Find your own style of stillness

Just. Be. Still.

Three words, three words I found floating around my mind and I watched water pass by, my legs stretched out on the sandy beach of the Columbia River. Barges passed. Boats cruised from one line of sight to the next. Joey and Elsie were playing a couple hundred yards behind me, and our newest little one, Leo James, was sleeping soundly just to my right on a picnic blanket we packed along, under an umbrella shielding us both from the warm summer rays.

Just be still. A deep breath in, and a long breath out. Just be still.

It’s an action, or an inaction I haven’t had in quite some time, really. In the world now, 2020. Covid. Riots. Trying our best to be on the right side of history. Pregnacy and new baby. Isolation. Missing friends. Missing family. Fear. So much fear. All of it is just so noisy and everything is moving so darn fast. So who has time to just be still…

You. Me. We do.

We must, actually. Because as I sat there on the riverbank, the sound of laughter coming from the play behind me, I realized this was maybe the first moment in so many moments, so many days and so many weeks filled with constant motion and constant concern that I had actually just found myself alone with myself, although not really. And that’s okay.

I think I was waiting for stillness to come only in a space dedicated just for that, in a space where and when I could be really alone, in a time I could set aside and package up with a bow, that I could dedicate to myself. A time to think, a time to process, a time to remember what’s important. I envisioned a solitary walk or sitting unaccompanied somewhere for a really long time. But stillness doesn’t need all of that. Turns out, my style of stillness is inside the noise.

I was waiting to give space to so many things in my heart and on my mind. I was waiting to find a space to think about the things I really wanted, and how grateful I was to become a mom again, and to grieve one more time the pregnancy we lost and how thankful I was for this moment in my own history, my husband and daughter creating a special memory just behind me, and this brand new baby that I get to love laying right beside me, his world entirely in front of him. Our gifts and our responsibilities and our own stories deserve stillness, and that stillness found me in the weirdest and loudest time and for that too, I’m grateful. The boats kept passing, the water kept flowing, and now, my eyes had tears flowing from them too.

Like I said, weird.

Maybe you can find stillness inside the noise. Maybe that’s where it lives for you. Because in today’s world, especially if you’re working and parenting and teaching and doing all of the things that demand our attention, we don’t have those moments to be alone very often. We have children or parents to care for, lessons to teach, dinners to make, work to do, relationships to keep, households to manage, news to filter for what’s real or what’s not, and decisions to make that impact so many. It’s all so noisy.

Within that noise, let’s find our stillness because that’s where we get our power. And in no other time in our lives, we need our power and we need our voices and we need our love and our creativity and our feelings of community and we can only have those things if we pay attention to ourselves once in awhile.

XO.

Oh, by the way. I almost deleted this picture (below) because when I first saw it, I thought all the bad things about it, about me. But then I looked at her face, her smile. Another gentle reminder, that we need to be gentle to ourselves. All the time. And take the pictures, and save them because one day, we’ll want them and we’ll hold these memories so tightly. Elsie doesn’t care how I look, but she sure cares I’m in the water with her, spinning her around and around on a giant donut floatie.

Meagan

How talking about fear will bring you back to gratitude

I’m scared.

It was way past bedtime on a pretty important Thursday night. I was laying in bed with Elsie and we were talking about the day, the week and all of the things that transpired over that period of time. We usually talk about funny things that happened at school or what we want to have for breakfast or what book to read in the morning. But, it wasn’t a regular week and in our heart of hearts, we sure wish that it was.

In the soft bedtime whisper that only a four-year-old could manage, she whispered it again.

I’m scared, mama.

But that is one of the funny things about fear - it hits you when you just aren't ready to be hit, it swallows you whole when it’s just not the right time. It comes out of nowhere, or sometimes in the middle of a bedtime story. Fear is brought to the surface while you find yourself sinking. Deeper and deeper, fear is something that you can taste. And it’s sour and bitter and stays in your mouth for just a moment too long.

And when your four-year-old feels fearful, well, you feel a little helpless because those feelings don’t just go away with a standard It’s going to be okay.

Earlier in the week, my husband’s dad had a series of small heart-attacks. Two were right in front of all of us, and let me tell you - they’re not always like how we see them in the movies. No grasping of the chest, no falling to the knees. Just quiet, slow, pain. Sweating. Nausea. And people, if this happens to someone you love, get them to the ER. Fast forward a few days and we found ourselves walking him through a quadruple bypass, and happy to be part of a team helping him after the surgery.

Anyway, a series of additional unfortunate events during this process gave Elsie eyes into the soul of a late-night emergency room, seeing first-hand her grandpa be no-bones-about-it sick, and waiting patiently yet observantly in the wings while her family figured things out. Her eyes wide, her heart open and her energy so young.

So yeah, on Thursday night we found ourselves cuddled under the weight of her down comforter, and she was scared. She told me so, but she didn’t have to because I already knew.

As she talked and talked about her feelings, I listened intently and tried to find the right words to ease her mind. I struggled.

It was scary.

I was scared too.

And so I told her so. I told her everything that had happened within that last week was scary and it was okay to feel those feelings and feel them hard and deep and wide. I told her things were better now. I told her we had a plan. I told her though, that I was scared and the things she saw by accident were scary and I felt that way too.

In that moment, nightlight dancing across our faces, I realized how darn important it is to be honest with these feelings we feel, with ourselves and with others. We broke it down - what being scared meant, what it felt like, and what exactly were we scared of. We planned what we were going to do the next day to face our fears. Talking it through made us feel a little better, but then so naturally, so easy, we quickly began talking about things we were thankful for.

That list was way longer that the scared list.

Way longer.

And we fell to sleep that night wrapped in truth that the things we are grateful for are stronger and larger and heavier, yet so much lighter in so many ways, than the things that give us fear.

That’s the power move. When fear creeps in, refocus on thankfulness and not just thankfulness but good old honest gratitude.

Things won’t stop being scary. Scary things will keep coming, sometimes at a pace that feels wild and unmanageable. But let’s keep talking about them. Let’s be honest about them. Nobody is a hero when fear wins. So let’s keep breaking fear down and building up the moments for gratitude.

This world is thick with those moments.

XO