Life so often pulls me into the feelings and actions of urgency.
The lists, the travel, the constant movement. I have lived much of my life in motion, believing that if I stopped for too long, I might never catch up.
I am surrounded by friends who have meditated for years. I have always admired their ability to “sit and do nothing.” I tried over the years, but meditation never quite clicked for me in the way I imagined it might.
I am in no way an expert. In fact, I am the furthest from it. But this week, something shifted. For the first time, I caught a glimpse of a calm that felt steady and real.
At the root of it was awareness. Awareness of myself, and awareness of everything around me, coexisting. It reminded me of looking at an old photograph. I can always recognize myself in it, not just because I was there, but because I know me. Even if someone else in the picture looks more like me now, I still recognize myself. That self-awareness.
And it extends beyond the edges of my skin. I began to notice the boundary of my energy, and how I could sit and exist alongside the hum of the fan, the grasshoppers outside, the tick of the clock.
I have heard colleagues talk about “the pause” for years. Several of them have even shared about it as guest presenters at The Visceral Voice. Each time, I listened. I understood the words. But this week, I did not just hear it. I felt it.
I took a pause. A deep pause. Not falling asleep. Not escaping. Just being.
And in that pause, sitting with a gentle colleague who sat with me and gave me permission to stay right there, I experienced stillness in a way I had only admired from afar.
I finally understood in that moment that meditation was not about doing nothing. It was about allowing myself to coexist with everything. And that pause, as simple as it sounds, was profound.
Maybe that is the heart of it: I am finding myself in the pause.
With love,
Christine
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