Follow the Simplicity Dynamic

...to thrive in the hurricane of today's everyday world

The complexity of the world seems to be on hyper-drive lately! In fact, to some it may even feel as if the whole world might be spinning out of control, about to fling us into an abyss as it implodes. Hurricane Ian, which tore through my community a few months ago, was a good metaphor in the sense that the record-strength storm brewed slowly over time, built momentum out of our sight, then suddenly struck with frightening unpredictability, and hovered menacingly for a nearly unbearable stretch of time while it wreaked havoc. Eventually, it gave way to blessedly calm, clear blue skies, friendly sunshine, and a remarkably fresh new breeze.

It’s as if we are collectively experiencing a sort of ‘global hurricane,’ a force which has long been building momentum, a bit out of sight, and has now slammed ashore and been hovering over us while ravaging a kind of wild and unprecedented destruction these last three or four unrecognizable years of our lives. With no ‘clearing of the skies’ in sight yet (keep the faith, for it WILL come!), we all need to build new ‘muscles’ for stamina, and hone our skills for enduring this very challenging, drawn-out ‘moment’ with grace and poise.

The idealist in me has forever been striving to arrive at a perfection in simplicity, though it somehow remains always just out of reach. Simply put, our world is not simple! Through my thwarted efforts to ‘make it simple,’ or at least simple for me, I’ve learned some strategies for meeting the complexity of reality with calm and resilience, while honoring the core message in my yearning for simplicity.

I remember an image from a book about yoga, in which the concept of ‘dynamic stillness’ was presented as being like the old-fashioned toy top: when thrown perfectly, it spins so fast that it appears to be still. The book went on to describe how we sometimes fear stillness because we equate it with ‘not doing anything,’ or ‘not being enough,’ and in today’s world which emphasizes busyness and external productivity, we fear slowing down to what might appear to be a standstill. We also might stay busy to distract ourselves from the often unconscious fear that we will be confronted with our ‘inner demons’ if we allow ourselves to enter that stillness.

What if I could be like the inner core of that spinning top, I thought. It would be akin to being the calm, clear eye of a hurricane. The chaos and complexity of the world could spin all around me, yet I would remain tranquil, and connected to divine wisdom and beauty. In ‘spiritual language,’ this vantage point is often known as ‘the witness seat.’ More than anything else, inhabiting this perspective has been my personal salvation, and has mostly enabled me to engage with the chaotic world without tipping over too far. Not that I am ‘perfectly poised’ all the time(!), but I have learned how to return to that place of natural equanimity whenever I start gyrating off-center (like the top when it slows down just enough to lose the precise degree of centrifugal force required to keep it in its perfectly balanced spin, and it flies out of control).

I think of it as ‘the simplicity dynamic.’ There is no such thing as simplicity without complexity, stillness without movement, death without life. It’s a conscious choice to reside in a space of dynamic stillness - alert, awake, aware, and calm; fully present and yet unattached - and I think it’s a healthy strategy for meeting life calmly and with joy, in all of its inevitable drama and adversity. It’s not an escape plan, but rather a way to engage wisely, and from a place of connection to simple truths. It seems that humans can’t get enough of the excitement and complexity of drama, while paradoxically we yearn for an easy simplicity. Maybe it’s the dynamic yin-yang of human life.

Instead of feeling a responsibility to fix, change, solve, control, or produce, what if we were to let ourselves experience the life around us by observing it from a fully embodied, calm presence, and by simply responding from a place of ‘what would love do?' moment by moment without attachment to the outcome of our input. I’ve explored this - a lot - and something I’ve found is that even when choosing to reside in my calm center, my attention moves back and forth between a narrow or pointed focus, and a more open or diffuse awareness. Imagine the difference between listening intently to the content of what a friend is saying to you, or receiving the energy being conveyed by them (without feeling responsible to do anything with it), vs. being alert and aware of a whole scene all around you, yet without engaging your attention directly or specifically.

Both forms of attention are useful and necessary, and both can happen from a place of dynamic stillness. I find that after a period of narrow focus, it is regenerative to consciously follow with a restful period of open awareness. Whenever I feel exhausted or tense, I know it is because I have slipped out of the band of frequency required for dynamic stillness, and I’ve become like the top that suddenly splays out all over the table chaotically when it loses the vibration of its upright spin. Or, it’s like I’ve been sucked from the calm center at the eye of the hurricane, into the wild and windy outer part of it.

Does drama make you feel engaged and alive? Or, if you are really honest, does it ultimately leave you feeling disconnected and depleted? I am reminded of how I describe coffee-drinking in my natural health presentations. The prevailing myth is that coffee gives us energy. In reality, a calorie is a unit of energy, and a cup of black coffee has zero calories. Some of the properties in the coffee bean are stimulants however, and/or ‘excito-toxins.’ They actually draw on the body’s own nervous system’s energetic reserves - imagine your immune system rising up to deal with the irritant toxin, and bringing with it a feeling of a temporary surge of energy. The net result, eventually, is depletion and the ‘need’ for more coffee.

Do you feel more worthy when you are really busy, multi-tasking and rushing around? Is it hard for you to justify slowing down enough each day to be truly present and self-aware? Might your perspective shift if you learned to see stillness as a dynamic, powerful and empowered place to position yourself, in mind and heart? This has been a real game-changer for me, and I am only just beginning to tap into the full power of it.

Years ago, I invented a phrase to help me overcome my fear that slowing down and simplifying my point of attention might take away or somehow negate some of my passion and enthusiasm for life. As I meditated on this fear of mine, these words came into my mind: ‘tranquil passion,’ and then, ‘passionate tranquility.’ And I loved the way this felt in my body! It felt like an honoring of a deeply pleasurable and resonant, sustainably true passion…like the passion that is simply, naturally, profoundly ME. I keep this powerful little personal manta close to my heart, and I let it guide me. I hope it might be helpful for you, too.

Tranquil passion is stillness in motion; it is a deeply alive and inspired presence. It is calm, relaxed, spacious, and full of love. It is never frenetic or pressured. It has nothing to prove. It just IS. Like the spinning top, it exists as a harmonically balanced, dynamically in motion, gracefully poised coherence that feels like the beautiful resonance of life itself. It possesses a magical simplicity, and it can be like a reference point from which to look out on the world with mind and heart fully connected - alert, awake, aware, spacious, inspired, relaxed, loving, compassionate, and open to the field of possibility.