Last night, as I was lying in bed, my mind got really busy as it sometimes does when the house is dark and quiet.

Thought swirled like a tornado, urgently begging me to pay attention to its dramatic instant-replay of my actions a few hours earlier. Why did I send that text? I knew it was better to wait a day or two. I knew it wouldn't be well-received. How am I going to fix this? This is awful. I should have known better.

For a few moments, thought was incredibly compelling, and I fell for its sneaky trap.

So perfectly human of me!

After all, thought always does its very best to PRETEND to be important.

—that mental chatter in the mind—claims to be the solution-finder, the action-maker, and the catalyst for change. It's so compelling because it speaks in my voice, in my language, and with my personal details.

It SEEMS LIKE more thinking leads to more ideas, and more ideas lead to more solutions.

It FEELS LIKE thoughts that are the loudest and most urgent are the ones that need to be taken the most seriously.

But what if the opposite is true, especially when it comes to urgent, important, or high-stakes thinking?

What if SEEMS LIKE and FEELS LIKE are not even in the same ballpark as TRUTH?

What if all that mental noise, pretending to be the thing that will save you if you just give it enough of your attention, is actually nothing more than a clever distraction from what is here right now?

And what is here right now, without the overlay of thought?

Just this.

Being.

Aliveness.

Breath.

Body Sensations.

Energy in motion (emotions)

Life life-ing.

Last night, after those few minutes of suffering in thought, there was a deep remembering:

Oh, thought is pretending to be important again.

My mind continued to swirl with suggestions for how to make everything OK.

But, instead of feeding my mind with attention, I became still.

When thoughts screamed even more loudly, I breathed: There is nothing in there for me. Thought is pretending to be important. Thought is pretending to be necessary.

And I returned to stillness.

For me, stillness is not necessarily a physical state. It's not about being perfectly still at all.

Stillness, to me, is simply the movement of attention and focus away from the content of thought.

Away from labels, concepts, judgments, and abstract ideas.

For me, in that moment in bed, stillness looked like putting my focus and attention on my breath. I traced it with my right hand as it traveled down through my belly and back up through my open mouth.

Thought ramped up again a couple more times, each time with a new urgent plea to feed it with my attention.

Back to stillness. Back to the breath.

In stillness, I was able to meet the pure raw energy of Life that was arising as body sensations.

Without attention on thought, body sensations were just bundles of energy, moving, pulsing, and doing their thing. Even the strongest body sensations were brilliant energy moving through.

I noticed the energy rising, reaching a peak intensity, and then diminishing. I rode the waves of the energy. It was not bad or harsh or awful or any other label my mind tried to give it. It was simply energy. Aliveness.

Energy arising in the belly. Energy in the throat and chest. Waves. Rising up, maintaining its peak for a moment, and then dissolving. A new wave. Same pattern. Perfection.

At one point, thought did its best to add labels and concepts to the energy rising, peaking, and dissolving.

Oh, there's thought again. Pretending to be important. Pretending to be relevant.

In stillness...

—Beyond should. Beyond could have done better. Beyond something's wrong with me. Beyond it's on me to fix this.

—it is an UNFOLDING.

We open to the truth of our innate, untouchable peace, safety and wellbeing.

—a surrender that opens the proverbial flood gates of possibility and potentiality.

In stillness, the need to figure out is eclipsed by the trust in being lived. Being held. Being ONE with Life.

In stillness, sustainable change happens.

Wholeness reveals itself.

In last week's blog (Part 1: I want to Feel Safe), I asked this simple question:

Have you ever wondered why there seems to be a disconnect between what you know intellectually and what happens with your words, reactions, and behaviors?

And, as far as I can see, our in-the-moment behaviors, words, and reactions are always revealing what is being believed in that moment at the deepest level (below the reach of intellectual thought).

Behaviors, words, and reactions are brilliant for bringing into the light of awareness any thought of separation, lack, brokenness, or unworthiness that is still being believed so that it can be seen and transmuted.

As you spend a little more time in stillness, with your attention and focus withdrawn from the noisy content of thought, change happens.

Equilibrium is restored. You settle more easily into your natural design.

Beyond the chatter of the mind, you are already the peace, wellbeing, and safety that your mind is searching for.

Just be still.

If you'd like to join me for a 4-week Back to Basics course in March, click here for more details. I'd love to have you in my class!