In Search Of Inner Stillness

I was listening to a podcast this morning about inner stillness, which was recorded at the start of the pandemic, when at some point the speakers talked about Winston Churchill.

What was very interesting to me to hear was that, after Churchill was pushed aside when he started to voice his thoughts about Germany and Hitler, he spent a decade in the margins, but what he chose to do during that time was to focus on the needs of his mind and the needs of his work.

Today we call this self-care and preparing for your future goals, but what I think is very useful to hear is that, a person of his position and the demand of his work was choosing to spend time drawing every day, spending time in nature, taking time to have his bath, and actively preparing for the day when his work would be needed, just in case.

Churchill chose all this at a time in history when the second industrial revolution and its philosophy about how work should be done and what is expected of workers had already begun at the beginning of the century.

What is more, the people in the podcast attributed his ability to deal with the World War II in the way he did, yes, partly to his intellectual abilities and capacities, but also to the fact that he had spend at least that decade of grounding himself, having clarity of thought, giving time to his spirit to rest, and to focus on preparing himself.

Why is this in relationships?

Firstly, because you are either running your own businesses, or are in a highly stressful and high-responsibility job, you might have your young family, or demanding family responsibilities, and your body and mind is experiencing high levels of stress on an ongoing basis.

The content of your job or the structure of your family is not as important as is the fact that you might have been going through pressure for extended periods of time, and you would know that this is true when your body is tense at places, maybe even stiff regardless of injuries, you might be having headaches, your appetite might be touching the edges of too much food or too little, or your breath might be shallow, or you feel more irritable than you would prefer.

Secondly, because the grounding part, the spending time with nature, giving time to your mind to rest and wonder, cultivating a beloved hobby, and consciously and actively preparing for the life you want, the next part of the life you want to have does not only apply to politicians or billionaires or CEOs or people who have time in their hands, but it applies to all of us, if we value quality of life.

The world has entered its 6th month of the pandemic, and in the podcast it was mentioned that during the time that Marcus Aurelius was the Roman Emperor, the people experienced a pandemic that lasted 15 years.

Can you imagine that?

Can we even compare what we are experiencing to what those people went through?

Dared we even imagine our life will be affected by the pandemic for 6 months back to back, let alone a year or two back in April as we are now clearly beginning to accept it, too?

In the podcast it was discussed that at the end of the pandemic there is concern that we will possibly not be able to remember the lessons learned and that we might struggle to apply the choices we have been making now in the months and years to come, as history has shown we don't learn well.

But what if we do?

What if we do learn well when we choose to?

What if we do learn well when we make active and conscious choices to remember our learnings and to keep returning to them?

I believe in the gifts of the pandemic, and how what we have been going through is a good reminder to hold on to our personal discoveries as significant and as discoveries that matter to us individually.

I also believe in our ability to keep pursuing our discoveries consciously at all times as the non-negotiable choices that ensure we can course well through this life, be that time with our family the way it is most meaningful to them and us, absolutely spending time with our partner regardless of how busy we get and in the specific ways we realised they make a difference to our relationship, and very importantly keeping and pursuing the things that matter to us personally, regardless of other people's agendas.

As life has the tendency to get in the way, we keep forgetting that we have the power and capacity to shape our lives in the way of our choice.

How about we keep on exercising this choice as regularly and consistently as possible?

I hope this message today can nudge you back towards the direction of your true desires if you happened to stir a bit away from them, or to reinforce what you already know is true for you, with the intention that your days ahead will carry on feeling enriched and meaningful despite our current circumstances.

If you are struggling in your relationship due to the pandemic and would like to benefit from professional support, you can reach me at constantina@thelantern.uk

Constantina Stamou

Constantina Stamou is a certified Life & Relationship Coach, has trained with the Robbins-Madanes coaching school and Strategic Intervention, is an NLP Master Practitioner, has attended Tony Robbins’ Business Mastery, and has a PhD in how we change the way we put sentences together as we grow older. Her work experience includes university tutoring, charity research, and entrepreneurship which has so far translated into the TNT Dance Salsa Club in London, her Reformer Pilates Studio at Kensington Olympia, London, and The Lantern.