You finally have ten minutes to yourself.
Nobody needs anything. Nothing is happening.
And almost immediately, you reach for your phone.
I mean, what else are you supposed to do?
Sit there?
Apparently.
But have you ever noticed how strange that can feel?
Waiting in the car without scrolling. Sitting on the couch without turning something on. Walking without listening to anything. Drinking coffee without simultaneously checking email, making a list or mentally reorganizing the rest of your day.
Quiet can feel almost... inefficient.
I think that's part of why stillness has been hard for me.
I'm good at movement. Give me something to do and I'm comfortable. A problem to solve? Great. A plan to make? Even better.
But nothing?
What exactly am I supposed to accomplish with nothing?
And maybe that's the point.
I used to think pausing was what happened after the important things were done. You work first. Handle everything. Finish the list.
Then you can stop.
Except, as we've established, the list does not end.
So neither does the movement.
When moving becomes reacting
When you're moving all the time, something subtle starts happening.
You get really good at responding to whatever is loudest—the email, the text, the thing somebody needs, the problem that popped up, the notification, the thought that suddenly feels urgent because you remembered it while brushing your teeth.
You can spend an entire day being incredibly productive without ever asking whether any of what you did was what actually mattered most.
I've done that.
I've finished a day exhausted and thought, What did I even do today?
A lot, technically.
But was I intentional?
Different question.
And I think there's another reason we resist stillness.
Sometimes quiet lets things catch up with us.
The conversation that bothered you more than you admitted. The fact that you're tired. The decision you've been avoiding. The feeling you can keep outrunning as long as there's another task, another show, another scroll, another something.
Stillness doesn't create those things.
It just makes them easier to hear.
And that's not always pleasant.
Which is probably why reaching for my phone can feel much more appealing than sitting alone with my own thoughts.
But I've also noticed that some of my clearest moments don't happen while I'm trying to solve something. They happen in the spaces where I finally stop trying: on a walk, in the shower, driving without filling every second with something to listen to, sitting outside, or praying without immediately turning prayer into another list of things I need God to handle.
There's room for a thought to finish. Room to notice what I'm feeling before I react to it. Room to realize that the thing I've been treating as urgent actually isn't.
And, for me, room to hear God.
Psalm 46:10 says, “Be still, and know that I am God.”
Be still.
Not figure everything out first and then be still. Not finish everything and then be still. Not become so efficient that you finally earn the right to be still.
Just be still.
I find that both comforting and mildly inconvenient.
Because I would very much like clarity to arrive while I continue moving at full speed.
Sometimes it does.
But sometimes I think I keep asking God for direction while filling every available space where I might actually hear it.
You don't need an hour
I also don't want to turn stillness into another thing we're supposed to be good at.
You don't need the perfect morning routine. You don't need thirty minutes of meditation, a journal, a candle and a sunrise.
Unless you like all of that. Then have at it.
Maybe it's two minutes in the car before you walk into the house. Maybe you leave the phone inside while you sit outside for a few minutes. Maybe you take the walk without the podcast.
Yes, I realize the irony of telling you that on a blog connected to a podcast.
We'll survive.
The point isn't how long you stop. It's whether you ever give yourself enough quiet to notice what all the movement has been drowning out.
Because pausing isn't the opposite of progress.
Sometimes it's how you notice you've been running really efficiently in the wrong direction.
So the next time you get one of those rare little pockets where nothing is demanding your attention, notice what you do with it.
Do you immediately fill it?
And if you do, what might happen if you didn't?
Maybe you don't need to solve anything in the silence.
Maybe you just need to stay there long enough to hear what's been trying to get your attention.
Want to keep going with this conversation?
🎧 Listen to Episode 27: How Stillness Rewires the Brain and Brings Us Back to Purpose →