OF SEASONS OF STILLNESS.
What is a season of stillness? This is a season where everything seems to slow down. It may follow your graduation, when you are in between jobs, the expiry of a contract or simply when an opportunity comes to a close.
If you were previously super busy, you might initially embrace this slower season as a much welcome period of rest. Initially …
The transition between seasons, especially the shift in routines can be difficult to adjust to. After a while, the slower routine might start to feel like a drag and at a time like this, feeling lost and directionless is pretty common . This is exacerbated if you are the sort of person that prefers to have everything planned out.
You may find yourself in low spirits and a general sense of restlessness may wash over you; especially if you spend a lot of time on social media (more specifically - going down the comparison rabbit hole.)
If you are currently in this season, here are a couple of things you need to keep in mind;
Rest.
As we touched on earlier, you may have initially embraced this as an opportunity to rest from a demanding schedule; you are right. This is a time for you to rest. Whether it was school, work or even your personal projects taking up all your time, breaks are absolutely necessary. (to avoid burnout, among other things).
If were being honest, working yourself to the bone has become a norm. We could argue that this is a result of importing the western (read American) mindset of normalizing and glorifying over working.(to be fair, that is quite common in Japan as well though). Either way, regardless of the source; over working, coupled with the intense pressure placed on millennials and gen-z’s to succeed, it can all get overwhelming. Please take this as a much needed opportunity to rest. Acknowledge that over working is unhealthy and use this season to take a load off - guilt free.
Unpack
With the workload and pressure mentioned earlier, it is close to impossible to get some time to unpack. Each ‘how are you?’ is often met with a hurried ‘good, cool or fine’, but how are you really? Should you find yourself in a season of stillness, please use this time to unpack. Use this time to slowly unravel everything that’s been weighing on you that you haven’t had time to address. Whichever method is the most fitting approach to tackle it, please use this season to take it. It may be journaling, meditating, praying, therapy or even speaking to a trusted friend; please do that. This will ensure that you will be mentally and emotionally prepared for whatever opportunities crop up in the future.
'It may be journaling, meditating, praying, therapy or even speaking to a trusted friend; please do that.' Image from wix.com
Realignment
If you go down the comparison rabbit hole, this is precisely what you’ll miss. The whole point behind stillness; Realignment. The first thing to acknowledge is that everybody has a different path charted for them. With that different path comes different timelines. This is why comparing your life to anyone else's is .. well … kind of silly. You can’t be them- and they can’t be you. Whatever goals, dreams and even the skill set you have can only be executed by you. At a pace that aligns with your life. I’ve found that whenever a season of stillness rolls around, God often uses that silence to draw your attention. This is often to remind you about goals, dreams and ambitions that you may have put on hold. Please use this time to revisit those goals that seem ‘far-fetched’ and maybe even write down concrete steps to achieving them.
Redirection.
The funny thing about realignment is - once you really give yourself some time to think about what you're passionate about, and write down plans to bring that to life … you’ll start to come across openings and opportunities that line up those goals. These opportunities serve as little nods from God that you are finally on the right track, note that it may take a while, and the journey will be long, but trust the process.
In the mean-time; keep yourself engaged with activities that align with those dreams and goals e.g; signing up for classes that are related to your goals. If that is currently too expensive an option; you can always check out youtube lessons on the same. Also look up books on your topic of interest, while we are on the topic of books; I’m sure at some point you had tons of books and tv shows you wanted to catch up on. Please use this time to do that, as well as try out any productive changes to your routine you may not have had time for previously.
In a nutshell, seasons that are slower than we'd like them to be offer the perfect backdrop for a reset. As well as reflection and clearer perspective... and that marks the close of this article. Thank you for reading this far and I truly hope you found this post helpful!
Xo - Alex
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