Take time to be still and learn to live with yourself

by Jill Ogden

Winter brings limitations, making it more difficult to get around. The days are shorter and the lack of sunlight is known to factor into depression.

But winter can serve a purpose in providing time to regroup. It’s a time to prepare for the excitement of the birth of spring and the bounty that is summer and fall. Self-care, meditation and reflection are mental health practices that are critical during these times. I suspect this also is why the timing is optimal for such practices.

Self-care … meditation … reflection … finding inner peace. Sounds easy on the surface, right? You just need to take time to be still.

Then why is it so hard to be still? It literally means doing nothing and yet spending time with yourself. It can be the most uncomfortable, frightening thing we can do. A lot of us go to great lengths to avoid time alone. In fact, our modern culture makes self-evasion extremely convenient.

I have had to learn, time and time again throughout my life, how to live with myself. I have had to escape, sometimes using numbing or self-sabotaging behaviors, and no matter where I go, there I am, still in the mirror.

Every time I think I have it down, some life-altering thing happens. Whether it is a drastic external change, such as a divorce, a death, or an unplanned move, or an internal change like a major illness or loss of a body function—or maybe it’s just a random Tuesday—there is guaranteed to be something that will shake things up. Then I am left with learning how to live with the new me.

I remember hearing once that Stephen King wrote about the things he most feared, and that is why he is so successful as a writer. As a longtime fan, I think themes like plague, vicious animals, clowns, and a whole host of the supernatural are fears we all can relate to. Some of the more recent themes King has written about are also relatable, things like getting older and the lack of purpose, mental decline, loss of significant relationships and isolation that aging can bring.

It is brave to face your fears through any type of outward expression, such as art. Facing monsters in the face. Getting inside them to bring them outside of one’s self for others to observe. Beautiful or moving art comes from those who are willing to look in the mirror and tell the truth. I believe that is also why we fear spending time with ourselves. We fear the discovery that the monster is us.

We all have the capacity to be good and deplorable, and we all make choices every day about who we want to be. I think the true monster we fear the most is accountability. We constantly look for the big answers, certain that those answers must be beyond us; we don’t want to believe the answers are already in us.

The answers are in us, if we are not afraid to be still, see ourselves for who we really are, and ask the tough questions.

Jill Ogden has been a Stockbridge resident for 14 years. She serves as village president and as a trustee on the Stockbridge Community Schools Board of Education.

No matter where I go, there I am, still in the mirror. Art comes from those who are willing to look in the mirror and tell the truth. Image credit: Laurenz Kleinheider on unsplash.com