I often struggled with the idea of stillness when I make attempts to meditate because I confused stillness with a state of being frozen and parts in me interpreted stillness has the opposite to being hyperactive or controlling that state of hyper-activeness and mold it into a false sense of stillness. Which looks very much like fluffy my bunny when she realizes I am about to pick her up. I could read books and listen to masters and learn or be guided to what I have searched for my whole life but today I am inwardly guided to directly ask beyond the dimension of my body senses, for clarity on the topic of stillness and real safety. A week after asking a new window in my life shows up I look through the window and this is what I see. Stillness is, I am observing, not a state of doing and when I meditate and my intention is to do nothing or to bend what is over activated in my mind which appears as the opposite to being active, well meditating becomes something I do, something I control. Stillness is a lack in controlling, it is a state of being with all, a presence that hears sees thinks feels and observes all as one and surpasses that. Being still is a compassionate presence staring at all that there is and all that all that is not. The voice of judgment shows up and has an opinion about what ever is felt or what the thoughts are revealing. Stillness lovingly allows the voice of judgment or resentment to speak and deliver there intensity into the present moment. Strong feelings arise and instead of reacting or having an impulse to turn off the voice by cursing or seeking revenge at the objet or the person I will use externally to blame for what I find so hard to sit with stillness says “observe all that there is” simply observe. All that there is, is embraced and transforms into the awareness of being at peace with all and letting all moving me beyond the senses that are still connected to the walls that instinctively protects the body, moving deeper through those walls. Just sitting and being with, simply hearing the craziest most painful thoughts, gently sensing and allowing the most uncomfortable feelings. I would locate my attention on my head and today I tried expending a little more by paying attention to my head and also my belly my legs my whole body the sounds I heard inside the room and outside. Thoughts from a difficult past situation popped up and a part in me brushed it aside the part said “these thought have no space here they are way too disturbing and distracting us from being at peace. Those thoughts were creating a conflict in my mind. The conflict could be between the part who has something to say about the past experience and the part that is brushing the pain of that experience aside. IFS taught me that I can invite the parts to gently take a step back once I validated there helpful presence and let them know that I ll come back to them once the meditation had come to an end. I can create a space for an activity to take place, such as this precious time to contemplate and enter into a state of allowance and stillness and not having to get up and open the doors to my parts knocking as they notice my presence and use it as an opportunity to get my attention. As I quiet down I do notice the hoper activity of my parts showing up with unresolved past painful experiences to talk to me about so I can support them and unload them of the burden they carry.