Stillness Debt

I’ve had a certain bad habit for a long time. It’s that I almost never go to sleep without some sort of auditory distraction. In my college days it was worse, often going to sleep with my laptop open on my chest, blasting blue-light and Netflix into my eyes which I somehow found more appealing than resting in the dark with my own thoughts. These days it’s better, usually some soft-spoken audiobook or podcast on topics like history or spirituality. Still, the habit of filling the silence remains.

It begs the question of what I’m avoiding. Why the aversion to silence? What is it I’m so scared to think about? The answer is (I think) nothing really, at least nothing that not I’m just as capable of ruminating over during the daytime. At this point it’s simply a habit I’ve formed. I would hesitate to use the word addiction, but the one thing that all addictions have in common, and that I’m guilty of here, is that they’re a means of running away from stillness.

I believe stillness is a critical part of every human psyche. It’s how we process our experiences and re-calibrate ourselves, it’s how we make ourselves available to the great unknowable wisdom that lives beyond our intellect, occasionally tapping us on the shoulder with blessed insights. Those insights never arrive if we’re never still for long enough for them to catch up. What’s more, the things that have hurt us, the things that we avoid thinking about because touching them is like touching a bruise, they need stillness in order to heal. Nothing is ever healed while running around listening to podcasts and watching TV.

I believe the longer we run away from stillness, the more a kind of pressure builds up in our psyche, like a mounting debt. The greater the pressure, the more actively we try to avoid it. The irony of course is that the only way to pay off the debt is by giving it our attention. By facing the stillness and whatever lame, hurtful, embarrassing, or confusing thoughts want to arise. And arise they will!

Maybe there’s something you need to allow yourself to feel deeply. Maybe there’s something you need to cry about. Maybe you have an inner bully that likes to say hurtful, terrible things. Maybe you just need enough space to realize how much you fucking hate your job. (Been there!) Whatever it is, let it play itself out. Listen and say thanks, got it. But don’t necessarily take everything you think at face value. Especially if it comes from the inner bully. All feedback is valuable, even the inaccurate stuff. Eventually, I believe, we can pay off the stillness debt. With enough time and attention whatever lingering thoughts are there spin themselves out like a vinyl record.

If you’ll allow me to indulge in another metaphor: our lives can sometimes feel like we’re swimming in a cloudy lake. We take one stroke after another without being able to see more than a foot ahead. Every so often, it’s important to lift our heads up out of the water and get our bearings, just to make sure we aren’t swimming in the wrong direction. That’s what stillness is for. That’s where the beauty and power of stillness lies. It’s only in stillness that we discover who we are, who we’ve been and who we want to become. And if you believe in God, that’s when you’ll hear his voice.

This week, I’m writing to myself more than anyone. I feel like I still have some debt to pay off. But I’m not going to run from stillness anymore. I hope you won’t either.

Sleep tight.

-A