Create Harmony

The Art of Quietude

• Sally • Season 1 • Episode 142

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Ever wondered why you feel constantly rushed, anxious, or unable to fully experience the present moment? In this soul-nourishing episode, we explore quietude – that powerful state of inner and outer stillness where the noise of the world and the chatter in your mind settle into profound peace.

Quietude isn't merely the absence of sound. It's a transformative mindset where you're not chasing your next thought or racing through tasks, but instead resting in unhurried presence. We contrast this with our culture's worship of restlessness, where constant activity is treated as sacred and low-grade agitation becomes our default setting. When life presents critical moments requiring your best decisions, wouldn't you rather choose from wisdom and clarity rather than fear and anxiety?

The good news? Cultivating quietude doesn't demand hours of meditation or silent retreats. Simple practices can weave stillness into your daily rhythm: watching clouds drift across the sky, paying attention to your breath, or holding your morning coffee and truly feeling its warmth. These small moments gradually retrain your nervous system to recognize and appreciate stillness. We close with a beautiful breath prayer inspired by Psalm 107 that you can use anytime agitation creeps in: inhale "You still the storms to a whisper," exhale "You hush the waves of the sea."

Join us in November for our exciting new Peaceful Pathways Seasonal Series – a collaboration with Petal and Pink Mental Wellness Boutique featuring seasonal boxes with guided meditations and carefully curated items supporting your journey toward peace. Mark your calendars for November 1st when ordering begins!

To learn more, go to mycreateharmony.com

Speaker 1:

Welcome to the Create Harmony podcast. This is a space where you can find your intentional rhythm, you can savor life's blessings and we work together to learn how to use our imagination as a way of listening to God. So if you like stillness and you like gratitude, you're going to discover so much inspiration here. And if you love to be creative and fun, you're going to discover so much inspiration here. And if you love to be creative and fun, you're going to feel right at home. So together, we'll pause for a few minutes each week to celebrate everyday joys and we're going to notice goodness that's all around us all the time, and let peace settle into our hearts. So this is episode 142, and I'm your host, sally Burlington. So today we are going to talk about quietude. So what is quietude? Quietude is the attitude of quiet and peace, but it goes beyond just being quiet. It's not just silence. It's a state of inner and outer stillness where the noise of the world and the noise inside your own head settle down enough for you to feel deeply present, for you to feel calm, for you to feel whole. So listen, this is our wheelhouse, this is what we do best, this is where we want to dwell as Create Harmony. We are going to be a community that together comes and focuses our attention on reducing our agitation, on celebrating our blessings and really calming our mind. So we've got lots of ways that we can come alongside and help you through this journey. So quietude can be literal silence, and some examples of that are like the pause between waves on a calm shore. It's the muffled stillness in the library, or the hush of a really snowy morning right after a fresh snow. It's the kind of quiet where sound only exists in gentle natural forms and nothing feels rushed. Another way to think about it is it's the opposite of overstimulation and agitation. In quietude, you're not chasing the next thought, you're not figuring out the next task or what you're going to say next, you're not just waiting for your time to talk. Your mind rests, your breathing slows and you feel unhurried. If serenity were a physical place, quietude would be its gentle front porch. So quietude is a mindset.

Speaker 1:

Now, after defining quietude, I'm going to talk about the opposite of quietude. So the opposite of quietude isn't just noise, no-transcript thing, your phone buzzing, tv blaring, conversations overlapping, lots of sensory clutter that leaves no room for your own thoughts, a mind that won't stop rehearsing tomorrow's to-do list. Maybe it's the hum of anxiety or anticipation that makes it hard for your mind to find stillness. Restlessness is the sensation of living a half step ahead of the present moment. So, instead of feeling grounded, what you feel is scattered. Your attention is pulled in so many different directions that you never fully inhabit one place. If quietude is a calm lake under a clear sky, then its opposite is a churning sea whipped by winds where clarity gets lost in the waves. Restlessness is the shout of your mind saying more, more, more, more. Now, after I've described these two states of being, which of them do you spend the most time in? If you answered restlessness, you are not alone.

Speaker 1:

For many of you, including myself, sometimes it is a default setting. Is it possible to take this idea one step further and say our culture is trapped in the worship of restlessness and that sometimes we treat constant activity not just as normal but as sacred? Is it possible that our default setting is becoming one of low-grade agitation? You know, fear can be a powerful motivator. However, is it possible that unrestrained fear is a powerful poison to our minds? If we did some analysis of the role that fear plays in our lives, we might notice that fear is lurking all around us all the time. Our entertainment and our media is overwhelmingly dominated by fear, in the forms of crime and violence, but also in the forms of hurry and haste. We're constantly urged to question other people's motives or guard against dangers, things that are right around the corner. Fear is like a powerful wind, sweeping us up in its force as it roars through, and I want to raise this question as it roars through.

Speaker 1:

And I want to raise this question when you get to your critical moments in life, when the chips are down and you want to make sure you navigate those situations well and make your best decisions, do you want to make those choices from a place of agitation? Do you want your brain to be inundated with worry and concern, or do you want to choose from a place of wisdom and clarity? I'm going to say that again Do you want to choose from a place of wisdom and clarity? If you said yes to wisdom and clarity, then wouldn't it be important to cultivate more quietude? Wouldn't quietude need an important role in your life rhythm? So let's just take a moment to wonder what would taking a few steps towards quietude look like and I know that life's pace makes quietude very challenging. There's plenty of noise, there's plenty to do. I mean, those things are real that we have to do. Life is busy, but what you focus on expands.

Speaker 1:

So today I want to urge you to focus more on quietude. Now, how are you going to do that? Don't worry, I am not suggesting that you start with a four-day silent retreat. I mean, you are not the Dalai Lama and you do not need to meditate for hours to become more peaceful and have more quietude. But here are some little, bite-sized ways that you might weave quietude into your routine. As a starting point, you could pay attention to these types of things. You could look at the sky and see the clouds. Sometimes you see a sky so still that the clouds seem to be listening. You could pay attention to the steady rhythm of your own breath when it is unhurried. You could hold your coffee or your tea in your palms and pay attention to the warmth.

Speaker 1:

Quietude is like the pause in the music that makes the next note feel like a blessing. It's the moment when sunlight rests on your hands and nothing in the world asks for your presence. You can find some quiet and stillness in your life, but the first step is to look for it. Begin to get your body in the habit of experiencing these little moments. Maybe you want to write down three ways you found quietude at the end of your day. Or maybe you want to take three intentional deep breaths when you wake up each morning. And once you fold these little things, these little bite size activities, into your day, then you might find more space for even greater gestures of quietude. Once you get in a rhythm of that, maybe you already have some small gestures of quietude. Once you get in a rhythm of that, maybe you already have some small gestures of quietude and you're ready to expand on that.

Speaker 1:

And if that is something you want more of, I have great news for you, because we have something coming this fall that is right down this alley and it's called our Peaceful Pathways Seasonal Series. So this is a collaboration with Petal and Pink Mental Wellness Boutique. So it's our newest collaboration and it's called Peaceful Pathways Seasonal Series. So you're going to imagine yourself receiving a box each season and in the box there are treasures that are cozy and carefully chosen to match the mood of the moment and what's also inside the box. This is what makes us different from any other type of subscription box you might have gotten. Tucked inside is a link to five guided meditations, and these guided meditations are very immersive. You really get to participate in an experience while you're listening. You don't have to have any special skills, it doesn't take a ton of time, but you get to step away from stress and into a moment of peace. So the meditations are coming from Create Harmony, and Petal and Pink will supply all of the other cozy items, and these have been carefully curated, specially selected just for you to reinforce your calm and your peace and all the things that you find in these meditations.

Speaker 1:

So our theme for our fall box, which we're starting, is cozy time. So you're gonna have meditations inspired by a warm cup of tea or time by the fire baking bread. It's the perfect way to treat yourself to some self-care and it's a wonderful gift idea. But not just cozy time. You won't just receive cozy time. You're also going to receive three more boxes to follow, each for one season of the year. So when you get to spring, spring, you'll get a new box and it'll be new, new treasures and new meditations that will match and be inspiring and refreshing. So we're going to start the ordering process for all of these cozy goodies.

Speaker 1:

On November 1st you can get a head start on your holiday shopping. You can buy one for everyone on your list this year. So you want to mark your calendars that this is coming November 1st. We're gonna have a limited quantity and you definitely don't want to miss out.

Speaker 1:

Now for our closing today we're gonna do a mindful moment and this is going to be a little bit of a start down the road of quietude. It's this mindful moment is inspired by the book breath as prayer by Jennifer Tucker. So this breath prayer, this book is all filled with different types of breath prayers and this breath prayer is called God Calms your Anxious Heart, and it's based on Psalm 107, verses 28 and 29. Okay, then they cried out to the Lord in their trouble and he brought them out of the distress. He stilled the storm to a whisper and the waves of the sea were hushed. So that's the image that we're using today.

Speaker 1:

So we're going to inhale and you still the storms to a whisper and exhale. You hush the waves out of the sea. So let's try it again. You inhale and still the storms to a whisper and you exhale hush the waves out of the sea. Let's try one more time. You still the storms to a whisper and you exhale, hush the waves out of the sea. So that's just a little moment of quietude together here today. But you can continue to do that throughout the day. If you see yourself leaning a little bit towards agitation, just think back, still the storms to a whisper and wash the waves out to sea when you inhale and exhale. So you can do that over and over again as many times as you need throughout your day. So thanks so much for being present here today and showing up. I know spending some time focused on quietude is going to be a blessing for your soul. And don't forget to mark your calendars for our seasonal series that comes up in November, and hope you'll join us again next week. And until next time, peace.

Speaker 2:

Thank you.

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Sally Burlington

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