The Art of Sitting — Without Second Thought

The simple, every day recipe for contentment we’ve forgotten about

As ‘The Soul Doctor’ I’ve been somewhat wary of the idea of ‘traditional self help’ articles and the like. I can’t say I haven’t unashamedly dabbled in that area, but have recently been pushing towards something more like ‘interesting ideas for a better future — for all of us’ as that direction has started to interest me further. So in that vein it is probably not such a revolutionary idea — the one I’m discussing here, but it’s certainly worth thinking about, especially if you’ve had a long year and it’s all been going over your head recently.

The roots of this discussion are embedded in the fabric of our modern society the newly learned tradition of having an inability to separate our ‘seen’ life from our inner world.

There’s something we tend to do on holiday, especially abroad in a hot place, where we spend most of our time just sitting and relaxing in that place, often with a drink in our hand. But in our normal every day to day lives, we don’t find time to do it, or even think about it.

In ‘real’ life, no matter what we are doing… there’s always something else going on too. We have the feeling “I have to be doing something useful”. It’s conceivable that we have planned time for meditation, or for reading, but for the vast majority of us; sitting still is not something usually on our agenda.

Often, we get so wrapped up in everything — and the idea that we always have to be ‘productive’, or ‘creative’ that we actually delude ourselves into believing we can’t be happy right now. And if we were to feel happy right where we were, we would even feel guilty about it.

“I can’t be happy, surely not with all this going on”. “Oh I’ll be able to be happy when I have this, or I do that, or until this happens…”. “I can’t be happy until…”. When actually it’s all in our heads.

It’s easy to forget that we are all just sitting on a rock drifting through an infinite space.

We are allowed to fix the problems that need fixing, and tend to the errands that need tending to but we can do it all from a place of peace, and happiness. And we certainly shouldn’t feel any judgement for wanting that. I think ‘peace’ has been misconstrued negatively as a ‘hippie’ concept or something (as though that were such a bad thing anyway). This is just ridiculous.

Even ‘happiness’ has been marketed to have a bad wrap to it. “Stop being happy, start dreaming about what you don’t have”. “Once you’ve got this product you’ll be happy.” “Actually, now you have it, you need this upgrade to be happy” and so on. You can ‘only’ be happy with your smartphone for a year until:

“It’s time for you to upgrade your perfectly usable phone for this one. It’s got features you didn’t even know you needed!”.

It’s so easy to find yourself off track when you’re being pitched at constantly, every day. It’s now almost less confrontational walking down a bustling market in Turkey as vendors crowd around you trying to sell you things. At least that’s blatant, and you know it’s happening right to your face. It’s not secretly being drip-sprinkled into your feeds because you fit into a certain category as you’ve liked someone’s post about surfing with dogs or whatever.

In fact everywhere you look, it (being pretty much everything under the sun) is being shoved down your throat. I saw a personalised advert on my Facebook from ‘Wish’ for a pigeon carrier Tupperware box with a handle to carry your live pigeon around in. I don’t mean to distract you from enlightenment, but this is it here. The worst part is, after a few raised eyebrows and a gaggle of horrified chuckles, eventually I was almost convinced that it was something I was previously lacking! “You never know when you’re going to need to transport a pigeon…”. That was a personalised ad! Thanks Facebook for suggesting to me specifically this product, I’ve always wanted one. (I haven’t). (Until now!) ((Nope.))

Just hold on, everybody.

Lets take a deep breath in for a moment, while we process all the information we’re being bombarded by. Your world doesn’t have to be controlled by anyone. You have the right to live and feel however you wish. Wherever you need to be, there’s a place for you on this planet, even if it seems like it’s all been bought up.

We can actually just allow ourselves to be happy right now, in this place. Feeling no guilt, having no ideas about what we ‘should’ be doing, unless it is simply to sit and enjoy wherever we are.

Sometimes we need to just go outside and sit. With a drink in your hand if you wish, doesn’t even need to be alcohol. Could be fresh orange juice. Just sit for as long as you want, could be all day long and just enjoy being in that place – as though you were on holiday there and you’d never seen that place before. It’s strange to look at your own home once you’ve got that thought in your head – that you’re on holiday somewhere exotic and you’ve never seen this place before.

Kindest,

The Soul Doctor