Peace. It does not mean to be in a place where there is no noise, trouble or hard work. It means to be in the midst of those things and still be calm in your heart. – unknown

My stepdaughter gave me a mug with this quote on it for my birthday one year. It reminds me how necessary to integrate the silence of our soul and the noise of the world. I think about this because I have been on an interior fast for the last 4 days. No time to journal or do dream work or even have a few moments to myself. I am helping some friends start up a new business and I forgot how much work it takes. It’s absolute chaos, everyone is running in a million directions, doing a million different things, and still it doesn’t all get done. Early mornings, late nights, and no end in sight. I’ve probably just described most people’s life, too much to do and not enough daylight.

Now that I’m in the fray it’s got me thinking about how to marry the two, the craziness of our everyday life and the quiet of our interior life. How do we make time and space for the silence of our soul to bloom in the middle of all the chaos? I’m already in the habit of carving out time in my day for that silence so I can hear my interior voice, but I’ll be honest, I haven’t had the energy to make the time. Which makes me wonder, when faced with the pressure of a hectic schedule, what’s a practical way to begin inviting the silence in?

I think the trick is to just begin. Pick something you’ve been wanting to do. Start with something small, maybe a cup of tea and reading two pages of a book you just bought. Or try meditating for 20 minutes when you first wake up, a 10 minute walk in the morning, or just a few minutes alone to think or be. Whatever it is you crave, just begin with one simple way to satisfy that. It doesn’t matter whether it’s at the beginning or end of the day, just be consistent in creating some personal time. This is how we create ritual in our living, it gives us something we look forward to, that makes us feel good or whole. These moments, where we honor who we are, begin to weave a stronger connection with the stillness of our soul and our day to day routine. In this quietness comes the answers to what we want more of in our lives, or which direction we are meant to go. It helps align us with what has meaning and value for us.

Having some time to ourselves to think, write, draw, dream, create, is a way to bring the two opposites together, the chaos of the world and the silence of the soul. When we get in the habit of doing this, even just for a few minutes of our day, we’ll want more, until more and more of the moments that make up our day are a combination of these two. Silence and activity. It’s about bringing that personal underground world out into daily action. I think it’s easy to forget to take all of our self along throughout our day. When we get home we wonder where the day went. It slipped away because we couldn’t insert all of who we are into it, we’re either too preoccupied or just not paying attention. We need to knit our silent self into our daily living. We can’t leave it tucked away for some special occasion when we can express all that we really are. We have to practice. It’s our job to work at combining the two.

I think this is what the mystics had in mind, combining the vast silence of our soul with the day to day work of our body. When we bring these two together it creates wholeness and a sense of completeness during our daily, mundane activities. Systematically weaving the stillness together with the action of life. This is the real mystery.

Reading people who’ve already done the hard work and have deeper insight could only help. I’d recommend Science of Being and Art of Living and Autobiography of a Yogi for some inspiration.

And so the journey continues.

kb