Speaker 1: Us studious. Welcome to the Stillness Journal. I'm Maya, and
Speaker 1: today I want to invite you into a quiet conversation
Speaker 1: with a part of you that already knows you. Know
Speaker 1: that feeling, the one that arrives before the thought, the
Speaker 1: soft pool in your chest when something is right, the
Speaker 1: tightening in your stomach when something is not. We have
Speaker 1: been trained to override it, to reason our way through,
Speaker 1: to ask for permission from outside. But there is a
Speaker 1: knowing underneath all of that reasoning. It does not need proof,
Speaker 1: It does not need to be loud. It is patient.
Speaker 1: It has been with you your whole life. Take a
Speaker 1: moment to settle in. Let your body find a place
Speaker 1: of rest, Let your hands be soft, let your eyes
Speaker 1: be gentle or close. And as we begin, I want
Speaker 1: you to do something simple. I want you to bring
Speaker 1: your attention to your chest, not to your thoughts about
Speaker 1: your chest, to the actual physical feeling of being here,
Speaker 1: the rise and fall, the quiet rhythm, the warmth or
Speaker 1: coolness that is there right now. This is the place
Speaker 1: where the heart speaks, not the heart that pumps blood,
Speaker 1: the other heart, the one that is sometimes called the
Speaker 1: inner teacher, the one that has been quietly whispering to
Speaker 1: you through every season of your life. You have heard
Speaker 1: this voice before. Maybe you heard it as a child,
Speaker 1: before anyone told you to doubt what you found. Maybe
Speaker 1: you hear it now in the moments just before sleep,
Speaker 1: when the world is finally quiet enough to listen. It
Speaker 1: does not speak in sentences. It speaks in feelings, in yeses,
Speaker 1: and knows that arrive in your body before your mind
Speaker 1: can name them thirty seconds. There is a kind of
Speaker 1: knowing that does not come from study. It comes from presence.
Speaker 1: It comes from being still long enough than the noise setters,
Speaker 1: and what is left is what was always there. The
Speaker 1: ancients called this listening to the still small voice. Modern
Speaker 1: psychology might call it interroception, the felt sense of what
Speaker 1: is true. But the name does not matter. What matters
Speaker 1: is that you learn to trust it. The trouble is,
Speaker 1: we live in a world that rewards the loud voice,
Speaker 1: the voice that argues, the voice that performs, the voice
Speaker 1: that turns everything into a debate to be one, and
Speaker 1: so the quiet one gets pushed to the back. We
Speaker 1: learn to second guests. We learn to ask ten people
Speaker 1: their view. We learn to gather evidence before we allow
Speaker 1: ourselves to feel. But here is what I want you
Speaker 1: to consider. Every important decision you have ever made that
Speaker 1: you still feel at peace with, there was a moment
Speaker 1: where you already knew, before the spreadsheet, before the conversation,
Speaker 1: before the research, there was a quiet yes or a
Speaker 1: quite no, and then everything else either confirmed it or
Speaker 1: you argued yourself out of it. I noticed this often
Speaker 1: the people who chose the partner they are still with
Speaker 1: there was a moment before any of the reasons where
Speaker 1: they simply knew. The people who left a job that
Speaker 1: was killing them slowly, there was a moment before any
Speaker 1: of the logic where they knew it was time. The
Speaker 1: people who forgave someone or did not, there was a
Speaker 1: moment where the body told them what was true, and
Speaker 1: they either listened or they did not. The wisdom is
Speaker 1: not in the reasoning. The wisdom is in the listening.
Speaker 1: And the listening is not something you do with your ears.
Speaker 1: It is something you do with your whole body, with
Speaker 1: your breath, with your chest, with the quiet place inside
Speaker 1: you that knows before you do so. Today I want
Speaker 1: us to practice something simple. I want us to practice listening,
Speaker 1: not listening to me, to the part of you that
Speaker 1: already knows what is true for you. We will do
Speaker 1: this by paying attention to the body, because the body
Speaker 1: has not learned to lie the way the mind has.
Speaker 1: Bring your attention again to your chest. Notice what is there?
Speaker 1: Notice the quality of the bread, Notice the temperature, Notice
Speaker 1: any tightness or openness. There is no right answer, There
Speaker 1: is only what is and what is this information? Now,
Speaker 1: bring to mind a small decision you are facing, nothing
Speaker 1: too big. Maybe it is what to have for dinner.
Speaker 1: Maybe it is whether to send a message. Maybe it
Speaker 1: is a small choice about your day. Hold it in
Speaker 1: your awareness, without trying to solve it. Just hold it now.
Speaker 1: Notice what happens in your body. Do you feel a
Speaker 1: leaning toward, a pulling away, a neutrality. The body is
Speaker 1: giving you information, not as a rule, not as a command,
Speaker 1: just as a signal. You do not have to obey it,
Speaker 1: but it is worth hearing. This is what inner wisdom
Speaker 1: feels like in practice. It is not dramatic. It does
Speaker 1: not come with thunder. It is small, It is quiet.
Speaker 1: It is the kind of knowing that gets louder the
Speaker 1: more you listen, and it gets quieter the more you
Speaker 1: ignore it. So the practice is to listen again and
Speaker 1: again to keep the channel open. The mind will try
Speaker 1: to come in. The mind will say, but what about this?
Speaker 1: And what about that? And what if I am wrong?
Speaker 1: The mind is doing its job. The mind is trying
Speaker 1: to protect you. Let it do its job, but do
Speaker 1: not confuse its voice for the deeper one. The deeper
Speaker 1: one does not argue. It simply is. I find this
Speaker 1: to be one of the most important distinctions we can make.
Speaker 1: The mind is a wonderful tool. The mind helps us
Speaker 1: navigate the world. The mind helps us plan and remember
Speaker 1: and solve. But the mind is not the source of wisdom.
Speaker 1: The mind is a tool for using wisdom. The source
Speaker 1: of wisdom is quieter and older, and more patient than
Speaker 1: any thought. There is a beautiful teaching that says, when
Speaker 1: you do not know what to do, do nothing until
Speaker 1: you do know, not as a way of avoiding, as
Speaker 1: a way of listening. When the action is not yet clear,
Speaker 1: It is because the inner teacher has not yet spoken.
Speaker 1: And the inner teacher is not slow, It is precise.
Speaker 1: It waits until it has something to say that is
Speaker 1: worth saying. So much of our suffering comes from acting
Speaker 1: before we have heard. We send the message we wish
Speaker 1: we had not sent. We say yes, we wish we
Speaker 1: had said no to. We commit to the thing we
Speaker 1: had a quiet know about from the beginning, not because
Speaker 1: we are bad at decisions, because we have not been
Speaker 1: taught to listen, because we have been taught that knowing
Speaker 1: comes from the head, when it actually comes from the
Speaker 1: whole body. I want to offer you a practice for
Speaker 1: the day's ahead. Three times a day, in a moment
Speaker 1: of quiet, ask your body what is true for me
Speaker 1: right now, Not what should be true, what is true?
Speaker 1: And notice what arrives a feeling, a word, a sensation.
Speaker 1: It does not have to be eloquent, It just has
Speaker 1: to be honest. You might try it in the morning,
Speaker 1: before the day has taken over, just a few minutes
Speaker 1: sitting with the question. You might try it at lunch,
Speaker 1: when the morning has settled and you can hear yourself again.
Speaker 1: You might try it at night, when the day is
Speaker 1: done and the quiet returns. Three times, three small listenings.
Speaker 1: That is all it takes to begin. Over time, you
Speaker 1: will find that this channel gets clearer, The quiet voice
Speaker 1: gets a little louder, the knowing gets a little quicker,
Speaker 1: not because you are doing anything special, but because you
Speaker 1: are no longer drowning it out. You are no longer
Speaker 1: replacing it with the noise of everyone else's opinion. You
Speaker 1: are letting it speak. This is not a small thing.
Speaker 1: To trust your own knowing in a world that wants
Speaker 1: you to outsource your knowing is a radical act. It
Speaker 1: is a quiet rebellion. It is the way you come
Speaker 1: home to yourself, and coming home to yourself is the
Speaker 1: only foundation from which a life can be built that
Speaker 1: actually fits. We live in an age of infinite advice.
Speaker 1: There is a podcast for every question, a book for
Speaker 1: every problem, a guru for every doubt, and all of
Speaker 1: that can be useful, but none of it can replace
Speaker 1: to knowing du lis in sayu. None of it can
Speaker 1: be more honest with you than you are with yourself.
Speaker 1: The outer voices can illuminate, but they cannot substitute the
Speaker 1: inner knowing is the only one that knows your particular path,
Speaker 1: your particular timing, your particular way of being in the world.
Speaker 1: You are not here to be a copy of someone
Speaker 1: else's path. You are not here to live out someone
Speaker 1: else's map. You are here to listen and to follow
Speaker 1: what you hear, even when it is inconvenient, even when
Speaker 1: it does not make sense to anyone else. Even when
Speaker 1: the mind is screaming that you are being foolish, the
Speaker 1: heart knows trust it. I know this is easier said
Speaker 1: than done. I know there are days when the heart
Speaker 1: feels silent, when the body feels numb, when the noise
Speaker 1: is so loud that you cannot soar through things, let
Speaker 1: alone feel. On those days, the practice is simply to
Speaker 1: come back, to not give up, to know that the
Speaker 1: silence is not absence. It is the inner teacher waiting
Speaker 1: for you to be still enough to hear. And till
Speaker 1: the days when the heart does speak. When you feel
Speaker 1: the pull or the push, the yest or the no
Speaker 1: pay attention, write it down. If you need to tell
Speaker 1: someone you trust, take one small step in the direction
Speaker 1: of what you heard. You do not have to leap,
Speaker 1: You only have to move. The heart, once heard, will
Speaker 1: speak again and again until you have a whole inner
Speaker 1: library of knowing and you can navigate from that place.
Speaker 1: This is what it means to live from the inside out,
Speaker 1: not to ignore the world, not to reject advice, but
Speaker 1: to filter everything through the wisdom that is yours alone.
Speaker 1: To make your choices from the quiet place and let
Speaker 1: the loud world inform them, but not determine them. Let
Speaker 1: us rest here for a moment. Bring your attention back
Speaker 1: to the breath, to the chest, to the place where
Speaker 1: the heart speaks. Let the practice settle. You do not
Speaker 1: have to remember anything, You do not have to do anything.
Speaker 1: You only have to know that this channel exists and
Speaker 1: that you can return to it whenever you need, when
Speaker 1: you are ready. Gently open your eyes, wiggle your fingers,
Speaker 1: feel the surface beneath you, take a sip of water
Speaker 1: if you have it, and as you move back into
Speaker 1: your day, carry this with you. The knowing is here,
Speaker 1: It has always been here, and the more you trust it,
Speaker 1: the louder it becomes. The next time you face a decision,
Speaker 1: big or small, before you ask anyone else, ask your self.
Speaker 1: Notice what arrives. Notice the body, Notice the breath, Notice
Speaker 1: the quiet yes or quiet no. That is your wisdom speaking,
Speaker 1: That is your inner teacher. That is the part of
Speaker 1: you that has been with you your whole life and
Speaker 1: will be with you for the whole life to come.
Speaker 1: Thank you for being here, Thank you for listening, and
Speaker 1: thank you for choosing, even for these few minutes, to
Speaker 1: be still enough to hear what your own heart has
Speaker 1: been trying to say. Until next time, be gentle with yourself.
Speaker 1: The wisdom you are looking for is not out there.
Speaker 1: It has been in here all along. One minute,