Sit, be still, and listen. – Rumi

Finding Comfort in the Stillness

Months before he died, my dad said to me “Marlo, why don’t you slow down? You’re so busy.” I told him, “Dad, I like being busy.”

Did I? I think so.

I was working part-time, finishing an associate’s degree in dietetics, one kid was off to college and the other was getting ready to go. Although Mark had left his corporate job a few years before and helped now more than ever, I was still in charge of most of the household tasks.

I was still, as my dad said, ‘busy’. I’m not sure I knew how to NOT be busy. Wasn’t I supposed to be busy? I didn’t know how to slow down.

Until I moved to the hotel, in a foreign country, with just Mark. Until I had no kids to take care of and no household tasks like laundry, grocery shopping or cleaning to do. Sure, we worked hard and marketed the hotel, but it was the first time I didn’t feel like I was ‘busy’ from the moment I woke up until I went to bed.

Some people are forced to slow down by circumstances like an illness. We all were forced to slow down somewhat during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Not being ‘busy’ was something I wasn’t used to. It was very uncomfortable. There was a lot of quiet time, and I wasn’t sure what to do with myself. I didn’t know how to be quiet, how to be by myself.

For years, my dad meditated. He never spoke about learning to meditate, but I know when he started. It changed his life. Why he didn’t speak to me or my sister about it I’m not sure.

Our whole family knew he meditated, and it was a little joke sometimes. When he came over for dinner, before dinner was ready, Dad would be sitting on the sofa ‘meditating’, which we all considered ‘sleeping’. He shut his eyes and meditated. We’d then ‘wake him up’ when dinner was ready. He could mediate (in our view, sleep!) any place, any time.

When I began yoga training in early 2018, we practiced savasana, corpse pose, the final pose at the end of a yoga practice. Lying still at the end of a yoga practice, seemed to be the first time that I had ‘slowed’ down during the day. I felt a little guilty. Wasn’t I supposed to be doing something?

We talked about different ways to meditate, but it seemed I could never get my brain to shut off. Sit and be quiet? Stare at a single point of focus and be still? Count your breaths, repeat a word or phrase and listen? What? None of it was ‘working’. Sit, be still, listen? I read books about meditating; I asked others. Unfortunately, my dad had passed away before I thought to ask him!

I was having a hard time transitioning to living at the hotel. We had people doing all the household work for us and I felt guilty for sometimes not feeling happy about it. I was lonely. I missed my kids, family and friends. I didn’t have the busy-ness of daily tasks to keep me occupied except for my hotel work but it didn’t fill my day completely.

My brain was on overdrive despite my daily yoga practice, and the 5 minutes of corpse pose at the end. I read. I walked in nature. All that was great to keep my mind occupied, but there were still those ‘slowed down times’. And I didn’t know what to do with myself. It was uncomfortable in a way that I didn’t know or understand at the time.

In yoga philosophy it’s said that sometimes you have to sit in the discomfort to get through it. What? Mumbo jumbo, until it wasn’t.

In mid 2019, my sister was having major surgery, and I came back to the U.S. from Costa Rica to help her. I was to fill the role of calm big sister, organizer of logistics before and after the surgery for her and her family. It was an unspoken role, but one I knew fell to me. Or maybe being the protective big sister, I just assumed the role.

Either way, the busy-ness came back: doing this, getting that, setting up this and that. That busy-ness filled my mind. I could shut out the rest – the worry, the hope and the feeling of uneasiness about her surgery.

Her surgery was a success, but I was feeling incredibly unsettled. I was worried about returning to Costa Rica and the hotel with her on the mend. The hotel remodel was over and we had been reopened for a few months, but we still had a long way to go to recover our investment. There was a lot to do.

Sometime in my meditation exploration, I read about Transcendental Meditation¹. I mentioned it to my sister, and she said, ‘Oh that’s what Dad did.’ What? How did she know? Dad never discussed his meditation with me, let alone how he meditated. I was floored.

The week after my sister’s surgery while I was still in Chicago, I found a TM center near my house and noticed there was a training next week! I decided to sign up.

In that first session, the first thing the leader said was, ‘Meditation is not to turn off your thoughts. That’s what your brain DOES! It thinks! Meditating quiets the mind so you can ‘hear’ among the thoughts.’ WHAT? I had it all wrong trying to stop my brain from thinking! The next thing I learned was that ‘You can’t do meditation wrong.’ HUH?!

It’s about getting quiet and listening. Ok, not sure I know how to do that. Sit, be still, and listen.

Me: finally sitting still! © Mark Leaman 2019

Through that course and continued practice, I became a meditator. I didn’t beat myself up for not doing it ‘right’, or if I felt that I ‘thought too much’. Or even if I chose to lay down and not sit, back straight. All I had to DO was not DO anything. Just sit. And be Not-Busy.

Maybe that’s what my dad was trying to tell me. To find stillness. To find quiet. To listen. To not rush, be in the moment and pay attention to the now.

Meditation changed my time living at the hotel from that moment on. When the non-busy-ness set in, when the uncomfort of loneliness, or missing people hit me, I could now just sit, close my eyes, and BE. Not Do. Be.

I learned how to be comfortable with just myself. I became more patient. I react less. I’m more peaceful. Now I could fully embrace living there, enjoying it with a new perspective. It changed my life.

For me, meditating first thing in the morning works best. I do it before popping out of bed and it sets the tone for my day. I can approach the day with a different perspective.

I don’t meditate strictly using the TM method, but I’ve adopted a meditation practice that works for me. A little of this, a little of that. Most days it’s 20 minutes, but sometimes it’s just a few conscious breaths, sometimes it’s simply closing my eyes. Sometimes I use a mantra, sometimes I just sit.

For some this might be hard to understand. I guess meditation can be whatever you want it to be. Praying, sitting still, breathing with a few conscious breaths.

I’ve learned to slow down. Learning to be okay with being by myself and just Being. Not Doing.

I got it Dad. I finally got it.

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Has something or someone taught you to slow down? Are you a meditator? How do you meditate? Please leave a comment and like this post so more people can find it!

You’ll find more about our Costa Rican hotel remodel here:

Well, I tell them there’s no problem. Only solutions. - John Lennon

This Construction Project is BYOC

1. Transcendental Meditation https://www.tm.org/what-is-tm