Being with Stillness

For about the last ten days, I have been with stillness.

It arrived quietly.
When I woke up in the morning, it was quiet.
A stillness where the noise had decreased.

Oh, I have entered into stillness, I understood, and
I thought I wanted to spend my time in this stillness just as it is.

Even while being in that stillness, I could go about my daily life as usual.
I go shopping, and if I meet people, I can have normal conversations.

The next thing I thought was,
I want to be with stillness.
I want to be alone.
I want to be with myself.

When I wanted to be alone before,
I was tired of being with people,
it felt heavy somehow,
it felt exhausting somehow,
I wasn't understood,
I'm just me anyway,
and there were strong negative elements like that,
and I think it felt like I was running away into solitude.

This time is different.
I want to be alone because I want to be with myself.

It is different from turning my back on the world by my own choice.

Without closing myself off completely,
not turning my back on the world,
I chose for myself to be alone while keeping myself open.

Strangely, I thought less about things other than myself,
people, things, and matters.

I only contacted people when absolutely necessary.

I reply to messages that come from someone.

I don't reply reflexively or immediately.
I reply at the timing when I feel like replying.

What will they think if my reply is late?
Such thoughts came up, but they just came up.

I only made an excuse in one place.
There is a group LINE that is active almost every day.

I am with stillness right now, so
I will be a ghost member for a while,
but I will peek in from time to time.

I only conveyed that.

They readily agreed, saying 'Enjoy the stillness,'
and I just pressed a read stamp on those words and left.

When the LINE chat exceeded 200 messages,
I laughed.

Are they excited about something,
or has a wall-hitting session started?

But, there was no feeling of wanting to join in,
no feeling of having to catch up in a hurry,
no feeling of being left behind, and I left it as it was.

I only participated for about 30 minutes when I felt that now was the time to be there.

I made my own choices based on
what felt comfortable for me in the moment.

Not with my head, but with my bodily sensations.
Writing it down like this, I realized once again that I have been continuing to choose.

I was truly in stillness for the first three days.

After that, it became a feeling of being with stillness, and the noise gradually increased.

The noise is the voice in my head.
My head turns outward as if it were breathing.
Toward people, things, and matters other than myself.

And also words that induce anxiety and fear.

Because I am making choices I haven't made before,
I think it's only natural.

It's the voice of my ego trying to protect me, after all.
When the ego's existence is threatened, its voice gets louder.

It got louder.
I wasn't about to be swallowed by it, but I did feel like I was about to become one with it.

Every time I notice, 'Oh...'
I return to that quiet place with a smooth, flowing motion.

While repeating that,
as I approach the core, the ego's voice reaches its maximum.
To be honest, the physical sensation is extremely unpleasant.


I understand now that I was running away from myself because I didn't want to feel this.

Now, I just feel and observe.
It's okay to feel it.
I think my nervous system is learning that,
and above all, I believe that healing is progressing.

But during that time, the physical sensation is intense.
Before, while feeling it, I would sometimes trace why I was feeling that way.

Now, I feel it without tracing it.

After feeling it, I go outside and feel nature.
Because I want to let myself feel comfort.
My face naturally relaxes ^^

Even at my child's tournament venue, I remained with stillness.
Conversations with other parents were kept to the bare minimum.
I just stayed there and watched over things quietly.

Without being shaken by my child crying after a loss,
without assigning any meaning to it,
I watched as they were surrounded by friends and began to smile.

When I wanted to be alone, I stepped away.
And then, I returned and stayed there.
In the end, I was laughing and having normal conversations with the other parents.

I felt that the way I got tired was different.
I understood that this is a way of being that doesn't drain me.

I also realized how much I had been directing my energy outward until now.
Toward people, things, and matters other than myself.

To fill a void,
to gain something.

Since I stopped looking outward,
I have been turning inward.

I have come to feel a sense of fulfillment rather than a sense of lack.

The other day, while I was in the bath,
I suddenly entered a state of stillness.

As I closed my eyes and felt it,
I felt as if there was something like black darkness,
like a black hole, inside me.

Strangely, there was no fear.
As I watched it while thinking, 'Oh, it's there,'
I also thought that perhaps it had been there all along,
but until now, so many things had been piled on top of it,
making it invisible.

As I watched and felt it,
I realized nothing was in vain.
The life I had lived looking outward,
there was a reason for it to be that way.
It wasn't bad.

Such words welled up,
and while still soaking in the bathtub,
gently stroking my own body,
I felt the stillness.

I thought that if I kept staying with this stillness,
I might stop seeking people.

But after all, talking to people is fun.
Especially with people I like.
I am also happy to be able to spend time feeling that way.

It's not about being that way all the time,
but rather, I realized it's about whether I can return to it.

Perhaps stillness is becoming my baseline.

I used to be bad at spending time alone.
I felt uncomfortable.
I was also bad at doing nothing.

If it were me a year ago,
I might have asked, 'What is the point of such time?'

There is no point.
There is only comfort and peace.

The connection with myself that had been severed has returned.
That, more than anything, makes me happy and fills me up.

My criteria for choosing things have also changed.
Peace, calmness, comfort, clarity.

Instability, ambiguity, and intensity might no longer attract me.

I don't deny them.
I just don't choose them.