PART 1: FOR EVERYONE WHO FEELS THE PACE OF LIFE IS TOO MUCH
“Be still,” said the kindergarten teacher, frustrated with the little boy who couldn’t stop fidgeting.
She wanted him to pay attention. She believed stillness mattered.
And you know what? She was right.
But stillness doesn’t come easy. Especially for a generation raised on distraction. Where once a child could be mesmerized by a simple humming top, now attention spans short-circuit when a video isn’t flashing new images every few seconds.
We’re not growing up connecting, we’re growing up distracting.
We disconnect from our parents, our surroundings, from nature, and most tragically, from ourselves.
And when you lose connection to yourself, you also lose connection to your longings, your passions, your pain– and your power.
Stillness is not a luxury.
It’s a necessity.
It’s the only way out of the cycles of surviving, striving, numbing, and hoping that one day something outside of you will change. Stillness is what takes you from reacting to life to ruling and reigning in it.
What Stillness Can Do
Stillness doesn’t just slow you down. It wakes you up.
It pulls you out of the noise and pushes you into the now.
It leads you:
- From medical systems that suppress symptoms, to intuitive wisdom that releases healing.
- From economic fear and scarcity, to peace, provision, and rest.
- From urgency, stress, and agitation, to clarity, calm, and confidence.
“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing,” said Viktor Frankl in Man’s Search for Meaning
“The last of the human freedoms, to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”
Frankl observed this power in the concentration camps of WWII. Those who survived often connected with a purpose beyond the suffering. They imagined a future. They held onto love. They found meaning. And that meaning gave them agency, even in the face of horror.
What Frankl was describing is the core power of stillness.
In stillness, you move from reaction to response, from chaos to clarity, from victimhood to inner freedom.
Stillness isn’t passive. It’s potent.
Why We Avoid It
So why don’t we practice it?
Because stillness is painful at first.
It exposes what we’ve buried. And most of us have buried a lot.
That’s why society works so hard to numb it with entertainment, food, alcohol, busyness, overachievement, social media, and toxic positivity.
Noise is easier to carry than the weight of our own hearts.
A 2014 study published in Science proved how uncomfortable people are with stillness. Participants were asked to sit in silence for just six to fifteen minutes. That’s it. Just be alone with their thoughts.
67% of men and 25% of women chose to give themselves electric shocks rather than stay in that silence. Some even gave up their reward early to end the experiment. Stillness is that confronting.
But if you don’t voluntarily seek stillness, chances are you’ll eventually be forced into it – by sickness, burnout, heartbreak, loss, or sheer exhaustion. Life has a way of slowing you down when you refuse to stop.
And here’s the thing: you can’t enter stillness without first clearing the chair.
If your favorite chair is buried under laundry and clutter, you can’t sit. If your inner life is full of unresolved messes, you can’t rest.
So when you choose to be still, be prepared to face the mess.
Let it speak. Let it cry. Let it scream.
Write it down. Shout it out. Journal until the ink runs dry.
But don’t wallow. Don’t choose self-pity. That’s the moment you shift from stillness to victimhood.
Stillness requires brutal honesty.
But it also gives breathtaking clarity.
Pay attention to the still, small voice within.
The one calling you to a different rhythm.
The one whispering: there’s more.
What Stillness Really Means
Stillness is not just silence. It includes three key ingredients:
- Silence – no noise, no distractions
- Stillness – no effort, no performance
- Solitude – no one to rescue you, no pity to feed off
You’ll likely face a fourth element too: suffering.
Because when you’ve refused to surrender, suffering often becomes the teacher that leads you there.
Stillness is not about escape.
It’s about surrender.
And surrender leads you back to your true self, the one you’ve been avoiding, but the only one you get to live with for the rest of your life.
The Most Powerful Shift of All
In psychology, we talk about self-actualization. In Buddhism, enlightenment.
But in biblical terms, the most powerful shift is called repentance.
Not the religious guilt-trip kind. The original Greek word-metanoia-means a transcendent shift in thinking. I like to say:
Repentance is returning to your penthouse;
The highest floor with the best view.
You don’t repent because you’re shameful.
You repent because you remembered who you are.
If you’ve been stealing, don’t stop because you’re afraid of punishment.
Stop because you remember you’re capable, gifted, and fully able to create wealth without taking from others.
True repentance comes when you realize:
“I lost sight of who I truly am.”
And in stillness, you see again.
PART 2: FOR THOSE WHO WANT TO DIVE DEEPER
The Bible doesn’t just mention stillness, it calls us to it:
“Be still, and know that I am God.” – Psalm 46:10 (KJV)
The power is in the second part:
Know that I am God.
Some misquote this verse to say, “Be still and know that you are God.”
While we are made in His image, true stillness isn’t about self-glorification.
It’s about surrender to a higher power.
The verse continues:
“I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth.”
Stillness allows God to take over where you can’t control.
To exalt Himself through your surrender.
To fight battles you were never meant to fight alone.
Just like when Israel stood frozen at the edge of the Red Sea, sure their end had come-
“The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still.” – Exodus 14:14 (NIV)
Stillness is where you stop fixing your life and start receiving God’s life.
If you want to go deeper into this practice, try these bold prayers from the Psalms. But be warned: they work fast.
Psalm 139:23–24 (AMP)
Search me [thoroughly], O God, and know my heart!
Try me and know my thoughts!
See if there is any wicked or hurtful way in me,
And lead me in the way everlasting.
Psalm 19:13–14 (AMP)
Keep back Your servant also from presumptuous sins;
Let them not have dominion over me!
Then shall I be blameless…
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Your sight…
These are not prayers of performance. They are invitations for detox;
For God to clean out the junk in the chair, and restore your soul.
FINAL THOUGHT
You may have noticed, I call myself a stillness mentor.
Not because I figured this out early. But because I didn’t.
I missed the exit called the heart way.
And life took me down the hard way.
Through fatigue, illness, failure, frustration.
But everything changed when I found that sacred place of stillness.
Because in stillness, life gets meaning where it once felt purposeless.
You get comfort where you didn’t even know you were hurting.
You get direction, without knowing how far off-course you were.
It’s not another revolutionary teaching, powerful training, or fail-proof system you need, it’s stillness.
In stillness, you’ll discover the truth: you’ve had the answers all along.
The Kingdom is within you.
And we want to walk with you on this journey-clearing away the confusion, the clutter, and the noise.
Let the world hear a new sound: the sound of stillness.
Let the world see a new picture: a blank canvas, ready for new things no one has ever seen before.
So if you’re tired of the noise, the numbness, the fake performance,
Pay attention. Life is calling.
Stillness is waiting.
And the teacher was right all along:
You need to learn to be still.
