When it comes to solving technical or “fly” problems, speed is highly valued. If you’ve ever deployed a fly swatter, you know what I mean.

But, butterfly problems – those challenges that require a deep reorientation of thought, feeling, and identity – don’t respond to speed. They require stillness. Inner stillness in which you let go, or detach yourself, from the old patterns of thought and action that have served you in the past. Honor these patterns as you release them. They have served you well.

But, it is only by letting go of the old forms that  you can make space for something new to be born.

In spiritual literature this experience is called the dark night of the soul. Your old ways of staying on track no longer work. You are adrift in an inner sea without stars overhead to guide you. All you can do is be still. And, this is all you need to do.

It can be uncomfortable to embrace stillness, particularly if you’ve been accustomed to dealing with fly problems for most of your life. Fly problems can be solved by working harder, longer, faster. But, butterfly problems demand another part of you. Not the technical expert. The mystic. The part of you that appreciates stillness and can open to the wonder of “not knowing”.

Now is not the time for action but for stillness.

• What does stillness mean to you?
• How can stillness become a resource?
• How can you make more time/space for stillness in your life?

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