Ikigai + Quiet
“Once the quietness arrived, it stayed and spread… It rocked him to the rhythm of an ancient fetal heartbeat.” - Arundhati Roy, God of Small Things
Who were you before the noisy world told you who to be?
The external noise, feeds our internal noise. And then we use external noise (podcasts, music, even guided meditations) to hush our internal noise. The problem with this is our world starts to be shaped by someone else's ideas. Our belief system becomes someone else spirituality.
To live a life that is our own, to exist in our ikigai, one needs to access the kind of quiet that re-connects us to ourself. Not so you can manically work towards some big overarching purpose, but to find a daily rhythm that is so deeply attuned with who you are, that you can rest it, bathe, be inspired by it. Even if it's challenging and mundane - even more so in fact.
Initially the quiet can be confronting. Without loud distraction we become aware of the even louder clamour from within. Thoughts whizzing around to understand previous pain and try to protect us in the future. It's hard. But these are the noises hidden away, waiting for us to notice them, so we can grow through them. So we can begin to let them go.
Getting quiet is not about getting perfect. It's actually helped me see my limitations more clearly, and the potential in them. There is such power in recognising what you can't do (because of lack of skill, resource or time). You can actually start to let go of these things, for now. This starts to reverse the achievement linked with self-worth narrative that so many of us grew up on. It starts to reverse the world telling you how to be enough. And starts reconnecting you to your Ikigai.
Quiet is a power. A gateway to wisdom, self and ikigai. It is something that arrives and expands, like a light to truth. But where do we begin when we can barely hear ourselves think, let alone hear ourselves know?
Quiet is a discipline: Across history, wise figures such as the Buddha beneath the Bodhi tree, Jesus in lonely places of prayer, Marcus Aurelius in inward retreat, and Gandhi in his weekly practice of silence, treated solitude not as withdrawal from life, but as a way of returning to truth.
The key thing here is it is solitude, not isolation. Isolation is often sought when we are so soaked through by waves of noisy information, we run and hide alone, gasping for air. Solitude is intentional and doesn't disconnect us from those around us or the world we live in.
Three ways to find quiet this Spring and connect to your ikigai:
1. Start here: Remove external noise that is not grounded in wisdom (e.g. inflated media that makes you feel anxious) and find 10 mins a day to be quiet (no guided meditations or zen music, just your busy chaotic mind). Meet yourself with awareness not judgement.
2. Movement: This free 30 minute on demand flow was designed to free up space in the body, hopefully freeing up space in the mind.
3. Quiet Spring Challenge: I am offering a 4-part “Ikigai in Quiet” this season. A way to combine mindfulness, somatic work and traditional coaching to go in, in order to go out in your Ikigai. These are 45 min 1:1 zoom sessions, message me “quiet” for more details.
