A Beginning in Stillness

There are seasons of life when motion becomes a kind of survival—when the body keeps going long after the heart has grown tired. I’ve lived many of those seasons. I’ve pushed through storms, responsibilities, grief, and the relentless hum of everyday expectations. And yet, it was not in the moving that I found myself again…it was in the stillness.

Stillness is rarely comfortable at first. It asks us to unclench hands that have been holding too much for too long. It asks us to listen to the parts of ourselves we’ve ignored. It asks us to see what remains when everything else goes quiet. And it asks us, gently but insistently, to learn how to breathe again—slowly, deeply, with even breaths that don’t race ahead of our bodies. Because when you’re not at peace, your breathing tells on you. Stillness teaches you to return to yourself one breath at a time.

It also teaches us this: life changes us. Experiences shape us, stretch us, soften us, and sometimes break us open. But even in those changes—especially in those changes—we are still here. Different, yes. Marked by what we’ve lived through, yes. But still important. Still worthy. Still becoming.

The day this reflection began was ordinary in every outward way—a shoreline, a soft wind, the kind of morning that doesn’t rush you. But something shifted. The world around me seemed to exhale, and without realizing it, I exhaled with it. I stood long enough to feel my heartbeat settle back into its rightful rhythm. I remembered what it felt like to belong in my own body again, even for a moment.

That’s the quiet miracle of stillness. It doesn’t demand transformation. It doesn’t require perfect clarity. It simply invites us to notice what is true. To stand with ourselves instead of running from ourselves. To acknowledge the parts of us that have survived storms we never speak of.

And maybe that’s the real beginning—not the storm, not the healing, but the very moment we stop long enough to recognize that we are still here. Changed, yes. But here. Breathing deeply. Learning gently. Becoming more whole than we ever expected to be.

May your own stillness meet you kindly,

Renda