Return to Nothingness: Reclaiming Your Peace
In one of my Yoga Nidra trainings, Jeremy Wolf defined peace as "the absence of conflict." When you dive deeper into this you realize that it extends beyond just peace.
Silence is the absence of noise.
Space is the absence of things.
Stillness is the absence of movement.
Ease is the absence of resistance.
Presence is the absence of distractions.
Being is the absence of doing.
The peace, the silence, the space, the stillness, the ease, the presence, the being is always there, however it exists as the backdrop because we are so easily focused or drawn to the conflict, the noise, the things, the movement, the resistance, the distractions, the doing.
In our Monday Meditation circle & a recent conversation with friends, I talked about how in the age of cell phones we no longer have those transition moments of nothingness. The 5 minutes here and 10 minutes there are not spent just sitting, staring off into space, letting the mind wander off... every minute of our day is filled. So when we are not doing something, we are still doing something because we pick up the phone to read, scroll social media, check email. The mind never gets a break during the day, it never gets to just be. [Above is an excerpt from my weekly email Toolkit Tuesday.]
Why is this so detrimental? Neuroplasticity.
Neuroplasticity is the brain’s ability to modify, change, and adapt both structure and function throughout life and in response to experience. Basically saying we can train our brain. This training of the brain can occur beyond the typical ages of child development and past the years of prefrontal cortex development, which is not until age 25. Everyday we have the power to strengthen or weaken certain neural pathways and ultimately create new ones. The more you go somewhere the easier it is to get there, not just physically but mentally because of these neural pathways.
Circling back to filling nothingness with somethingness, we have trained our brains away from being aware of the backdrops. We no longer hear the silence that exists behind the noise. We move towards the resistance, forgetting the ease. We are drawn to conflict instead of peace. What does this have to do with our phones? Pre cell phone, those moments between doing, the 5 or 10 minutes here or there of nothingness, was time for our mind to rest. It was periods of no agenda, being with what is, letting go of control. As great as reading is, it is still effort. We no longer understand how to experience an effortless state… and then we wonder why we are so fricking tired!
Not only are we utterly exhausted from not having moments of rest throughout the day, when it is time to rest, we have forgotten how. Our neural pathways have been trained for constant stimulation and doing. Until, we put an emphasis on training our brains into stillness and silence, it will continue to seek movement and noise. We must use our plasticity to rebuild access to the gaps between thoughts and the nothingness between doing because the more that we go there, the easier it becomes.
How exactly do we do that? Repetition. We must starve the neural pathways or conditioned habits that do not serve us and feed the ones that do. A few practices to help with this retraining:
Sit and just sit. Stare off into space, let the mind go wherever, no phones, no conversations, no doing.
Meditation. Guided or self guided. Even though it can be a bit of “doing",” any form is a tool a to practice redirecting the mind.
Yoga Nidra. This is my favorite & personally most potent practice because it is guided, relaxing, & uses the biological process of sleep, you are able to access the quiet between thoughts much easier. It is a truly effortless practice.
Sit spot in nature. No phone. Just watch as the world moves around you.
Leave your phone behind. I know this is an act of doing, but it is mindful doing. Next time you go to the grocery store, leave your phone behind. Go for a walk phoneless. Even just move throughout your house leaving your phone in one spot. Be present in your actions.