I'll be the first to admit that I have always preferred some version of "peace and quiet" in my life. Even when I was a teenager and young adult, I was not particularly drawn to "excitement" and loud parties.
Whether you like lots of stuff going on and a life that perhaps is rather loud there's still little doubt that silence and meditation are good for us, as human beings.
Just consider how many options there are that involve "silent retreats" and meditation for people to attend when they are trying to manager the stress in their lives!
Even with that being the case, I still think the healing power of silence and stillness is greatly undervalued in our culture.
On a personal level, our lives are pretty quiet and low stress. But just today, we received a bunch of news from different sources that suddenly suggested that October will be a very busy month for us... with events and visitors practically every weekend.
I started feeling a bit overwhelmed by the whole thing, perhaps because the whole pandemic situation has keep us more "in" during the past 18 months... and realized that I definitely do not like that feeling!
Something had to change!
So I did what I often did in the past: I went outside — thankfully, we had a beautiful sunny autumn day today — and sat down in one of our lawn chairs and just was quiet while observing nature around me for about 30 minutes.
At the end of it, I felt far less overwhelmed and stressed out by the situation!
It made me remember how often I used 15-minute meditations to relax and "de-compress" back in the days when I was working in the IT industry... where stress was a part of everyday existence.
One of the reasons I recommend moments of stillness and meditation — aside from the fact that it works! — is that it offers an easy and non-pharmaceutical antidote for the noise and chaos we often have to deal with. Aside from that, it is also good preventive medicine... as humans, we tend to get into thinking we "can handle it" until we reach a point where we definitely cannot handle it... and by then it is already too late!
So, I invite you to consider the value of taking moments to be still and to meditate, particularly if your life contains a lot of stressful energy!
Thanks for reading, and have a great remainder of your weekend!
How about YOU? Do you have a lot of stress in your life; in your work? How do you handle it? Have you ever used meditation? Do you think stillness is undervalued, in our noisy world? Do leave a comment — share your experiences — be part of the conversation!
(All text and images by the author, unless otherwise credited. This is ORIGINAL CONTENT, created expressly for this platform — NOT A CROSSPOST!!!)
Created at 20210925 21:28 PDT
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