When someone says “the art” of something I know most people’s minds immediately think of words like skill, perfection, practice, and while all those words are true and do relate to art, the first word that comes to my mind is beauty. So even though this blog is titled “the art of stillness and softness”, it can be translated as “the beauty of stillness and softness.”
When I found out back in 2020 that I had a sexual pain disorder called vaginismus, I had so many questions. Questions like, “how did I develop this?”, “how do I reverse this?”, and “will I ever recover from this?” Then I started to question myself and my womanhood. I remember my first session of physical therapy. My physical therapist literally assigned me yoga poses to practice everyday. At first I thought it was so pointless. But I quickly learned that such a small practice as holding poses and breathing, was actually me learning to meditate and connect with myself, which ultimately allowed me to become one with my body. On top of those physical exercises, my physical therapist also assigned me prompts such as, “write down 3 things you like about your vagina.” These prompts taught me that your body responds better when you speak kindly to it.
I thought that healing my vaginismus would be this very long and painful process. I thought it would require skills, perfection, and practice, but healing was actually very beautiful. Learning my body and speaking only kind words to myself healed more than my vaginismus. It allowed me to see the true beauty behind being still and learning to be soft.
When you learn to be still, your entire life will change. We are so busy with work, school, motherhood, and the list goes on. It can be so easy to forget to be still and listen to your body. But when you take the time to be still and reflect, it will help you feel more connected and grounded. The art of softness is important because your words and actions have so much power. For example, I know that at times sitting with myself and reflecting can be difficult because I feel like I have nothing positive to say. That is where the softness comes in. Your body is a temple, and it houses all of your vital organs to keep you alive and regulated. There is no reason we should be speaking negatively to ourselves when our body does so much for us. My rule of thumb is, if you wouldn’t talk to your children or grandparents like that, then you definitely shouldn’t be saying it about yourself.
I challenge all of you to implement this exercise my therapist taught me: When you wake up in the morning, do a scan of your entire body from head to toe. Check in with your body and see if there are any aches and pain. Be extra kind to the parts of your body that are in pain and let your body know that everything is okay. The next step is to imagine you are in your favorite peaceful place. Now imagine a silver lock box and pour all of your worries for the day (work assignments, family drama, tests, etc.) into the box. Imagine yourself locking all of those worries into the box, and imagine it floating away. This exercise not only teaches you to master the art of stillness by focusing on yourself in the morning with no distractions , but locking your worries into a box, and imagining them floating away (even if it is only for 20 minutes in the morning), teaches you the art of softness as you are building a habit of not starting the day with a million and one worries, and negative thoughts.
