Stillness
What The Mind taught me about silence and stillness
The Mind is a game that was all the rage when it came out.
A few months later, there seemed to be a backlash about the game, where a lot of folks decided to hate on it. And that makes sense, as it’s a really, really, really simple game. For a game this simple to be all the rage flabbergasts some people.
Tom Vasel of The Dice Tower calls it more of an activity than a game.
I disagree, but I see where he’s coming from.
Some people may think The Mind is overrated, but I love the heck out of this game.
The Mind couldn't be simpler. You as a group cooperatively put numbers on the table in sequential order. On round 1 each person has one card, on round 2, everyone has two cards, etc.
Finish a certain number of rounds and you win. Easy, right?
The twist is, nobody can talk.
So it's a game of everyone looking each other in the eyes and sloooooowwwwwwlllllyyyyy moving their cards toward the center of the table, hoping and praying they aren't playing their cards too early, and then they play their forty-one and STUPID GREG ACROSS THE TABLE DIDN'T PLAY HIS THIRTY-FOUR and everyone sighs in frustration.
It's great. Tense, hilarious, and plays in about 15 minutes.
Easy enough to teach it to Grandma. And then she'll be furious because you played poorly and made the group lose.
The Mind: Soulmates is slightly more complex but in a really fun way. Both are good. If you're only going to get one, though, get the original.
The Mind makes me think about my reticence to pursue quiet.
I can be a reactionary person. When someone sets me off, i tend to quietly stew over it for a long time.
I have the imaginary conversations that are always always always problematic.
When I finally talk to the person I'm mad at, I blow up at them. All of my imaginary conversations have bubbled up and over, and I'm unwilling to have a gentle chat.
No, we're going eight rounds, dude.
Usually if I'm so angry at someone that I'm having imaginary conversations with them, I’m not willing to be silent.
Be alone.
Rest and recoup.
Worse actually, normally I don't even think about being silent. It totally slips my mind because my mind is filled with my own rage and unforgiveness.
I focus on my own anger at a person when I should be thinking about how to move forward.
I think often about how reactionary I am, and how often I think from my brain stem instead of my brain.
The brain stem is where we operate in fight/flight/freeze/fawn mode.
Thinking from your brain stem is a good thing at times. Evolutionarily, its a good thing for us humans. It kept cavemen safe when they heard rustling in a nearby bush. It keeps us safe when we sense someone following us. Sometimes we need to react quickly and sometimes harshly instead of slowing down to think.
The brain stem is good. Fight, flight, freeze, and fawn are good reactions.
At times.
The problem is, I use it a lot more than I'd like to.
I'm in fight/flight/freeze/fawn mode far more often than I'd like to be.
I think that might be where the imaginary conversations are coming from. When I practice how I'll react when I'm talking to the person with whom I’m furious, I’m operating from brain stem mode.
But when I spend time in the silence, I sometimes chill out a bit and to lower my defenses.
I stop thinking with my brain stem and move back to using my brain instead.
It’s hard for me.
Be still? Impossible.
For me, it takes planning. Practice.
I need to recognize that my fight, flight, fawn, and freeze response will probably cause more harm than good in my relationship, and prepare myself to think and act more clearly and carefully.
It's difficult to be silent with the amount of noise in our world.
Music, television, podcasts, audiobooks, YouTube, TikTok, friends, family, housework, hobbies, school, work, chores, errands….
We rarely, if ever, give ourselves the time and chance to be still.
But stillness is often where we change.
Where grow.
Where we find peace.
Where we find rest.
Where we find joy.
The Mind is a game all about silence, attentiveness, and listening to one another without any speaking. The game would be nearly impossible to win if you were only focused on your own self, instead of focusing on nonverbal communications between you and the other players. You need to be able to slowly move a card toward the pile while looking at other players and gauging their reactions as to whether or not that 79 is important to play now, or will end up making the team lose. Stillness, attentiveness, and silence is the only way to read one another, and thus to win the game.
Recently, I spent an entire day alone in a park that had both giant grassy areas and foresty areas, and I had spent the week prior angry and stewing over something a friend had said to me. I tend to hold on to things for longer than I should. After a long time of walking around angrily, thinking about why my friend was dumb and wrong and a jerk, I got tired and laid down in the grass in the park. I said nothing. I did nothing. After about an hour of staring into the sky, I was slowly convicted of the ways I was holding on to my anger, and how my whole focus for the week had been to stick it to the person who angered me.
I'd been living in my brain stem, and I knew it.
I needed a reminder of the attributes I desired for myself:
Love, not hate.
Mercy, not vengeance.
Grace, not rage.
Goodness, not evil.
This reminder only came from stillness.
As in The Mind, winning only comes through stillness.
We often grow when we are still.