Still but Not Stuck

It’s thirty degrees and cloudy with only the slightest breeze. I’ve just come back inside. My nose is cold. The tips of my fingers and toes are cold. The rest of me feels toasty warm.

This past weekend, I began training to become a Forest Therapy Guide. I’ll be leading forest bathing excursions like the one I wrote about in September. One of the program requirements is that I practice ‘Sit Spot’ at least twice a week for the duration of the six-month training.

Sit Spot is simple. You choose a place outside that is safe and easily accessible. You sit in your chosen spot and open your senses to experience. You tune into the birdsong, the quivering of branches, the brush of breeze against your skin, the squish of mud, the roughness of bark, or the taste of the air. The longer you sit, the more you discover. In fact, you never run out of things to discover. If you return to the same sit spot again, you will find that both you and the spot have changed.

Before stepping outside this morning, I felt stuck. I was trying to write a newsletter for you, but the words wouldn’t flow. My thoughts kept crashing into one another. Quiet windows in which to write are relatively scarce, and so I was determined to make my time count. Maybe if I just clenched my jaw a little harder or furrowed my brow a little deeper, then inspiration would squeeze its way out. But of course, it didn’t. I was stuck.   

So, I went outside and greeted the cold, gray of day. I laid back under the eastern hemlock that flanks the north side of my house. I’ve lived in this house for nearly fourteen years, and this is the first time I have ever looked upward into the hemlock canopy. It’s a maze of slender branches, each ending in sprigs of flat, needly leaves and small egg-shaped cones. There’s something magical about gazing upward into a being older than you—a being that is still, but never stuck.

Still is not the same as stuck. Inside at my computer, I was stuck. Every muscle was tense, my mind was scrambling. I was all busyness and effort—no flow. Outside, I was still. I chose to be present, and suddenly everything was in flow. Sensations and feelings were a gentle river, clearing my mental clutter with its current.

On the surface, the inside me probably looked productive and motivated. The outside me probably looked like an avoidant lump. Why on earth is that woman staring up at a tree for twenty straight minutes? Doesn’t she have anything better to do?

Too often, I think I have better things to do. Too often, I overlook the value of stillness. Usually, it’s stuckness—stress, burnout, annoyance, exhaustion, anxiety, disconnection, or shame—that calls my attention to this neglect. We don’t have to wait until we’re stuck to choose to be still, though.

How do you practice stillness? How will you be still today?  

P.S. If you want to try Sit Spot and live in a cold climate, hand warmers and a thermos of hot tea will be your best friends!