Ā
Authorās Introduction
How to be still when you have to keep goingāthatās what this book is about. It offers practical help in coping with the complicated and challenging world of the twenty-first century, which, as this book goes to press, is experiencing the global crisis of Covid-19. The pandemic came into an already struggling world that seemed to be losing its sense of fairness and decency, and was foundering about in search of leadership and unity.
This is, however, the world we actually live in; and we have no choice: we have to keep going, often now through unknown territory with no precedents to follow.
Thus, the art of Stopping: a process of accessing your own untapped inner wisdom and strength.
Stopping is doing nothing, as much as possible, with the purpose of becoming more awake, remembering who you are, and what you want. Its elements are Stillpoints, Stopovers, and Grinding Halts.
It is based on the belief that only if you have enough stillness and relaxation in your life are you able to access your ever-present inner wisdom and live the life you want, the life you choose to live. Otherwise that wisdom never finds its voice, is drowned out by distractions, and you forget what is truly important to you, only to live a default version of life that the unenlightened and wild forces of the world dictate. In other words, your life becomes a tragedy.
The title of this book is The Art of Stopping. Stopping is an art rather than a process or an activity. It is an art because it depends on your own creativity and style and it is based on accessing your own rich and wonderful inner life. Your experience of Stopping is your unique creation.
Stopping is compatible with all faiths or none, has no doctrines or politics, and is elegantly simple.
Welcome to your true life. Welcome to Stopping.
David Kundtz
Kensington, California
Part I
Stopping at the Speed of Light
Chapter 1
Facing the Mountain of Too Much
āThe dogmas of the quiet past, are inadequate to the stormy presentā¦As our case is new, so we must think anew and act anew.ā
āAbraham Lincoln
āItās too much,ā Mary Helen told me, āway too much. I just canāt deal with it all!ā Then she gave in to tears. Mary Helen, a successful and intelligent woman of thirty-eight, with a thriving career and a loving family, was close to the end of her rope.
Any observer in my counseling office that day would have seen that Mary Helen was in trouble: anxious, stressed, unfocused, irritable, unable to sleep, over-whelmed by life, and frustrated with her inability to manage it. She was angry at herself for her inability to cope and angry at me because I was the one to whom she had admitted it.
Although she was not aware of it, she did know what the problem was. It was the first thing she said: āItās too much.ā Upon further exploration, I found no underlying psychosis, no debilitating personality disorder, no family-of-origin dysfunction making a sudden midlife appearance, and no marriage about to crash on the rocks of incompatibility. Just that life had become too much.
Just that life had become too much? Hardly. Although the problem may seem well known, its vastness, depth, and long-term implications are still far from our conscious recognition. As with any hidden enemy, the contemporary problem of too much has its way with all of us. The damage is extremely severe and is sometimes even life threatening.
āBeing overwhelmed means that your life or work
is overpowering you.ā
āDaphne Michaels, writer
Do you sometimes feel like Mary Helen, overwhelmed or emotionally numbed by the pace and sheer quantity of life? Are you reluctantly prevented by your overloaded schedule from keeping your true priorities? Do you feel unable to do all the things you need to do and still have enough time for yourself? Have you come to realize that itās been too long since youāve enjoyed real, satisfying, and regular leisure? If so, youāve found the right book.
Do you have a desire to give more attention to the spiritual aspects of your lifeāyour truly important meanings and valuesābut have been frustrated in trying to transform that desire into a real practice? You will find nourishment here.
Or have you been frustrated with complicated, time-consuming, or impractical systems of meditation and slowing down that donāt really work for you? You can anticipate success through the suggestions found in the practice of Stopping.
Most of us in this hurry up, instant message/text/tweet/email world of immediate response are feeling the same sense of overload that my client Mary Helen felt. Indeed, the primary challenge to successful human life in the post-modern, post-millennial world is the challenge of too much: too much to do; too much to cope with; too much distraction; too much noise; too much demanding our attention; even, for many of us, too many opportunities and too many choices. Too much of everything for the time and energy available.
As we all have been noticing, at least on a subliminal level, the choices, demands, and complexities of life increase with every passing year. We have more to be, more to do, more places to go, and more things we want or need to accomplish. But the day remains twenty-four hours; the year, the same twelve months. The amount of activity constantly increases, but both the amount of time into which it must fit and the human energy with which it must be met, at best, remain the same.
Even though my client Mary Helen named her problemāāItās way too much. I just canāt deal with it allāāshe didnāt recognize it, first, as something serious and, second, as something new. Rather, she saw it just as one more of lifeās irritations that she should be able to deal with. This attitude reveals a key characteristic of the problem of too much: It passes itself off as something it is not. It says, āI am the same old problem you have been dealing with all your life, you can handle me.ā But the reality is that we canātāand believing we can, is part of the problem.
Why donāt we see it coming? The answer is as simple as it is clear: it is masquerading, and the purpose of a masquerade is to make you think itās something else. We are all like Mary Helen, saying to ourselves, āThis should not be a serious problem!ā Because it looks and feels like the same old problem of being just too busy and, in the past, we have been able to handle it with the coping strategies available to us, we miss its seriousness and power.
Itās time to rip off the mask from the problem of too much and reveal the seriously damaging monster that is destroying too many lives and too many families. Modern li...
