The Power of Stillness: My 48 Hour News Detox
As you move through your world, I invite you to implement some pacing strategies to become aware of your needs when you are tired, thirsty, hungry, or anxious. It has been proven that a brief period of silence and stillness can lower blood pressure and release hormones that make your brain and body feel good.
For one moment at a time, let's be as clever as this beautiful owl in stillness.
What is Stillness?
The art of being still means to:
Listen
Be silent
Be calm
Pay attention
It does not mean to:
Be physically active
Meditate
Do anything other than observe
You can experience stillness anywhere in any position. Like most practices, you can strengthen your stillness muscle and learn to gather it around you as you consciously eliminate outside stimulus. As you stop, you will have the ability to look and listen for your truth and ask questions like:
Do I need to change or leave my current environment?
Do I need to advocate for my space in the world somehow?
Do I need to simply feel my feet on the ground and breathe?
The goal of stillness is to seek to release your heart from being squeezed and find the feeling of openness and spaciousness in that same heart space. Stop, Look, and Listen, so you are aware of what you need to become non-reactionary.
My Stillness Experiment: 48 Hour News Detox
In thinking about this newsletter topic, I woke up and decided to unplug from the news for 48 hours. I realized the state of my mental health had begun to fractionate and become a little dissociated. I was forgetting things and having a harder time focusing…I have named this condition COVID Brain. I noticed that my feelings of anxiety and dread increased after taking in a bolus of news.
Since no one was there to encourage me to recalibrate, I took action and decided to follow my own advice. I asked a friend (an ally) to let me know if anything happened that might require urgent action during this time, and proceeded to:
Stop: Pause from exposing myself to toxic and jarring information.
Look: Observe my environment and activities to identify what might contribute to an increase in my inner calm.
And Listen: Hear what my trusty inner voice was guiding me to do, to follow my own advice and gather things, people, and experiences that would calm my nervous system.
After my newsless 48 hours here is what I have both been reminded of and learned:
Stillness brings self-awareness
Stillness creates clarity
Stillness evokes calm
Stillness provides joy
Stillness boosts your immune system
Stillness releases feel-good hormones
Stillness allows us to take stock of where we are and where we might like to go or not go in the future
I invite you to join me in stillness, be aware, and come alive.
Many Blessings,
Terrie Carpenter, P.T.
