Like many, I’ve spent most of the last year becoming well-acquainted with the walls of my bedroom slash home office slash gym slash classroom slash social hub slash meditation den. Even though working from home is a privilege that I’m grateful for, the close proximity of all my life activities to one another feels stifling and stuffy, like there is too much happening in one space.
At first it felt like this created- by-necessity stillness: The lack of room for movement between the facets of my identity meant that they had no choice but to sit plaintively next to each other. But it soon became clear that this form of stillness was a false cognate, the facade of frustrated agitation, ready to burst out at any moment in all caps screaming, LOOK HOW SERENE MY STILLNESS IS.
Stillness isn’t a byproduct—it’s a mindset of awareness to the world and your presence in it. Stillness is a practice of prioritizing nothing over simply being in the present moment. Ultimately, it allows us to practice awareness of the outside world and situate ourselves in its vastness. As a writer, which is to say, someone who spends a lot of time in their head, I’ve found it to be a critically important habit in maintaining sanity.
Like most habits, especially those pertaining to mindfulness and writing, “what works” likely differs from me to you. For me, the three most important elements of my stillness practice are: reducing distractions; creating intentional space, and connecting with nature.
Reducing distractions
There seems to be no end to things that we can consume to distract us from tedium, anxiety, depression, loneliness, chaos, and uncertainty. Whether it’s an escapist TV show or novel, a flood of yet-to-be-made comparisons on social media, or the next shiny piece of technology that promises superhuman efficiency, we’re inundated with opportunities for distraction. In an ongoing effort of cultivating stillness, I spend time every few weeks thinking about what distractions catch my eye and why. I do my best to reduce them, little by little, and notice the thoughts and feelings that fill into that extra mental space. Those thoughts and feelings may not all be ones that I enjoy experiencing, but being able to be present in them is fundamental to a practice of accepting stillness.
Creating intentional space for writing
To me, this literally means committing a given space, and the unique vantage point I have there, to writing alone. However, because stay-at-home orders mean space is limited, I’ve found I want to use spaces in multiple ways while also separating the activities that happen there. For instance, I sometimes write on my couch, which happens to be in front of a TV, and also happens to be a place I like to eat dinner. In order to keep those activities separate, I sit in a different spot and position on the couch for each activity. Even subtle changes in position and posture are enough, for me, to shift my perspective and prime my brain for whatever activity I’m intending to do. This helps cultivate stillness by allowing the brain to focus on one thing at a time, to be present in the moment.
Connecting with nature
You don’t have to love hiking or camping or walks on the beach to connect with nature. As someone who grew up in the Pacific Northwest, I have a soft spot for rain and always try to get outside when it rains, sometimes under the cover of a porch roof, sometimes not, sometimes with a rain jacket, sometimes without. It connects me to my roots and quickly reminds me of the expanse of the world. Even if rain isn’t your thing, spending time outside to connect to nature is a helpful way to cultivate stillness because it activates all five of our senses in ways that we don’t experience indoors. The vivid colors of a landscape or sunset, the sound of birds, leaves crunching. or the ebb and flow of traffic, the smell of dirt or blooming flowers. Touching tree bark or tasting humidity in the air. Letting your mind and body soak in the natural world is an easy way to practice stillness, no matter where you are.
Stillness is a conscious and repeated effort that helps us as writers, and as individuals, to accept our lack of control without drifting into hopelessness. By adopting a practice of stillness and incorporating it into my writing, I’ve come to see stillness as a balm for chap-lipped writing, and a salve for words thirsting for universality, for the moisture of connection.
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