The Completely Counter-Intuitive Practice of Being Still to Move Forward

I am a sprinter. I like to go fast and really hard. I am also a perfectionist. I could call myself an iterator, and when I’m healthy that’s it. But when I’m not it’s a deep and driving need for perfect. And I’m on a path. I’m on a path of self-growth, self-love, self-awakening, self-actualization.

I’m trying to find joy at a slower pace, I’m trying to trust that things can be easy and I’m trying to love the iterative journey not desperately (and sometimes blindly) grab for the perfect outcome.

Anyone on a path of growth knows that the hardest parts are when you are finally confronted with yourself. The current version of yourself. The version that doubts. The version that’s scared. The version that thinks, “maybe this is it. This is the best I can be”. The version that, if we’re honest, feels safe being stuck. The version that doesn’t want to believe in the truly unlimited potential of our beautiful self.

And just like in any video game, each level presents a harder challenge to overcome.

So, what do you do when your path abruptly disappears? I’ll tell you what I do….. I look for every answer outside of myself. I read books, I listen to podcasts, I talk to coaches, I see specialists, I order products. I look to the world to give me the answer to how to unlock and move to the next level. But you know where I should be looking. Inside myself. And that’s flipping scary. What if I find something I don’t want to see? What if I’m called to do something hard? Or maybe scariest yet, what if I’m empty?

In Untamed, Glennon Doyle writes about hitting this wall. When she was contemplating leaving her marriage she googled, “what should I do if my husband is a cheater but also an amazing dad?” While this feels like the punchline of a joke, I can deeply relate to being in this place of unknowing and distrust of myself.

She goes on to write about how she developed her own meditation practice starting with 10 minutes a day of deep breathing in the back of her closet. And in her own words, here is what happened:

“After a few weeks, like a gymnast who is able to stretch deeper after each training, I began to feel myself dropping lower during each closet session. Eventually, I sank deep enough to find a new level inside me that I’d never know existed. This place of underneath; low, deep, quiet, still. There are no voices there, not even my own. All I can hear down there is my breath. It was as though I’d been drowning and in my panic I had been gasping for air, calling for rescue, and flailing on the surface. But what I really needed to do to save myself was let myself sink. It struck me that this is why people say, ‘Calm down.’ Because underneath the noise of the pounding, swirling surf is a place where all is quiet and clear…. There in the deep, I could sense something circulating inside me. It was a Knowing.”

Knowing. DAMN. When was the last time you felt this? For me, it’s when I’m walking outside or making myself be still through a meditation practice. If you are feeling stuck, stop looking outside of yourself and start finding that quiet place of Knowing within you. We all have it, we just have to have the courage to give it space to speak to us and trust what we receive.