Every so often, usually when I’m on one of my house straightening whirlwinds, my daughter will grab one of those little Post-it notes I made a couple months back that are supposed to remind me to “Breathe” or “Be still” and come running up to me with it, shouting “Relax!” in my face. It’s really very compassionate and smart of her, right? And sometimes it works.
Apparently I need more reminding than just the notes and her screaming though. Ali’s One Little Word class assignment for last month was to interview someone close to us about our word. One lazy Sunday morning at home, I asked Mr. B these questions. His answers tell pretty obviously that I’m not doing such a great job cultivating stillness. Read on…
Q1. How would you define “stillness?” Blocking out everything going on during day and enjoying peace and quiet. Well of course that is so nearly impossible for me (unless I’m at a hotel spa for the weekend) that I may as well quit now! But I do think that I find stillness in other ways as well – creating art and reading both lower my blood pressure for sure.
Q2. What visual images come to mind when I say that word? Snow at night in the forest. I do love that!
Q3. What elements of my word do you see in me currently? Not very much because you’re rarely still. Lovely! Not even an acknowledgment for trying!
In what ways do you see me living in alignment with this word? I see you trying to not have something on your to-do list. Yeah, I realize that is a pretty dumb way to go about finding stillness. I do tell myself that when I’ve got all these tasks crossed off my list, then I can relax. And of course, the list is endless. The trick is pausing in the middle and treating self-care as an important task in itself.
Q4. What would you do if you wanted more stillness in your life? Try to take some time out and not be preoccupied with my job. That tells me two things. 1) Since he doesn’t take that time, he must not be craving stillness and 2) I don’t really have “a job” per se to take time away from. I have 24/7 motherhood (teaching, feeding, shaping into a real human being, dressing, developing manners, maintaining relationships, taking care of health, getting her to sleep in her own bed, etc.), projects like blogging and art and photography that could take all my time if I let them, and house stuff like cleaning and organizing and paying bills and budgeting and grocery shopping, ad infinitum. I go and go and go and go and then wonder why I’m so exhausted every day… by mid-afternoon. Since there is no clear differentiation between “work” and “home,” I am going to need to consciously insert stillness somewhere in there every day.
Q5. Do you have any other insights or suggestions that would be helpful to me on my journey with stillness? Stop making to-do lists that occupy your entire day. And I thought I’d gotten better at that!
Very telling responses, don’t you think? I’m glad I asked because this has given me some good ideas for how to pause and take better care of myself. I have to stop juggling and just let it all go every so often.
This is a mashup that I made for Story of Mum called “The best of both worlds.”
* * * * *
Be sure to visit these other participants to see what everyone is up to. You can see other posts about my OLW project here.
Lee: http://thelinarstudio.typepad.com/embracelife/ (our amazing organizer!)
Cheri: http://cheriandrews.blogspot.com
Margareta: http://www.paperpilekitten.com/
Missus Wookie: mrswookieswanderings.blogspot.com
Naomi: http://www.poeticaperture.com/ <— You are here.
* * * * *
I’ll be back on Friday with the long-promised Alaska glacier photos!
Leave a Reply