Soul-Food to Nourish Your Inner Self: Nourish your Spirit with Stillness

“The more digital I get, the more ritual I need.” – Chip Conley

In this increasingly fast-paced digital world, what do you do to stay connected to the seasons? To create rituals to help you balance the speed with which life moves? How do you find stillness in a world moving so incredibly fast? Stillness and reflection nourish the soul just as food and water nourish the physical body. But how do we become still if we never learned to slow down? 

To say slowing down and being still is undervalued in our culture is a huge understatement. It is not only undervalued, it is in fact frowned upon – and you may be viewed negatively for accepting slowness or allowing space into your life.  Katherine May speaks about this in her book, Wintering. She says: “Doing these deeply unfashionable things: slowing down, letting your spare time expand, getting enough sleep, resting – is a radical act now, but it is essential.”  Deeply unfashionable and radical – that is what our rest has become.

So how do we slow down in a world that moves so fast? What rituals and daily practices can support us in finding balance? Yoga and meditation are on the list for me, and probably you, if you’re reading this! Yoga provides us with the opportunity to slow down on our mats; to connect with our breath and our body in a meaningful way. Yoga practices interoception, a fancy way of saying “noticing what happens in your body, right here, right now.”

Learn to slow-down and nourish yourself through stillness on your mat: 

Set up your space: light a candle or burn some sage, minimize any unnecessary noise, or play soft music to cover other distracting noises. 

Your yoga practice can feel nourishing. Allow poses to feel good! Choose poses encouraging nourishment over competition. No need to practice crow, wheel, or headstand – touching your toes is not required.

 Practice at 60% of your capacity: allow space for breath awareness and space to notice how your body feels in the pose. How many of us go 110% into every asana, trying to make it “perfect”? There is no perfect pose, only the version of the pose that is right for your body today. 

“The pause is as important as the pose.” (Kristine Kavoerii Weber). 

Yoga is not the asana, but the effect of the asana on the body.  Linger between poses and feel the effect.  

Savasana and restorative poses can provide a shelter away from our busy minds. According to Judith Lasater, “shelter is a soft place, away from the hurt, or pain, or fear we might experience through our thoughts.” Practices like savasana help us connect to the present moment, and let us focus on just being here right now. 

Focus on pausing in meditation or breath work. Pay attention to the pause after the inhale and after the exhale – linger here, take notice. 

All of this helps us connect with and embrace stillness. These moments where we pause on our yoga mats become moments we enjoy a pause outside of the yoga space. Everyday moments of stillness where we mindfully pause, feel our feet on the ground, smell the breeze, and notice the moon hanging in the sky so perfectly can help us restore balance and harmony to our overworked, under-nourished, hyper speed lives. 

Lao Tzu says: “To the mind that is still the whole world surrenders.”

How is your relationship with stillness? These questions may help you reflect on your relationship with stillness: 

• ”Am I willing to reserve time in my calendar for reflection?”
• ”In learning to listen, have I thought about improving my ability to practice the art of silence?”
• ”How am I going to nourish the spiritual, the visionary, the musical, the childlike side of my nature? How am I going to minimize the stale, mechanical, quantifiable side of my life?”

– Questions from Max Depree, Leadership Jazz

The stale, mechanical, and quantifiable side of life feels like all our culture cares about. But what about the spiritual, the musical, the visionary! Balance in our fast paced world depends on reconnecting with ritual. As the seasons shift, mother nature teaches us. As she sheds her leaves, allows this season’s growth to fall away, and begins to slumber, a quiet energy rebuilds, providing a tremendous opportunity for growth in times of rest. 

Allison Miller offers an online virtual yoga membership (www.AllisonMiller.yoga). A yoga, mindfulness, and wellness educator, she offers accessible yoga to help you feel better in your body. Flexibility is not required – she teaches functional movements that will help you maintain range of motion, improve balance, relax, and decrease stress. Allison is  hopeful she can help you realize the value of a slower, more mindful style of yoga while helping you quiet the mind and connect with your inner wisdom.