From the book “The Power of Stillness,” authors Jacob Z Hess, Carrie L. Skarda, Kyle D. Anderson, and Ty R. Mansfield teach. . . .
“With some effort, we can stop the outer noise . . . but stopping the inner noise is another matter.” ~ Cynthia Bourgealt
THE PROBLEM: It’s Sunday afternoon. Miraculously, the baby went down for her nap without protest, and Jason and Lorna have an extra hour. Jason decides to spend some of his manna-from-heaven time meditating and praying, while Lorna turns her attention to the prophet’s challenge to read the Book of Mormon. Jason turns on the fireplace and kneels in his living room intending to sit quietly. But almost immediately his mind races in a hundred directions, even back into old sins and conflicts that stir up anger. “Grrr . . . what’s up with that! This is not all that relaxing. Forget it.” Lorna has a similar outcome sitting at the kitchen table. Only a few verses in and her mind wanders; she just can’t concentrate. “What’s the point? I’d be more productive doing the dishes.” Two minutes later, with music and podcasts blazing, Lorna is at the sink and Jason is checking email.
Overview
— When we begin to build more intentional Stillness’ into our days, it’s quite common for inner noise to increase (at first). How we choose to respond to turbulent mental content makes a difference in how quickly our calm and quiet will deepen. By turning toward uncomfortable mental states, we can learn to work with them in different ways: creatively, tenderly, patiently. As we formally practice holding significant discomfort in a mindful place of deep calm and stillness, we develop the capacity to do the same when discomfort arises in our regular lives.
It would be nice if making more time for silence and stillness automatically brought restfulness and peace. For most, however, outer silence doesn’t necessarily correspond to an inner silence. Christian author Cynthia Bourgealt writes, :”Even when the outer world has been wrestled into silence, we still go right on talking, worrying, arguing with ourselves, daydreaming, fantasizing.”1 Seeking to cultivate more stillness and silence—including in our spiritual lives—often provokes resistance, with a remarkable level of push back arising internally.
But why? Shouldn’t embracing deeper quiet be straightforward and easy? Stillness can be far more difficult that it first appears. In this chapter we’ll consider well established ways of working with resistance and inner turbulence so it doesn’t end up controlling our decisions
Noisy Inside
Many who step off the treadmills of their lives to cultivate more stillness do, in fact, experience a sense of slowing down and calm. But then, almost universally, people start to notice surprising levels of distraction emotions and “chatter” in the mind. One Latter-day Saint woman, juggling work and home, described a period of life when she felt “incessant noise and thoughts rambling through my head, no matter what.” Whether she was in her “sacred space” of reading scripture, at the temple, or playing with children, the mental content in her mind “played on repeat, nonstop.”
Little wonder people sometimes hesitate to be quiet—even avoiding something like prayer altogether. This is especially true for those who have lived through painful traumas, and for whom ugly memories and flashbacks can feel almost re-traumatizing, as if thoughts and emotions can actually intensify. One young woman healing from past abuse told us that she avoids being still because that’s when the terrifying thoughts get harder to deal with.
Sometimes the thought of taking time to be quiet can ironically increase our stress, as “one more thing to do.” Elder Patrick Kearon acknowledges, “Just the mere suggestion that you might carve out some time from your already overscheduled day increases the sense of pressure you feel.”2
In each of these cases, silence, stillness, and stopping are no simple matter. So what is there to do?
Turning Toward the Noise
What if these un-relaxing experiences are, in fact, an integral part of cultivating more stillness? Indeed staying present in the midst of whatever feelings and thoughts arise is the point of meditation. The intent is not to purge oneself from these or any other sensations in order to reach a state of calm, but rather to observe the full-spectrum of inner activity of mind and body from a place of acceptance and stillness.
Interestingly, a new level of stillness often reveals whatever is already there—including underlying turbulence and agitation that may have been unnoticed all along. But it’s still up to us whether we want to face whatever emerges on the stillness—because, the honest truth is that we don’t have to! We always have the option of avoiding, distracting,and pushing away from whatever’s happening inside. Mindfulness, however, invites the opposite: turning inward toward the inner noise of turbulence.
As counter intuitive as it might sound, turning toward whatever is here (even if it’s scary or bothersome, or uncomfortable) is the beginning of deeper calm and stability—and it is what we would propose as the first, most basic step toward finding more internal quiet and calm. When we meet what is here, face it, and even confront it, something changes. Over time suffering can decrease dramatically.
This doesn’t happen at instantaneous, microwave speed, though, no matter what that nifty app you downloaded promises you. Patterns in the body and mind have a momentum that can be intense—which partly explains why they typically cannot be redirected through sheer will power or one dramatic insight. Yet, as detailed in research about mindfulness, consistent practice over time can begin to change the “stuckness’ of the body’s reactivity, to the point that deep calm can begin to infuse all of our life experiences.
The path toward less chaos and noise inside, then, is one that can take practice and time to travel. As with most important things, a little preparation in advance can help catalyze things too.~~~ Jacob Z. Hess, Carrie L. Skarda, Kyle D. Anderson, Ty R. Mansfield, (‘The Power of Stillness’ Deseret Book 2019) p.58-61
