Stillness 101 + Stillness for Problem Solving
- Vishrutha Thulasiram
- Jul 19, 2021
- 4 min read
“You may be sure that you are at peace with yourself, when no noise reaches you, when no word shakes you out of yourself, whether it be flattery or a threat, or merely an empty sound buzzing about you with unmeaning din” ~ Seneca
In the previous blog – Stillness: Key to Creativity – we explored the ideas of stillness, creativity and how the two are interconnected. In this blog post let’s dive deeper and see how we can use stillness to our advantage to not only be more creative and solve our problems better but also to become the best version of ourselves. Listed below are some strategies you can experiment with to get to that quietude inside of you.
1.Reduce Information Overload
We live in an undeniably information saturated world. From our insta feeds to whatsapp forwards to snaps and what not. We are constantly bombarded with new information. Even 20-25 years ago we were not exposed to even a quarter of the amount of information we are exposed to today. Like think about the movies back in the day. Longer songs and slow narratives come to mind right? It almost feels like everything worked at a slower pace back then.
It’s a great thing we have so much access and exposure to knowledge now but our bodies aren’t exactly designed for this. So ultimately our brains and hence our bodies bear the brunt. And our inner stillness gets forgotten in our fast paced realities. The best way through this is (a) to be more mindful of the information we consume and (b) reduce app hopping and screen time (at least before bed and after waking up).
2. Balance Creative Energies
It’s safe to say that everything in existence is made of energy. Everything from our thoughts, actions, belongings and people are made of energy. So it’s obviously a no brainer that balancing opposing energies will help achieve stillness. The main types of energies to look at are Feminine and Masculine energies. In order to truly understand these we will need a whole other blog post. But to sum it all up irrespective of our gender and sexuality we all have both Masculine and Feminine energies.
The feminine energy is responsible for the qualities of openness, fluidity, creativity, nurture, support, intuition and community; whereas masculine energy is responsible for the qualities of leadership, action, reason, logic, survival, confidence, focus, etc. It is widely accepted that imbalances occur when we tend to focus on or value one of these energies. Striking a balance is all about understanding your leading energy and what you need and desire and working towards letting go off what no longer serves you.
3. Radical Acceptance
Radical acceptance is all about releasing expectations and learning to accept reality. It’s about learning the difference between setting goals and getting attached to outcomes. What this basically means is to literally just say yes to life as it is. This is obviously a difficult thing to do and requires practice. (I’ll link a video in case you are interested in learning more)
4.“Beauty remains, even in misfortune”
These lines were written by Anne Frank in her diary. Even when she and her family were in hiding in a cramped annexe she was still able to find beauty everytime they were able to open a window. This is so true. There is beauty in everything we just have to look closely and be open to it. Sometimes it’s hard to appreciate things in the moment and that’s just how life works. But it’s important that we make time to go back and appreciate beauty of mundane things.
As rare as stillness seems we are blessed with an inexhaustible amounts of it. We are just not actively seeking it out. It’s literally everywhere. So next time you drink your chai/coffee stare at the sky. Or when you go out just soak in the marvel that is a tree and just appreciate and give gratitude to everything around you.
5. Understanding Uncertainty and Confirmation Bias
Professor of neuroscience, Beau Lotto, explains how creativity is about finding connections between two entirely unrelated possibilities. It essentially involves a “logical process of making small steps, changing your space of possibility by identifying and then questioning your assumptions”. He says “creativity is only creative from the outside, not from the inside”. Since our space of possibilities are defined by our openness to new experiences and cultures and how we make our assumptions. This explains why most artists don’t really find their own work beautiful cause their space of possibilities is far more extensive and large than ours.
How does confirmation bias play in to this? Our brains are evolutionarily designed to constantly find evidence to confirm our beliefs. So by being creative we can question not just our beliefs but also our assumptions that are based on these beliefs. And we can increase our space of possibilities.
Now that we have discussed some strategies on achieving stillness, let’s look at a simple problem solving technique with the acronym IDEAL. This is stands for:
I – Identify
D – Define
E – Explore
A – Action
L – Look back
Each of these areas require at least some level of creativity and stillness. Having these tools in your arsenal will give you an edge over others no matter which area of life we look at.
“The mind is restless, Krishna, impetuous, self-willed, hard to train: to master the mind seems as difficult as to master the mighty winds.” ~ The Bhagavad Gita
Comments