Bare with me, I fully understand the irony of writing an article about The Art of Doing Nothing, just to do create this, is doing something. But please, work with me.
Have you ever done nothing? It’s incredibly difficult to do
I’m not talking about those wasted, where you achieved nothing of a practical nature, or those forgotten days, when you spent the previous night out in Wales consuming far too much excellent red wine.
What about the days that expired without you noticing and when anyone enquired, ‘what did you do today?’ you admit to doing nothing. Let me tell you, you probably did a lot, it may not have been noteworthy, but you certainly did not do nothing – or for the Grammar police reading this, you did something. In fact, you probably did quite a lot. Most was probably unremarkable, probably just habits that you’ve had for a long time and your autopilot was fully engaged – I think we probably have a lot more of those days than we care to remember.
I am not trying to convince you to waste your time, every day is precious, and 24 hours nearer our inevitable demise of our conscious existence (more of that in another article). What I am challenging you to try, is to consciously do nothing and I mean absolutely nothing, nada, zilch, zero. I think you may quite like it and I have certainly found it to be a hugely productive exercise. The twist in this, is that this is not as easy as it first appears.
If you’re master of meditation, then you may well have an idea of where I am going with this. The Art of Doing Nothing from a physical aspect can be quite easy. We can sit or lay down in a comfortable place and not exert any muscular energy. Meditation takes on many guises and extended periods of practice are said to produce unique feelings. But The Art of Doing Nothing, goes deeper and gets you to release the pressure beneath the surface. This is not to be confused with sleeping, this is about us consciously doing nothing.
When you’re ready to do nothing, then find that comfortable place, where you’re not going to be disturbed. Turn off devices, and anything that may distract you. Relax and close your eyes. I advise against using any external accompaniment such as music or online videos of rainfall, waves of jungle sound effects. When you listen to these for too long, you’ll notice how many of them are loops and then your concentration is diverted away from you and you’ll start anticipating the next loop. Most expert meditators will advise beginners to start with just concentrating on your breath and nothing else. This is a good starting point, but as soon as you’re comfortable, forget about your breathing. It’s going to happen anyway, so it doesn’t need you monitoring it.
Just stop. Stop thinking. This is the challenge, it can be extremely hard to do, but please, trust me on this.
Like the natural hot geysers, your mind is rarely ever truly calmed, there is always something going on. This is what we are going to release and encourage to the surface. Once you get used to doing this, then you’ll experience some magical events. You’ll also learn a lot about yourself and what your subconscious mind is doing.
Once you have relaxed into your state and aware that all you are doing is sitting and breathing, just keep doing it. Soon, you’ll have lots of thoughts and headlines flashing across your mind, just imagining swiping them away.
These will be random thoughts, things you were thinking about thinking about, take a quick look, then just keep on swiping them away to the left. All of these are just superficial glimpses on the surface, give it 10 minutes or so and you’ll notice a shift in what your seeing and thinking. The stuff that is deep below the surface will start to recognise waters above are calm and be able to find their way up and be able to break through the surface and escape into your conscious mind. What is this stuff?
This stuff is the truth, it’s your honesty, your integrity, your deepest thoughts. It’s your values, it’s your soul. Your instinctivenes. These are the things that help to make you, YOU. This is the stuff powers your mind and thinking processes, it’s the engine that drives your thoughts. When you are making decisions and choices in your daily life, this is the stuff that influences you. If your making a choice that aligns with with your core values, then everything is synchronised perfectly. When you make choices that go against the energy flow, then you’ll know it. You’ll feel bad, this stuff will start to make you feel uncomfortable. It can start to mess with your emotions, it can start to upset your physical body. This is why you may feel unwell when you need to make important decision about situations.
You’ll experience a range of thoughts that rise to surface, some you’ll wonder how they ever got there and where did they come from? Maybe a few answers to long held questions, and quite possibly, a lot more questions that have yet to have an answer.
By taking this time to do nothing, you’ll be clearing the way for depth of honesty and true feelings to come to the surface. You’ll feel situations and people that need your honest appraisal and action, you’ll see stuff you may have rather kept hidden, but you know you need to face up to it/them at some point. If only to free yourself from the ball and chain of past experiences.
For some, this can be an incredibly emotional process, often one that may not have been performed before and there may be a lot of stuff to come out. It can take more than one session to dredge the rivers of your thoughts.
Don’t be afraid, the dark stuff that comes up will be accompanied with the good stuff, those memories and thoughts that help you deal with who you are and what you do.
