Lulls Instead of Openings

I feel like a ship becalmed. Very little is happening in my life. It seems there is no movement, much less Openings to consider. How can I get things moving again and move forward in my journey?

Lulls Are Deceptively Quiet 

 We live in a culture that worships motion. Our heroes are action heroes, rather than contemplatives. We are always in motion – climbing a mountain, pursuing a scientific discovery or winning a race. We fear that inactivity will leave us face to face with only ourselves and that will get us nowhere. To be productive, we have to be in perpetual activity.

Motion obscures the power of staying still. In motion we feel alive. Our bodies are moving, our minds are active, and we have a destination that is not yet  reached. Motion can, in some instances, keep us from something we fear – being alone with ourselves and looking within. In this case we are running away from, rather than to meaningful Openings.

A lack of activity can take us long distances. In silence and alone with ourselves we can venture to places that movement cannot take us. It takes us to our inner life and the many riches that lie there. It allows us to be mindful, to focus and to ground in where we are. Quiet times allow us to see things about ourselves and our world that we cannot see from motion and movement.

Stopping

We have looked before at the power of stopping in the midst of motion. Stopping allows us to see exactly where we are in the present moment. It also allows us to look back to the past and forward to the future from a place of truth. Lulls in themselves are times of stopping. We may see this as stasis but there is much to do in a lull if we can just slow down.

A lull in our lives may be a time when we are recovering from an illness or a time in-between two jobs. It may be a time of inactivity because opportunities and Openings are not presenting themselves. We may see this as a failure on our part, but in reality, it is an invitation to see something different that we cannot see when we are in motion.

Lulls may be opportunities to prepare for significant Openings that are to come in our lives. They may be opportunities for transition from old to new. Change doesn’t always happen in an instant. There is a process to change and we must make the change on many levels – physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually.

Learn To Make the Most of Lulls

To take advantage of a lull, we must acclimate to its quiet open space. As we open ourselves to the power of a time of little outward movement, we will see all the good that it offers. We can settle in and begin to touch the wisdom now available to us. We also can look quietly at ourselves and be in touch with our dreams and things we want to change.

Some Openings are naturally preceded by lulls. Before we can choose to enter them, we must transform in certain ways. A lull allows us to see what we need to and transform in the process. A noisy world is not conducive to that kind of seeing and listening. Quiet and inactivity must envelop us to do so.

Many lulls create themselves, although we can create them if we feel a need to do so. Involuntary lulls beckon us to new Openings. Self-created lulls are built on our sense that change is coming, and we must transform to make the most of it. When lulls appear we can embrace them for the powerful times that they are.