Every Friday anew, when friends ask me what I’ll be doing this weekend, I say nothing. With the intention to unwind, process the prior week and just be. Gathering strength and momentum for the next 4 days of work and life.
At least, that’s the ideal. It almost never happens. I make time to sit in stillness or go for a walk, but that is rather the exception. Although I’d like for it to be radically different, what I mostly do is consuming.
Videos, movies, music, magazines, books, podcasts—you name it. The list is nearly endless. Browsing a magazine induces more calm to me than watching hours of YouTube playback, but they all have something in common: stimulation. There’s no balance between input and output. Either feels too much, or too little.
Anton today sent a new episode of Ultimate Calm with Ólafur Arnalds. He is one of my favourite musicians and composers, and besides his brilliant music, I find his voice, marked by a lovely Icelandic accent, equally soothing. I seized the opportunity, pulling out my yoga mat and sitting down to enjoy an hour of sound bath.
It really stroke my soul, and helped me realise how little changes in posture or place can bring out a bit of my inner monk. I suck at meditation, but it does not keep me from returning to it. And when I do, a little bit of nothing passes through me. A moment. Clarity. Now.