It is 5:45am on an island in warm Croatia, and I walk barefooted down the stone steps of my simple yoga hotel, down on to the concrete pier by the water’s edge. The rooster crows as the sunrise, still hiding behind the mountains, slowly lights up the sky, moments before the rays burst out from over the ridge signaling a new day is here. No street lights, no clocks, no rush hour traffic intensifying as the day progresses. Just nature doing what it always did. This feels so natural, yet so unbelievably far away from how my mornings usually start at home…
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Veli Iz in Croatia is a tiny island west of the city of Zadar. Apart from a post office, a yoga hotel, two kiosks, and a few cafes/restaurants , there is nothing really here. But there is crystal-clear blue waters, fresh figs on trees, peace and wonderful quiet. The vast majority of the people visiting the island are either Croatians on holiday, or visitors coming to the hotel for yoga and meditation.
The hotel has limited wifi connection (it only works partially in the reception area). And while this does lead to some occasional frustration at not being ‘connected’ at all times, it invites me to simply connect less to the world outside, and more to the world where I actually am.
Peace within, peace without
Mindfulness teaches us that you can turn any space and situation into a meditation by simply being present in the moment. Not trying to change it or judge it in any way, simply being present to whatever is. For many people living in modernized societies, learning to master mindfulness, may be the only opportunity to experience any peace on a regular basis, because our environments are becoming so noisy and full of activities.
Training the ability to find peace within is surely a precious skill for us modern beings in a world that is fast becoming busier and more overpopulated. However, I believe that for health, we humans need to experience peace in our external environment once in a while also.
The preciousness of peace, and particularly of silence, appears so much more clear now that it has become so difficult to find. Thankfully humans have the gift of adaptation, and most of us don’t even realize just how disturbing our everyday environments often are, because we have become so used to tuning out all the sensory commotion. When we move to the city from a small town, this ability becomes apparent.
Most of us don’t even realize just how disturbing our everyday environments are, because we have become used to tuning out to all the sensory commotion.
Stress and sensitivity
Despite this ability to adapt to strong changes in our environment, our nervous system still needs to process all the sensory experiences we have. And that requires energy. In my daily work as a physiotherapist I encounter many individuals who are exhausted and stressed. Once the nervous system becomes burdened by long-term stress, the ability to adapt at will can become greatly challenged, and it will take less and less to trigger the fight/flight survival response.
Becoming depleted and stressed rarely boils down to one simple origin. Often a multitude of factors are to blame. Repeated exposure to loud noises, forced interactions with many people, more tasks than you can manage, emotional upheaval, and a lack of stress management skills are important factors.
(Check out my blog post The Downside of Busy.)
Silence heals
Simply being in a peaceful, silent environment facilitates the process of inner peace, as well as the ability to meditate, with the mind not getting constantly distracted and the attention pulled in a thousand directions.
These are not just my words. Vietnamese monk, and author of The Miracle of Mindfulness, Thich Nhat Hanh, states in his book, that it is far easier for a monk in the middle of nowhere in Tibet surrounded mainly by nature, to meditate, than it is for someone submersed in modern living with all its bells and whistles.
In many Buddhist traditions monks tend to eat in complete silence. This I have experienced many times as part of my yoga teacher trainings, and it is a wonderful experience. Yet, it is a big contrast to an average work-day in the lunch room at work with lots of people having multiple conversations at the same time. People often resist the idea of being silent during meals, and I believe that this boils down to cultural conditioning. Although, research tells us, that our nervous systems love silence during eating, because the digestion process requires a calm inner state in order for it to work optimally. It does not take many loud conversations while eating to stress out your digestion, and most people living in modernised societies are simply not aware of this.
(Check out 5 Tools to Reduce the Effects of Stress Now)
Simply being in a peaceful environment facilitates the process of inner peace.
Modern minds usually haven’t learned to meditate, or to practice mindfulness, nor are we taught that the mind needs cleansing just as much as the body. Judging from World Health Organisation statistics, modern life is not as healthy as we thought it would be. The fact is that people living the modern life, often find themselves in over-stimulated environments, in cities surrounded my man-made structures, far away from nature, working daily in noisy open-plan offices with plenty of digital distractions to keep their minds racing.
Living the modern life is supposed to be easier, but often it means living in the most challenging surroundings. The truth is that modern industrialized environments are most often not peaceful, and we most often don’t have the skills to deal with that situation on a regular basis.
OM Shanti Shanti Shanti
I teach mindfulness as part of my yoga, and I believe it to be a wonderful and very necessary practice today. But let us not forget to cherish peaceful environments whenever and where ever we can. Let’s work on cultivating more pockets of peace for everyone, insisting on its importance for health and well-being. We don’t have to allow ourselves to be constantly swamped in a myriad of digital sounds, disturbances and mindless compulsions. We can create more spaces that cultivate silence and promote peace, but we must first be conscious of what is stealing the peace in the first place. The ability to retreat to a peaceful space once in a while, should be available to everyone.
Conscious health everyone,
Kirsten Louise