By Leo Babauta

“The quieter you turn out to be, the extra you’ll be able to hear.”

― Rumi

There’s hardly ever a second within the day when most of us cease shifting and cease the noise. For many of us, we’re working, we’re shifting, we’re driving, we’re listening to issues on our headphones, we’re watching issues, we’re filling up the little areas by checking our telephones.

This isn’t incorrect — it’s a really human tendency to wish to be busy, productive, filling each area with one thing helpful or entertaining.

However what if we may let ourselves turn out to be quiet?

What occurs is one thing magical: we begin to uncover a brand new means of being alive, and a deeper expertise begins to disclose itself to us.

What does it imply to turn out to be quiet? There isn’t a easy reply to this, however listed below are a few of what I’ve been studying:

• It means slowing down for at the very least a couple of minutes, bodily — chorus from shifting round doing quite a lot of issues, chorus from doing a bunch of duties in your laptop or telephone, however as a substitute simply sit or come to some type of stillness or slowness.
• It doesn’t imply you’ll want to meditate — although after all that’s one option to do it. As an alternative, you could possibly go for a quiet stroll in nature, or sit watching the sundown, or lie in a hammock and simply really feel the breeze.
• Transfer away from know-how, at the very least for a couple of minutes. Disconnect. Let go of studying and listening as nicely. Simply sit nonetheless or transfer slowly, not attempting to get something finished or devour something.
• It means you let go of being productive or being entertained. You don’t want to attain something, show something, be excited. You let go of those sorts of compulsions, even for a couple of minutes.
• It means you don’t have to really feel a sure means, or keep away from feeling a sure means. For instance, lots of people wish to really feel productive, competent, entertained, so we do no matter we are able to to get these sorts of emotions. Additionally, we don’t wish to really feel bored, lonely, unhappy, helpless … so we do every part we are able to with a purpose to keep away from these emotions. Changing into quiet means we are able to permit ourselves to really feel nonetheless we really feel, simply permitting it to be our expertise. This offers us a freedom for all times to be simply as it’s, and for ourselves to be simply how we’re, nonetheless we’re feeling.

Stillness and quiet aren’t the sexiest issues, the place you may make some huge cash or get a bunch of followers or viewers. We don’t normally understand we’re craving quiet. However in my expertise, that is the place the deepest expertise of life lies, within the quietude.

What would possibly you hear within the stillness and quiet? What life has to say.

“In stillness, the world is restored.” — Lao Tzu