Stillness 6-10: When I’m feeling low, the thing that works best for me is to stop whatever I’m doing and instead focus on its opposite. If I’m thinking one thing, I try to think the same thought inversely. If I’m feeling blue, I envelope myself in orange.
It’s like turning myself inside out and hanging myself out to dry. For example, I’ve been spending many hours of many days in deep meditative contemplation during these last few months. As I found myself sinking into despondency, it occurred to me that I’ve become out of harmony with myself. I’m off-balance. And that means I need to stop whatever it is I’m doing and balance it by doing the opposite. In my case, that means being more active, practical, grounded. Even practicing stillness requires movement, or else how can we experience stillness?
Any emotional unease requires us to shift gears and approach the situation with a new perspective or it can get overwhelming. When you’re troubled by a stressful situation, try to turn it around, and head into its opposite. You can do this mentally or in actuality. If you’ve been using your mind overmuch, try standing on your head. If you’ve been getting stagnant in creative work, skip or hop out of a sluggish routine and change your habits. If you’ve been cooped in a room for a long time, try somersaulting down a hill or practicing a cartwheel. If you’ve been overly busy, find that hammock and lie in it for a while. When it comes right down to it, we each know what we need to do to feel in harmony with ourselves, whether that’s to wake up, fix, create, walk, eat, speak, rest, or sleep. It’s a matter of finding that perfect balance inside ourselves.