Last year I ran a successful year-long program called Powered by Hope. The intent of the program is to help you follow your creative dreams by powering your spirit with hope! I am glad the program was so well received. This year, in addition to new posts, I will also be sharing a few of the best posts from the program. This month, you will get four posts… the last four!

BE STILL

When my son was about five, I took him for a swimming lesson. I never learned how to swim and so I was determined to make sure that my kids did. He went into the water with his teacher and began to flap his arms wildly and, yes, panic. The teacher, kind as ever, kept saying, “Son, in order to make this work, you have to slow down. You have to learn to love the water and it will love you back. Just calm down and just be still. You have to learn to understand the water, understand how it behaves before you can control it. You have to calm down.”

Well, my son continued to struggle for a bit and the teacher continued to talk as calmly as he could. The lesson ended with a lot of little tears and a huge tantrum of never wanting to go in the water again.

When it was time for the next lesson, my son was adamant about not wanting to go. He hated the water, hated the teacher, he said. But I knew that it was fear that was taking over. We decided he would go and do nothing and just stand still in the water and if that was too much then we would leave.

As he got into the pool that day, I stood quietly and watched. The instructor stood with him and they both just stared into the water. There was so much noise around them as other kids and families played, swam and horsed around. Then the instructor turned to my son and said, “You know that you can lie on top of the water and if you are really still, you will float!”

My son stopped struggling and the instructor lay him flat on his back. The instructor had his arms under my son’s back. Once the little boy was floating, the instructor removed his hands and my son floated without flailing, without fighting, without failing.

There is power in stillness. Sometimes, when everything is fighting back, it is time to be quiet, to be still, to learn to float.

The stillness, I have learned, is where the magic happens.

The post Be Still appeared first on Monica Bhide | Recipes, Stories, Inspiration.