Stillness is Safe
I’m here with a shorter piece. One I had no intention of writing until it suddenly felt necessary.
I’ll start with a question: do you ever have those inner monologues that whittle down to a short mantra that you find yourself repeating internally in frequent intervals during your days? At first the words feel like life support, something you are clinging to and then without you even realizing it, the words echo gently and slip into softness. Suddenly, it’s an inner knowing.
And you hope it never goes away.
Don’t plug in. Don’t plug in.
These words have been my buoy this past week or so. It saves me everywhere I go. Every room I enter, I hear it. Every time my hands go on the keyboard, I hear it.
When the noise online amplifies, I remember it. The static and volume in my own mind tends to replicate the volume online. These words tether me back. I don’t need to swim there.
Don’t plug in.
All the holding habits that I like to grip. Rehearsing my day, predictions I make. Worries I willingly hold before I have any evidence they will truly find me. I’ve grown very aware that what I take in, takes me.
My daughter comes screeching through the front door. Tears on display. Bag tossed to the other side of the room. Eyes looking out the window, I see she’s trying to settle. Her face red. She tells me it all. All of what’s stirring inside her and making her want to combust.
Don’t plug in.
You don’t need to fix this right now, Allison.
I notice that when I don’t habituate to solving mode. When I stop trying to make the moment feel better, it can dissolve on its own. When I don’t plug in, I become a clearer witness.
When I’m not filling in the blanks with my version of the story, the ending is usually a simpler one. Instead of grasping to my interpretation of what I think she means, I just sit. I stay still. I watch. I might try to hold her hand. But my lips stay closed.
When I don’t plug in to the urge to fix and solve, I stop mistaking my love for labor and my role as caretaker to mean I need to take all my daughter’s cares from her and sanitize them. Instead, when I let it sit a bit longer, I learn that all it does is circulate. Then dissipates. When I don’t plug in there is no further charge to carry it. The energy stays organic and unmanipulated.
When I don’t plug in to the battling energy in a room when frustration and fear flicker across the faces of those I love, I am actually helping. This is true support. I resist the reflex to rush in and buffer the impact. I stay. I breathe. I let the heat exist without absorbing it.
I wait. I witness. I allow the ache to move through the air instead of intercepting it, instead of blocking another from meeting their own knowing.
When I don’t plug into another’s pain, when I practice the restraint of not sanding it down into a tidy solution, the channel clears.
I decided to share this here after watching the playback of Elena Brower’s monthly Zoom gathering that she offers her paid subscribers. It is turning into my favorite place to be.
This month, Elena presented the chance to write a short poem or haiku either titled Stop, Calm, or Breathing, based on the reading she shared during the gathering. The only caveat - no more than 50-100 words max.
While listening back, I smiled, cried, and breathed the deepest breath yet for that day. I left feeling like peace slid back in. This is the kind of energy I do want to plug into.
My response to the prompt:
STOP
Maybe if I stop and let it hurt
let it soak, let it break
my tears will strip the old lie
that says you are not like me.
If I meet your eyes instead of my tasks,
I might see my own face there.
This has been my work lately. Meet eyes with a mouth closed. See the similarities. Let the solutions sit for a bit. Know that stillness is safe. Remember we are all so very human.
Photo by Guru Ankam on Unsplash
