My brain has been a wreck lately. Not lately as the last few days, but really the last several months. It’s like something is on fire and I’m trying to flee the house to save myself, except this isn’t what’s happening at all. Maybe it’s a past life thing? Maybe.

On this one particular day as I was trying to sit and found myself fidgeting, moving, my mind wondering and hearing all the creeks of the house, and on and on, I heard a very distinct voice in my head. “Be still”. It was a grumpy bitchy voice, it was more of a Grandmotherly it’s time for a nap and I do mean now, voice. It was loving and direct. “Be still”.

Dear Lord, I’m trying, I really really am! I’m trying to be still, but my mind won’t cooperate! This was the basis of my inner plea to get out of this jail of “be still”.

Here’s the deal. Not moving my body is not an issue. In fact, thank you chronic fatigue, I have zero problems sitting still. Getting myself to get up and move is oftentimes, especially in the winter, the bigger problem.  This is not a physical “be still” this is an inner “be still”. For me, the hardest kind. My brain loves to think!  I’m a highly visual person, I love creative thought, it’s my version of a drug, really. Thinking is pure fun to me! And, I know there are times when I need to give it a break. I know without question I need to sit and not think, not create, not solve problems, make plans, figure things out.  I just need to “be still”. So, I practice.

I practice sitting in the dark, in a bright window, in the morning, at night, staring out my kitchen window. I’m trying.

Those who practice meditation have a saying, “the practice is the practice”. This is to say, by committing ourselves to it, we are indeed doing it. It is also to say that there is no good day or bad day as the practice is the practice. It is what it is and so it is.

I’m practicing not only the practice as Spirit has said for me to “be still”, but granting myself some grace in accepting my ability to “be still” for whatever it is on that day, and each moment. I know Spirit’s direction is not for me to sit on my mat and be still for 10 minutes and call it good. I know what I’m being directed to do is walk the mat time into every moment of my life. The stillness my mind, my body, my Spirit is craving is a sense of peace in each moment. While that may seem a lofty goal, it is indeed my mindful reminder.

So, I check in with myself way more often. I breathe on purpose more often, I feel my feet on the floor, anchor myself into the earth, allow light to flow in, far more consciously far more often, and…wouldn’t you know it?  There, in those moments, I find it, my ability to “be still”.

Forever the journey, Anne