Finding Peace In In-Action
We are wired to keep moving, keep going, keep producing, keeping on going. Funnily enough one of the most uncomfortable and challenging tasks for so many of us is to sit still, or be still, and simply not do anything.
Even spiritual practices have so much to do with ‘doing’. Always having a persona to ‘fix’ or ‘heal’ or ‘optimise’.
I wanted to write this piece today to invite you into stillness, and sometimes a discomfort which can initially come with that. Because within this stillness, there also comes immense clarity, peace and fullness.
So often we ‘keep on going’ - but have we ever stopped and asked why? Why do I just ‘keep on going’, keeping on planning, needing to be entertained, complete tasks, have a back to back social calendar and keep on scrolling. What is it, which drives this constant doing? Some would say thats just the ‘way life is’. But my question to you today also is, does that feel good all the time?
The only way to find out - is to pause.
When we pause and stop, and actually not ‘do anything’, and just Be, what can show up is what is going on already underneath, a perpetual restlessness. Again, a restlessness from what? About what? This is a great place to enquire. And I would encourage you to stop, and just notices. I would suggest that you begin to notice that there is a sensation - a sort of discomfort, or almost felt sense of danger to stop. Sit with that a little bit, and just notice. Notice also that (providing you are reading this in a dangerous place) there is no danger. There generally is order, peace, or at best - nothing ‘bad’ is actually happening.
If you are reading this, you have been drawn to this for a reason, perhaps it is just to have a seed planted to ‘slow down a little’, or further than that, even try the practice. Put aside 10 minutes or half and hour, and don’t do anything. Don’t try to meditate or do some kind of practice or task. Just put yourself somewhere comfy and just stop. Eyes open or closed. And then just notice.
Why do this? Its building an awareness, a reminder of the ebb and flow of experience. Life moves faster, and then slower. Its the natural order of things. It can help us transition through these moments where the pace changes, and we can then really enjoy the deep rest or the no-thing-ness.
We can be so terrified ironically enough of stopping. But this is an experiment to see for yourself, what happens. How does it feel? Can you just notice the sensation and be with it? Not trying to fix it, or make it go away. Again, why do this? Because this is what is in your Now, right Now. Its the most direct pointing to this very moment.
Just to mention, I am not saying don’t do things - not at all - I’m saying invite the natural flow of business and stillness to be fully expressed in your life. A lot of the environments around us are always asking for more, faster, harder.
When I first started intuitively feeling that I needed to do this, it felt strange, even bizarre, but then as it unfolded deeper, there came a deeper peace, a sense who wholeness in the non-doing. As it is literally showing us that we don’t need to ‘make something happen in order for something else to occur’. It can just be as it is, full, whole and complete.
Yes the mind may argue and battle a little at times with this, only because it is used to ‘standard operating procedure’. But it only wants what you also want, peace and happiness. Contentedness. All thought, all action, is constantly orientating us toward those goals. The invitation with this article, is to consider, what if its already here? And I don’t mean an intellectual understanding of ‘yes peace in the present moment’ - I mean to ask you to try it out, see for yourself - is there peace in-inaction?
A photo I took from Mount Sinai - this majestic moringa peregrina holding such strength with not a drop of water around.
