Create Your Bliss Through Stillness — An Act of Radical Self-Care
Radical Self-Care is more than a day at the Spa. As you create your bliss through stillness, you are practicing Radical Self-Care.
Before I began my year of healing, there were mornings I would wake up and feel just as exhausted as I was before I fell asleep. Yes, too many processed foods played a role but other things did too. Mainly, the stuff I carried from days before — unfinished business.
My mind continued to play out the day before, the week before, 10 years ago in my head and would wake me as if I was about to be late for an important appointment. And when these thoughts allowed me to sleep, they would creep into my dreams and play out as vivid as my waking life.
I longed for rest.
I needed rest.
Recently, I’m sleeping well and I’m sleeping well for one reason. Yes, whole foods have helped, but so has stillness. I sit for about 10 minutes twice a day and do nothing as a part of my commitment to Radical Self-Care.
Many days without realizing it we carry the unfinished business of yesterday, last week, and last year in our bodies. Our minds are overloaded with disappointments, frustrations, and thought after thought about what we don’t want but fear will happen.
Not much time is given to what we want to experience, what matters to us, and what activates bliss and lights us up.
To activate and tune into bliss sometimes, we just need to be still.
What Lead Me to Stillness
While exploring and researching the Tenets of Radical Self-Care as I’ve outlined in Radical Self-Care — No Parts of Me Will Be Left Unloved, my attention honed in on stillness.
I discovered when we practice stillness, we can
- Release and let go of the old crud from yesterday(s)
- Draw in peace and harmony
- Decrease our heart rate and reconnect with our bodies
- Align with the things that matter to us
In a moment of stillness, while releasing and letting go, we can draw in peace and harmony, when this happens, we create bliss. Many of us are trying to…
“Find Your Bliss” — Joseph Campbell
I certainly appreciate the work of Joseph Campbell, but I say instead of trying to find your bliss, create it in stillness.
To assert Radical self-care, we commit to giving ourselves moments of stillness to align or realign with what matters to us. Accordingly, bliss recharges us versus frustration which zaps our energy and diminishes our creative bandwidth.
A Simple Stillness Practice
With stillness, you are not trying to “be aware” or “concentrate.” It is a moment of “nothingness.” You are not making any effort to be in the moment or count your breaths. All of these things are wonderful and have a purpose, but stillness is turning off everything for a moment.
You can practice stillness while sitting on your sofa, sitting on the side of your bed, sitting on your porch, deck, balcony, or car. You just sit for 5 minutes with the television off, phone put away, no music, no attempts to meditate.
It is a moment to let go of everything and do nothing. After you sit in silence for about 5 minutes, the only thing you are allowed to think about for another minute or two is the things you are grateful for.
It’s an easy-breezy two-step process:
- Be still for about 5 minutes and do nothing. Don’t try to meditate or be mindful, nothing. Just nothing.
- After 5 minutes, your sit for another minute or so, and think about all you are grateful for in your life.
Do Nothing? I Can’t Just Do Nothing
Even after researching and learning about the benefits of stillness my reaction was:
“Do nothing? I can’t just do nothing. I don’t have time. I have to…”
That’s the immediate reaction I had. And many of you may be able to identify with it. Then I thought, “Really, Carm? You don’t have 5 or 6 minutes to just stop?”
Well, when Covid stopped me a few weeks ago, mostly all I could do was lay on my couch and watch Netflix. Then, one day while in recovery, I turned off the television, turned off everything, even Wes Montgomery playing softly in the background. I sat there on my couch and did nothing.
I was quiet and still and free. After about five minutes, I thought about all the things I was grateful for in my life, and without effort or anything special happening— I felt joy. Amid a runny nose, fever, headache, body aches, and sore ribs from coughing…bliss.
We Can Create Bliss in Stillness — Now that’s Radical Self-Care
Do you remember the last time you felt bliss well-up in your heart? It’s a great feeling and it is Radical Self-Care. For this reason and many others, practitioners of Radical Self Care such as Laveet Kaur Aulakh who asserts in her insightful story, Reminding Women to Love Themselves, have proclaimed Radical Self-Care to be synonymous with self-love.
Laveet Kaur Aulakh through her line of Merch reminds women to:
Let’s turn inward before we reach outward. Let’s show ourselves that we are worthy of self-love…
Creating our bliss instead of pursuing it, or trying to find it in something or someone is far more self-empowering and self-loving.
Now, I schedule my moments of stillness. And it has made me more productive. I don’t feel the need to rush to do anything. I can pace myself — take a deep breath.
So, friends, don’t underestimate, doing nothing. Doing nothing can do more for you than you realize.
Stillness — doing nothing doesn’t come easy for many of us. I’m curious, do you practice stillness? Are you okay with taking 5 minutes to do absolutely nothing? Why? Why not?
Please share your thoughts in the comments.
Laveet Kaur Aulakh and I have collaborated on the topic of Radical Self-Care. She brings her perspective here.
If you would like to collaborate on the topic of Radical Self-Care, please…
- Write a story sharing your perspective.
- Tag Me in your story
- I will tag you in my next story on the topic of Radical Self-Care.
I will be writing on this topic again in the upcoming days. Thank you in advance.