Mindful Mondays|Week 17: Quietness

Author Note: If you prefer to listen or watch instead of or along with -
 Check out the YouTube video and/or the Podcast audio.

Sometimes allowing quietness can be triggering for trauma survivors. When it’s quiet, you can hear your heart and head much more loudly. That may not seem like a positive choice because what’s in your body or mind may scare you or worry you. In the solace without noise, you may be confronted with some problematic thoughts or painful emotions. While that’s really common, it’s also totally normal and okay. Staying for a moment with those, you can then find an anchor like a soft gaze on the floor to focus on or listening to the rhythm of your heartbeat. Your soul may muster back up more of those thoughts and emotions, but you can sit with them again for a brief period and then go back to your focal point. You can watch the difficulty rise up, recognize how it shows up in your body, be okay with it, and then choose silence again by directing your brain back to its anchor — such as the breath or the pattern of rain tinkering on the window. It’s inevitable that when you slow down, still yourself, settle in, and pause — that the quiet around will be a lot for your brain to manage at first. Your mind wants to think, plan, worry, figure things out. Your heart wants to express the grief, anxiety, sadness, or joy that it feels. That’s what they were built to do. Anything that comes up is okay. It’s information for you to make note of so you can explore with curiosity later, and then to gently guide your brain back to its anchor and ask it to focus again. In this quietness, you can find peace between the balance of internal movement from thoughts, feelings, sensations, tingles, vibrations to internal quiet of stillness, solace, calm. Let’s try this today.

Whatever location and body position you’ve found yourself in for today’s meditation is wonderful. Stay there and settle down by feeling the weight of your body on the ground below you. Nestle your spirit into the safety of your body, this space, and this time. Close your eyes and search around for the anchor that feels right for you. Maybe a vision in your mind, your breath, or a noise around you. Whatever you choose, just get quiet and then let that quietness come like a blanket over you.

***

When your thoughts and emotions rise up, let them rise. Don’t fight them or force them. Just watch them come in to try to make noise, get curious about them, recognize where you feel them in your body, and then just recenter your mind back on the quietness of your anchor.

***

If you are lost in sensation or worry, that’s okay. Be kind to your feelings and mental state, and gently draw yourself back into the solace. If you need, you can even give your soul a soft “shhhh” sound to lull it into the quiet rest. Ground into your anchor and be still.

***

Coming back to your body now; feel the space around you and your body in that space. Slowly open your eyes when you are ready.

Entering back into the noise of the world around you, remember that whenever you need a moment of quiet, you have that inside you anytime you wish to return.