We all long for more time. More time to ourselves, more peace and quiet, more rest and less activity. Unfortunately though, when we get the time to be still, we are so uncomfortable in the stillness that we just fill it up with more “stuff”. I’m guilty of this myself this morning which is what has prompted me to write this post. For the first time in weeks, I have the house to myself and not a single activity on the agenda for today. I feel agitated, I have wandered around the house, done the house work, watched TV and tried to entice a friend out for a walk and it is not even ten o clock yet!
If we sit in stillness, often thoughts or feeling arise that we are normally distracted from by all our activity. So we inflict the busy-ness onto ourselves to keep these thoughts and feelings at bay.
Jon Kabat-Zinn Said,
Non-doing has nothing to do with being indolent or passive. Quite the contrary. It takes great courage and energy to cultivate non-doing, both in stillness and in activity. Nor is it easy to make a special time for non-doing and to keep at it in the face of everything in our lives which needs to be done.