cultivating stillness
Your voice needs stillness to be heard.
👆🏻 This is the paradox I've witnessed countless times in both my coaching practice and my own life: the more we chase our ideas, our thoughts, our truths —a.k.a. The Voice That Knows, the more it seems to elude us. Yet when we finally surrender to stillness, it emerges effortlessly—as if it has been waiting there all along (psst: it has been!).
I think for so many of us, it can be painfully difficult to create stillness because of how much there is to do. When we finally sit still and feel that space around us, we start to panic. That open space feels like wasted opportunity—something to be filled immediately with productivity, with action, with noise. We have a resistance to rest.
We've been conditioned to believe that empty space needs filling.
That silence needs sound.
That stillness equals stagnation.
But what if the opposite is true?
In my one-on-one coaching work, I've noticed something fascinating: the most profound breakthroughs rarely happen during our sessions. Instead, they emerge from the space in between—from the stillness that follows.
I plant seeds during our time together, and then the seeds use the space and silence to take root. When we force ideas to bloom prematurely, what emerges isn't truly ours. We end up grabbing at external solutions instead of allowing space to feel our internal world and let movement and creativity flow from that deep, authentic place.
Here's what I've found works for clients who resist slowing down:
Make the environment inviting. Put on gentle music. Light a candle. Use your favorite essential oil in a diffuser. When we create intention around stillness, it feels like we are "doing something," which tricks our mind into stepping into this space with more ease.
Honour the stillness threshold. Like pushing through the first uncomfortable minutes at the gym, we need to cross a threshold with stillness before it becomes natural. Our bodies and minds need to trust that we are meant to be in that space—that our voice and wisdom will respond if given time.
Create a receptacle for what emerges. Have a voice recorder ready. Open a blank document. Keep a notebook nearby. Whatever surfaces—whether written words, spoken thoughts, or just the sensation of your own breathing—we may want to document it, or not.
Commit to the time, not the output. Even if your voice memo is filled with 90% silence, even if your page only contains one sentence or two words, honor the time you've set aside. Don't force anything. Simply listen and receive what comes out of that space.
My Personal Stillness Practice
I regularly practice this on my deck with a cup of tea and my voice recorder. I just sit and have a conversation with myself. There are no rules about what needs to happen during this time.
Often, nothing profound emerges immediately. There's a lot of space in the recording—silence that I don't worry about filling. Sometimes it feels like I'm dragging myself along, similar to those first reluctant minutes of exercise.
But eventually, something shifts. The movement becomes easier. Unexpected insights surface—words I didn't know I needed to hear, wisdom I didn't realize I possessed.
This is why I love the gym metaphor for stillness practice. You don't feel like working out, but you commit to just five or ten minutes. By the time you reach that mark, you're in the flow and your body wants to continue rather than stop.
Why This Matters for Your Voice
When we don't take time for stillness, we risk setting our coordinates in the wrong direction. Even a slight miscalculation in our initial heading can lead us somewhere entirely different from where we intended to go. Stillness allows us to stop, drop, and connect. To stop, drop, and listen. So that we can lead and align with the truth we encounter within that space.
This practice touches everything—how you show up, what you choose, how you create, who you allow in your space.
Cultivating stillness is not just another self-care practice—it is THE foundation from which all authentic expression flows. I cannot emphasize this enough. In our noise-filled world, this is the medicine your voice is desperately craving. Trust me when I say this: creating space for stillness will transform everything about how you show up in your life and your creative work.
A Simple Invitation
Today, I invite you to create just five minutes of intentional stillness. Make it comfortable. Make it inviting. Have no expectations about what should emerge. Simply create the space, and then notice what happens—not just during those five minutes, but in the hours and days that follow. (or, come join me in Voice to Vision, where we cultivate this space every Sunday together via Zoom… the collective stillness adds another dimension of power for this practice)
Your voice doesn't always need to be externalized. Sometimes the messages are in the silence itself. The true voice—your authentic self—requires both expression and reception. Both speaking and listening. Both sound and silence.