts, any thoughts … no fast array of queuing worries or concerns … just stillness.
You know it’s all very well harnessing our inner power and strength to achieve our goals and aspirations and gain success. However, while we are struggling through this and that, making plans and setting our strategies and endeavours as time management masters, our success, capability and accountability must also focus on the silent strengths – the strength of knowing when we need to be still.
The pure strength in recognising when we need to rejuvenate. The articulated ability to be able to be calm which in turn clarifies our focus and direction.
While it is just as important to be motivated, follow our plans and goals and increase our standards, it is also just as vitally important to allow time to “switch off” and do absolutely nothing. Even a professional athlete has days off. It is just as important in the recovery and building process of the body in its athletic achievements. So too having some quiet time is purposeful for the mind, to unclutter and re-gain focus.
Clear the head for a moment, maybe a minute, maybe 30 minutes a week, just to honour and respect the fact that it’s not all work and that there needs to be time for introspection.
What we normally do quite proficiently is to suppress and deny this right, our maintenance, this natural desire as a regular basis. We tend to treat “our time” as a luxury, as something that we deserve if we have “done well” – a reward.
Just think for a moment, come on give yourself a moment.
Think about how much easier situations would be if you regularly maintain some down time. Think about how more successful. Think about how much more effortless and more enjoyable situations would be.
It could be time near nature, getting a massage, diary entry writing, listening to your favourite music, really spending quality time with a friend and not just squeezing them in between appointments.
Then with practice and patience, quiet still moments will be achieved. I’m not necessarily talking about meditation, but a sense of detachment from the human form and connecting to the core. Where there is everything and nothing; where time DOES stand still, where we can completely and totally be.
It’s amazing how we will justify maintenance of our vehicle, house and material elements, yet when it comes to nourish and rejuvenate such a living complex being, we struggle with the idea and just can’t seem to “find the time”.
Some even venture to call it selfish.
Ill let you in on a little secret that not only I have discovered but what I see as a common thread of belief in many successful people today.
The choice of not freely giving or being you is really selfishness. If you are depleted, not full or replenished, how can you be giving fully of yourself? What are you then giving to you work commitments and those around you? What are you giving to your family? What do you have left?
You know it’s even more selfish to give so little and then totally expect those around you to fully give.
You see a lot of us firstly feel uncomfortable with giving ourselves “down time”. Some of us feel unworthy and some of us feel guilty. Some of us are never “full”, relying on others to fill us up and then wonder why we are so depleted, sick and rundown. A lot of us are great suppressors, suppressing emotions and thoughts that come up, suppressing pain and sickness which are desperate forms of communication to stop and be still.
Imagine if these moments were part of our lifestyle. If we catered to this need as we do to our financial, family and work needs, there would be no huge spikes of extremes. There would be no highs or lows. At the end of the day, at the end of a week or even a month, you could take a mental inventory of what has happened. Take stock of decisions and outcomes. Breathe and just it go.
Imagine clearing on a daily, weekly or monthly basis. Imagine the freeing and rejuvenating experience it would bring, rather than years and years of unresolved suppressed tightness.
Success and happiness and empowerment are about accountability and responsibility and honour and respect. It is about being perceptive and sensitive to a very important resource: you.
