The Importance Of Stillness In Our Lives

[Music] well maybe there's you know some good symbolism here uh I'll uh I'm gonna read you this isn't a joke this is actually just kind of a dialogue I had with my with my son the other night with August um I thought this was a pretty cool little you know conversation he wanted to have um so I sing him a song and at the end of the song You Know going to bed he um he's he heard the word heaven and he was like hey what's happening um and so I told him it's where we used to live it's where we're uh gonna go when we die and he said Jesus will pick you up and I was like yeah he'll pick us up and he said no Jesus will pick you up yeah and I said yeah he'll pick us all up and he said what about those bones and he's talking about some bones that we'd found we went to Bear Lake and he saw some bones on the beach and was messing with them and I was like oh it was probably a deer he said it died like yeah and went to heaven he said Jesus will pick up those two and I was like yeah and he said where is it I said well we can't really see it but it's a place where everyone's happy he said it's the beach and uh it's like it's kind of like the beach except you don't get owies or feel sad and he said why not and that's his favorite question right now he says why not to everything is that because it's perfect um and that's you know the conversation but I just thought it was so cool it was awesome when he was uh one of my favorite things about being a dad is the times that I get to see him really deeply trying to understand something like pushing his boundary as much as possible to to integrate it into his his understanding um yeah so that's awesome yeah that's really good that's a really cool conversation to have with your kid and I love just knowing August the way that I do I love just like picturing the look on his face when he's asking it too you know it's a very very curious look um yeah so the the topic I wanted to talk about today is kind of a theme that we had while we were out in the Wind Rivers um at least the one that yeah anyway um I want to ask you about Stillness and the importance of Stillness in our lives and in recovery um so just kind of preface for a second uh this last few days I've had it's been really weird for me we were talking about it in the truck on the way up I've had what I think is hopefully a reaction to steroid injection into my neck because I've got a herniated disc that trying to get to calm down a little bit but um I've been in a weird mood swings um really anxious really depressed really foggy thinking shrouded um to the point where I would even classify it as psychosis at at least one night where I was just totally Manic and felt like everything was in chaos I remember a couple nights ago and even last night laying down to go to bed at an appropriate time where I would typically be tired and I was physically tired but my body just felt like it was buzzing like it was a strange sensation maybe an elevated heart rate and everything like that and and I thought this is the opposite of Stillness in my life and if I could only have that kind of peace and calm to sedate the these symptoms that would be wonderful but if you know it wasn't really an option so just kind of laid there but anyway the the point being I know there's other times in life where we're just kind of dealing with that buzzing let's say metaphorically um and it's as a consequence of of many factors going on around us and I'm curious what you've noticed what you've seen as far as the the contrast there and a life of recovery or living wholeheartedly how did those play with each other I guess that's a great topic today chase that idea of Stillness and it's funny like in your example you actually created space to hopefully experience the Stillness and couldn't and and so often in recovery work in the work that I do with my clients it actually sometimes goes the other way where they're living lives that are full of chaos you know they're wondering about keeping their marriage they're wondering about overcoming their trauma they've got all sorts of emotional stuff stirring it's like a it's like a tornado of emotional chaos and somehow some of my clients find what I call the surrender moment but it's a place where they experience peace inside of the storm like the eye inside outside of that storm yeah they come back to groups they come back to one-on-ones and just say I know that I know that things are crazy in my life right now but something in me is just still something of me is just peaceful something of me is just confident and and so often it's connected to a principle called surrender that we talk about which is not giving up but giving over everything that is giving over the outcomes because I can't control them yeah you know and that that idea of finding Stillness man I'm I'm sorry that you've been experiencing those things too especially when you're trying to do things right you know you're trying to go to bed on time you're trying to relax you're you're trying to like actually allow yourself some room for Stillness and to have that kind of storm raging so to speak is I know it's emotionally taxing and it's it's exasperating you know um so yeah it's just a good topic to talk about today I wish I knew the recipe for always finding Stillness you know yeah well and maybe not the Stillness itself for finding peace yeah you know Stillness is a means towards that piece I think actually yeah so maybe they're not synonymous exactly but one's kind of a step towards the other is how you're framing it yeah I'm thinking like yeah maybe they're maybe they're correlated but Have You Have you listened to or read the book Stillness uh was it still this is the key is that what it's called I haven't no it takes it takes uh a lot of the thoughts from like the stoics and it it talks about the value of Stillness in our lives and some of the benefits that come from Stillness you know we were talking up where we were in rivers about the three-day effect I actually think that the three-day effect and again just to recap on that that the research shows that if we you get someone out in nature with no technology about the third day there's an actual shift in the way that the brain operates and the brain waves change and it decreases anxiety it decreases depression and it's kind of associated with that idea of Stillness and the idea is that nature does that for us um so that kind of Stillness or the idea of Stillness with meditation like learning to tame in a certain sense the mind it's weird because with meditation there it's like a two-sided funnel where on one hand you don't want to over concentrate because if you do you're not being mindful you don't want to under concentrate because if you do you're not being mindful but learning that middle ground of being able to observe and notice whatever it is you're choosing to observe a notice while without getting too stuck on it while also surrendering everything else that comes your way that's that kind of Sacred Space of mindfulness where people actually often say they experience deeply spiritual experiences deeply moving experiences deep levels of peace and so I'm just kind of rambling right now at the concept of Stillness well I was just thinking about uh what it you were talking about the three-day effect and you know we got to do that you invited me to come to your trip I don't know if you invited me or not or I invited myself but you were invited I made it to the Wind Rivers mountain range with you guys and uh I I don't even know if it took three days for things to kind of settle in differently for me mentally and emotionally because it there and I wonder if that's an average across all people three day effect or if there's some people it comes in sooner or you know some people maybe not at all but I I felt like almost the moment we hit the trailhead it was like I could breathe easier and like burdens were being left back in Civilization why do you think that is Chase I think maybe part of the nature of my role and I'm guessing yours too with the work that we're doing is that we're kind of always working and there's some flexibility that comes with being able to manage your own hours and things like that but at the same time I mean I find myself working all the time like even late into the night weekends like early in the morning along with just the random hours or you know the regular hours throughout the week and I think as a consequence it's like my mind has always got that in the back burner of like something probably needs to be done right what else do I need to get to what else am I missing so there's that task list that I'm like you know subconsciously managing um and then you know more than that and and I don't um is my own family life so um for me I I basically got a week of solitude where Chelsea took care of the kids and that's atypical I don't normally just have time to myself like that um especially not for that long she yeah um so that that's another thing it's like I didn't have to care for anybody not really yeah um so those two things were switched off for me knowing that I don't have service so there's no there's no cell service anyway yeah there's no you can't can't do anything um and it also would would seem like you're bastardizing the space somehow by trying to take burdens into it with you you know instead of just allowing it to work the miracle that it works yeah well I think you to something you're saying the research actually shows that even 20 minutes um the University of Utah did this where they had people come just to their arborium you know where they just have a bunch of flowers and plants and trails and they'd tell people to just turn their phones off for 20 minutes and walk around the arborium they start to see those kind of the beginnings of those brainwave results and actually some of the other benefits to the three-day effect just after 20 minutes so it kind of makes sense and I also think that in your situation like with the Wind Rivers I feel the same way like that's one of the reasons one of the reasons why I make that trip happen every single year somewhere is because I want not only myself but my wife and my kids my family to learn to value a different pace of life that doesn't keep them in the rat race I want them to be able to have to shut off their phones and not be able to connect to you know to like civilization and we're left with nature left with a lot of quiet time left with a lot of activities that we don't typically get to do like you know the hiking and the fishing and even just sitting around a campfire like how therapeutic that is in a certain sense and and for me it it does provide it's almost like it's it's almost like a balm like medicine like an antidepressant yeah yeah you know when being alone in nature takes place and so yeah I agree with you as soon as you hit the trailhead I felt it it's almost like you get to lay down all those other parts of life that you would choose to do anyway like you love your work right you love your kids you love but there's there's a certain level of pressure of the day in and day out that in a certain sense you're forced to let go of like you don't you could you could worry about it for the next five days but what good is it going to do you yeah right yeah yeah and so so in a certain sense I actually think it comes back to the principle we're talking about here which is surrender you you get out into a place like like this and you realize you can't call home you can't go put your kids to bed you can't get on your computer and work till 11 at night um you let it go yeah it's it's the letting go that I think is part of is part of what brings that Stillness that peace that that three-day effect so much you were talking about how some of your guys in recovery will experience Stillness as they start to do the work even though they're still chaos swirling around them eye of the storm kind of thing and I was just thinking about one of our friends that loves and supports us that um our former cheese guy I'll call him the cheese guy got him too much um he sent a message kind of asking about the the idea of loneliness and how essentially he's in the eye of that storm he's feeling that Stillness but he's also feeling a lot of loneliness and um he's connected with groups and friends and you know good support he's doing everything right he's doing what he can and is still feeling that that loneliness and I'm wondering do you have any thoughts or ideas for a guy like that I think like well yeah so that that's a great example because he is doing so much right he's 100 bought in on what we teach connection to God's self others he's got a group of men that love him and that he loves he's committed to that he's invested in he's doing his dailies he's got good bottom lines he's actually gone all in on just the idea of a whole heart of life and and yet there's certain circumstances in his life that are causing that deep loneliness and to me it's I think I think one of the things that that I look at in my own life when it comes to like this concept we're talking about is surrender and Stillness don't absolve us of the day-to-day problems what they do is they allow us to put our energies on the things that we can focus on and that we can maybe move the needle with and then it allows us to be able to let go of the rest because we've done our best um and so it moves from just raw suffering to pain and challenge it doesn't take away the fact that there's pain and challenge right there's the loneliness there and he's doing everything he can he's he's still connecting in the best ways he can to the people that will allow him to and eventually he may grow into a spot where he might make some different choices to to rectify that loneliness hopefully he does it in an upstanding Integris kind of a way yeah you know um but but the more that he focuses on the things that are in his control the more he can go to bed at night knowing that he's done all he can and there is some there is some level of peace I think about that like anything you've ever been involved in even if you've failed or fallen short you know I remember in high school my junior year we ended up in the state championship for soccer we had won the year before junior year we ended up losing I remember kneeling down on the field at the end of the game spent having lost and kind of desperate and heartbroken but I knew I knew that I'd given everything that I could to that to that game right right um did it suck that we lose lost yeah but you go to bed on a clear conscience you go to bed knowing you've done your best and to me a big part of recovery work this is something that I've shifted over the years in my own recovery work is that the measuring stick for success is no longer the outcome the measuring stick is the input and the heart that I did it with and the inputs often lead to winning but they don't always lead to winning you know they sometimes the right input still end up yielding a hard result or a hard you know response or challenges and struggles but I can go to bed at night every night knowing that I've done my best and the more often I can do that and then give the rest over to to God you know whether it's my clients or whether it's my own children um there's I think there's a little there's a little element of that piece we were talking about to the eye of the storm even though we can't control the outcomes I mean the stuff you're going through right now with your own neck yeah right you're doing everything you can the medical treatment you received might have been part of the reason you're feeling the way you do right yeah um you're miserable you know you know but but what else is there after you've done all you can do yeah um there's at least the consolation and knowing you've done all you can you know and I don't I don't know if that's a good answer or not Chase I don't know that you're standing there going like f that like I don't want to feel terrible you know but no I I think that's uh that pretty much that's a good response I appreciate the thoughts you know the other thought about that loneliness you're talking about with cheese with our cheese guy is uh is that something that I think he's actually pretty good at is is that he still is making Choice yeah like his situation isn't completely hopeless um it's the whole Victor Frankl thing that circumstances we find ourselves in some of it might be beyond our control but the the truth is is that in any circumstance there's always some level of choice even if it's only even if it's only to adjust the way we're viewing it something you know yeah and that in and of itself can actually alleviate suffering if we realize that we are making choice no matter what we're making a choice yeah so well I want to give a shout out to him because I I spoke to him over the weekend and he was really supportive of me and has reached out a couple of times you know following up saying hey if you'd mentioned that you were not feeling great and how are things going today so um he's he's that kind of guy and I I anytime you have a friend like that you're like oh I just want the best for that person yeah you know yeah for sure yeah so nothing but the best right yep yeah and you know he wants that for you too yeah right yeah yeah so all right well that's that's all I got I'll see here your jacket looks a little Chase well it's because it's your jacket and I I purposely didn't zip it because I knew it would just make me look even more like a sausage and it's casing like ready to burst you know like when you put it over the fire and gets hot it's like I look like it's almost like I'm going to be like a biscuit can if I zip that puppy up so thank you foreign [Music]