Last night on SOP 12 Zoom session the Mindfulness session was about silence and how that makes us feel. It certainly brought about different reactions, all of them in the safe environment, that brought about a realisation about our current ability to be silent and how we need to train that.
It's the same with being still. If I asked you when you were last still during a day, and awake, it would be a variety of answers, most of them wouldn't actually be true. A common genuine one would be when on holiday and sitting by the beach / pool on a lounger and not moving. That's why we like to go on holiday, even though it's not for everyone.
But actually consciously making the decision to be still? I can be hard. Then we can consider silence.
We can of course be in silence when walking and there is walking mindfulness that can be very useful for those of us with dogs and those that like to walk, particularly in the countryside and close to nature.
However being still is the best way to give yourself the environment to experience silence.
As a test for this I want you to try this now:
start walking, indoors or out
add up the numbers in the year you were born (eg 1+9+6+8= 24)
multiply that number by 3
divide the number by 4
what's the answer?
At what point did you stop walking?
Yeah we need to stop and be still to give our minds silence to be able to concentrate to get the answer.
This is one of the reasons why multitasking actually dumbs us down. When was the last time you multitasked whilst being still? Never.
Give yourself a break this Christmas. Each day, allow yourself to be still. Enjoy the silence. Feel the benefit.
Try the arithmetic test out on another person and observe.