The Art of Being Still.
How embracing stillness in a world of constant distraction led to self discovery.
More often than not, I would get this deeply unsatisfied, empty feeling in the pit of my stomach, as if something was missing in my life that I couldn’t quite articulate. Whenever I stopped and paused the busyness of my life, that feeling would surface — an uncomfortable, heavy ache that I could not escape from.
It’s a familiar feeling and before, I would reach for my phone and text somebody, or swipe, or scroll; but that was only a distraction and I knew deep down that it wasn’t the right thing to do now, not for the journey I had committed myself to.
Before leaving London, my counsellor advised me of the importance of sitting with uncomfortable emotions, the emptiness, the dissatisfaction of the present that made my palms itchy and my body restless. The discomfort was trying to tell me something and I knew I had to listen rather than distract myself with another wine, another YouTube video, another inane chat with a stranger from a dating app.
Why was I feeling so empty and lost? What was it that I was searching for? Was I expecting things — life — to happen so soon, so immediately? Was that even realistic?
“We cannot avoid the suffering of…
