Restlessness
Dear Love, what will you have me know today?
"If you don’t have time to meditate for an hour everyday, you should meditate for two hours.” - Zen Proverb
Today I feel unsettled, restless and lacking sturdiness.
I have everything I need in this world and more: shelter, safety, food, family, fulfilling paid work and volunteerism. (I’m practically dancing on the summit of Maslow’s pyramid, baby!)
Yet, my eye twitch has returned.
An unmet need, however deeply ingrained, is undoubtedly restless. There is something askew, something missing.
Also, I’m certain I’m not the only one with an itch because scratchy solutions are promised everywhere. Promises from highly-targeted and cleverly crafted ads on mass and social media; a buffet of ever-evolving tools/tricks/courses available on demand.
But I know, deep down, that the something can’t be solved by any outside means or by anyone other than myself. In my 37 years on planet Earth, I’m only beginning to understand that solutions to complex problems come not from having more answers, but asking more questions. Solutions are often found by saying less and listening more. Solutions make themselves known not through trying to control a situation, but by believing with unwavering conviction that connection is the ultimate goal. Solutions arise not from knowing more, but knowing that there’s so much more to know.
Without fail, when you’re looking for something, you begin to see it everywhere (also known as the Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon or the Frequency Illusion). It’s as though a filter has been placed underneath the contents of life, capturing the something.
What remains on top for me right now are ideas about calmness, encouragements of stillness and more about less. For example, these three works have caught my attention, having been caught in the filter this week:
Becoming Minimalist’s The One Hour Each Week That Will Change Your Life for the Better—Every Time
I found a copy of Patrick Rhone’s 2012 book enough while cleaning up other paperwork
Receiving my weekly instalment of the brilliant
, this week’s letter answering the question: “Dear Love, what would you have me know today about finding a sense of calm?”
Tellingly, Liz’s Letters from Love practice has been on my to-do list for years. My procrastination has run rampant out of fear, perhaps? When she recently started her substack community, I felt encouraged to finally give it a go. While I’ve only written 3 short letters so far, each one feels like an outstretched hand towards internal stillness. It feels like an actionable solution that can only be found through asking questions, listening to the answers and striving for connection, knowing that I know very little.
I share them with you below in hopes that we may connect — across time and space — over a shared restlessness.
And in the sturdiness of connection, may we find a sliver of stillness.
Dear Love, what would you have me know today?
01/11/24
There is nothing that I can tell you that you do not already know. I am inside of you. I am you. There are moments you may feel tired, exasperated, but I am still here.
Gratitude is like a key that unlocks me and my unwavering presence is known, again and again. But gratitude feels elusive, like flossing. I know it’s important to my overall health and well being, yet, like flossing, it’s forgotten or passed over for sleeping, eating, sitting, working or literally any other excuse.
Here’s what I want you to know about gratitude: sit close, listening even more closely and breathe in.
That’s it. Breath in. That’s gratitude.
Remove the excuse of overcomplicating the process, instead surrendering to the doing, the breathing. Unlike flossing, there are no special tools required or a bathroom mirror in which to see your progress. Instead, I will be your mirror. But you don’t even need me to explicitly show you your progress because this mirror is inside of you.
This mirror is you.
So then all you must do is sit, sit close, listening, observing, remaining present and breathe. In and out, strong and unencumbered with ease and with life-giving force.
For this, I am grateful.
01/14/24
Stillness is vital to living.
May we ebb and flow, ebb and flow.
The ebbing is just as much a part of the process as flowing.
Sit, still, settled.
Love is found in stillness.
The simplest, yet most difficult thing is moving ahead by not moving.
Be still.
03/16/24
There is a deep restlessness inside. Moving, churning, itching for more. You want to close your eyes, bringing stillness to the end of the day.
Guilt will pass. Forgiveness will come.
In the stillness. In the stillness.
Don’t consume; be consumed.
Be still, just rest, for tomorrow is another glorious, hope-filled day.
Goodnight.
Goodnight,
Diana
