Sit Still: The Discipline Nobody Told You You'd Need

The other day I was restless. Angry. Sad. Gloomy in the way the sky gets low and bruised-grey right before it can't hold a heavy rain any longer, like the clouds were bracing to say something they'd been holding in too long.

I picked up my phone a hundred times. Walked to the refrigerator like it had an answer for me. Nothing sounded good. I started pacing. Opened ten tabs on my computer, hopped from task to task, abandoned one thing for the next, and nothing fulfilled me, nothing settled my soul.

I need to get out of the house, I told myself. So I got in the truck and drove. No music. Just silence.

And somewhere on that drive I realized how long it had been since I'd had actual silence. My house has been abuzz with kids on summer break. "Mommy, I'm hungry, what are we eating, please feed me." Work meetings. Friends. Things I am deeply grateful for, truly, but things that come with a lot of noise.

I pulled over. I just sat.

It was as if the wind whispered the secrets of my own heart back to me, and I began to deal with them one by one. Thoughts I'd been outrunning. Grief that had been riding in the back seat the whole time, quiet, patient, waiting for me to acknowledge it was even in the car. Questions I had never let myself ask out loud. Concerns I hadn't shared with anyone. It all came pouring into my mind at once.

The restlessness had been trying to speak a language my busy life couldn't understand.

I'll go first, because that's what this is. I don't sit with myself nearly enough. So let me ask you what I had to ask myself on that drive. When is the last time you really sat with yourself? Away from the noise. Away from the distractions. Away from the phone in your hand right now. No music. No TV. No people. Just you.

What Was Really in the Back Seat With Me

Here's what I found once I got quiet enough to look. I had been layering on other people's needs, other people's problems, other people's thought processes, and carrying them with me like they were assigned to me at birth. The kids' hunger. The meeting I hadn't prepped for. A friend's situation I'd taken on like it was mine to fix. None of it was bad. Most of it I'm grateful for. But I had not put a single piece of it down in weeks, and I didn't know that until the car got quiet enough for me to feel the weight of all of it at once.

We don't call it that, though. We call it productivity. We call it being the strong one, the dependable one, the one who handles it. We post the late nights and call it discipline. But running on empty isn't a personality trait, and the praise we get for carrying everything is exactly what keeps us from ever putting any of it down.

That's not weakness. That's accumulation. And accumulation without release is exactly what burnout is made of.

Your Body Keeps Score, Even When You Don't

Your body keeps score of everything you refuse to sit with. It doesn't disappear, it just moves, into your shoulders, your sleep, the snap in your voice you didn't mean. That restlessness I felt the second the house got quiet wasn't random. It was everything I hadn't processed, finally asking to be heard.

This is bigger than self-care. Self-care rituals can mask the reality of what's happening in your soul. Sitting with yourself tells you to stay.

What to Ask Yourself When You Finally Sit Down

When you sit with yourself, here's what I want you to ask:

• What have I been thinking about?
• Why have I been thinking about that?
• What have I been avoiding thinking about?
• What is something I need to do to grow?
• What is something I need to remove?
• What is a secret or a shame I've been carrying on my back that I need to forgive myself for?

When the questions come, resist the urge to move, to fidget, to busy your hands so your heart doesn't have to talk. Just feel what's inside of you. Process it.

A lot of times, we want to get out of discomfort, so we don't sit with ourselves. We hide from the truth of that small inkling in the back of our head. We escape self-accountability. And I'm not talking about the doubt that talks trash, the voice some of us picked up along the way that taught us how to be so critical of ourselves that we became our own worst enemy. That voice is a different conversation for a different day.

I'm talking about the small things. I should call so-and-so. I haven't been forgiving. I've been holding my kids to a standard I can't even meet myself. I was unkind to that person at the grocery store and I knew it the second it left my mouth. I've been putting off this lesson for two weeks. I avoided writing the book because I don't think anybody's going to buy it.

You get the gist. You feel the tone. These aren't crises. They're the quiet truths sitting right beneath the surface, waiting on you to stop moving long enough to hear them.

And here's what I want you to know about those quiet truths. They are not always your own. Sometimes what surfaces when you finally sit still isn't just you finding yourself, it's the Holy Spirit showing you yourself. Illuminating what you've been too busy to see. That call you should make, that forgiveness you've been avoiding, that book you've been too afraid to write, those aren't just your own thoughts catching up to you. That's the Spirit doing what only the Spirit can do, getting your attention long enough to bring it into the light.

This Is Discipline, Not Hustle

This isn't the pull yourself up by your bootstraps message. This is a mindset. This is a discipline. Scripture doesn't say hustle and know that I am God. It says, "Be still, and know that I am God" (Psalm 46:10). Stillness is the instruction, not the inconvenience.

And here's the distinction I need you to catch, because it's the whole reason this works. That illumination isn't a side effect of sitting still, it's the point of it. Stillness is what makes the room. The Holy Spirit is what fills it.

Self-awareness isn't selfish. Sitting still long enough to hear your own thoughts is one of the most spiritually disciplined things you can do, not because you need isolation, but because stillness is where you finally stop talking long enough to let God do what only He can do.

So sit down. Put the phone in the other room. Let it be quiet. Let it be uncomfortable. Stay anyway. You won't be sitting there by yourself.

A Prayer For Her

A Prayer for the Woman Who Hasn't Sat Still in a While

Father God, thank You that in a busy and chaotic world, You care enough to remind me that I need to sit still. My focus and attention have been on everything and everyone else. Taking a moment to breathe, to release, to receive, is good.

When I'm able to deal with me, it ultimately points me back to You. I recognize that I am never alone, because it is You who dwells in me. You make room for me to hear Your voice. You make room for me to strategize. You make room for me to grow, for me to connect the dots You have been highlighting in my life.

I thank You. I praise You. I give You glory, because You are so good.

God, I pray for every woman who encounters this blog, that You would give her peace. Remind her to take thirty minutes and to sit, to come away from the world and the distractions, and to focus inward and to focus on You. Let healing flow, not only from the crown of her head to the soles of her feet, but in her nervous system and everything connected to it. Let her shoulders release tension. Let her mind release the negativity. Let her exhale the expectations of the world, and let her breathe in more of You.

God, You are so good, and You will get the glory, because when we sit with ourselves, we make room for You.

In Jesus' name, Amen.