What Anchors You?

 

What anchors you when the distractions and demands of everyday life pull you in different directions?

The more common term used today is ‘grounded’. What keeps you grounded? I think I prefer the term ‘anchored’. Like an anchor that keeps a ship on course, preventing it from floating away, buffeted by waves.

We may have passions, interests, and distractions, even those that give us enormous pleasure, like books, movies and sports; lunches and dinners with friends; tennis and pickle ball matches, birthday parties and brunches. But when all that is done, what returns us to the solidity of who we are inside?

For me, one of those things is walking. Walking anchors me, returns me to who I am after hours of absorbing external input. I know when I’m feeling a bit off kilter and in need of a walk. Walking is not a form of exercise. It’s an act of contemplation, a ritual of communing with nature and self.

Quiet mornings are another. The first hour or so after waking is sacred. No scrolling social media, no television or newsfeeds. Just silence, coffee, journal. If there is any music to be played, it will be soft and soothing, melodies without words. All external input is paused or muted.

We are urged to keep following our passions, doing, producing, seeking purpose and pleasure, engaging. And all these things, taken in proportion to our needs, can indeed benefit us. Can teach us and entertain us and connect us with new people in new ways. Can stretch us and satisfy our curiosity. But if we engage in an endless loop of these, without pausing for reflection on what the experiences mean to us, then they ultimately become distractions. Distractions from digging deeper within ourselves.

I was writing this and then paused (yes, distracted myself) to read this post from Helen of Ageless Possibilities. She writes about stillness versus silence, and which are you drawn to? What matters more? I haven’t thought of it in terms of two distinct meanings before. They’ve overlapped in my mind:  silence, stillness. 

I think one begets the other. The silence of my early morning begets stillness within me. A walk along a path in silent woods does the same. It stills my mind, not completely, but enough that I can hear myself think again, after the chatter of the external world.

Stillness. Silence. Anchoring. Grounding. Words describing ways that take us to the root of who we are.

"Maybe you are searching among the branches for what only appears in the roots."

- Rumi.