Stopping: How to Be Still When You Have to Keep Going

by David Kundtz

Overview

Learn how to step back when life’s pace gets overwhelming in this insightful guide to mental balance and wellbeing.

We are always on the go. Balancing work, family, friends, and everything in between is a never-ending cycle that can easily lead to burnout. It becomes easy to forget the beauty of the smaller moments. Sometimes we even forget ourselves. In Stopping, Dr. David Kundtz offers a simple yet powerful corrective to the manic pace of modern life.

Stopping is a gift to yourself: a chance to breathe and regain a clearer vision of who and where you are. Stopping helps you find your inner balance and get a fresh perspective on your day, the challenges ahead, or your life overall. Kundtz tells you how and when to stop—whether it’s a momentary pause or a longer period of quiet and stillness—and gives you insights into the key questions you should be asking.

With this valuable guide, you will learn to:

• Connect with the spiritual aspects of your life
• Acknowledge when you need to take a step back
• Use proper coping tactics to create healthier habits

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781609252465
Publisher:	Mango Media
Publication date:	01/01/2021
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	274
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

David Kundtz has enjoyed several careers, including eighteen years in religious ministry and twenty years in the practice of psychotherapy, public speaking on stress and emotional health, and writing. He has graduate degrees in psychology and theology and a doctorate in pastoral psychology. He is the author of Quiet Mind, Stopping, Moments in Between, Awakened Mind, and several other books.

Read an Excerpt

STOPPING

How to Be Still When You Have to Keep Going

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By David Kundtz

Red Wheel/Weiser, LLC

Copyright © 1998 David Kundtz, S.T.D.
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-60925-246-5

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CHAPTER 1

Stopping at the Speed of Light

The dogmas of the quiet past, are in adequate to the stormy present.... As our case is new, so we must think a new and act anew.

Abraham Lincoln

1

Facing the Mountain of Too Much

"It's too much," Mary Helen told me, "way too much. I just can't deal with it all!" 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 clearly have seen that Mary Helen was in trouble: anxious, stressed, unfocused, irritable, unable to sleep, overwhelmed 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: "too much." Upon further exploration, I found no underlying psychosis, no debilitating personality disorder, no family-of-origin dysfunction making a sudden midlife appearance, nor a 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.

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 time for yourself? Have you come to realize that it's been too long since you've enjoyed real, satisfying, and regular leisure? If so, you've found the right book.

Do you have a desire to give more attention to the spiritual aspects of your life—your truly important meanings and values— but 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 don't really work for you? You can anticipate success through the suggestions found in this book.

Most of us in this hurry-up, e-mail world of instant response are feeling the same sense of overload that my client Mary Helen felt. Indeed, the primary challenge to successful human life in the postmodern, 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; or, for many of us, too many opportunities and too many choices. Too much of everything for the time and energy available.

We all have been feeling, 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 problem— "It's way too much. I just can't deal with it all"—she didn't recognize it, first, as something very serious and, second, as something new. Rather, she saw it just as one more of life's 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, "I am the same old problem you have been dealing with all your life, you can handle me." But the reality is that we can't—and believing we can is part and parcel of the problem.

Why don't 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 it's something else. We are all like Mary Helen, saying to ourselves, "This should not be a serious problem!" 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.

It's 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 life has become impossible to cope with in the same old ways we learned as children and young adults.

That's because the sheer amount of too much also makes it a new and essentially different challenge. Consider this for a moment, because at first it might not seem evident: Precisely because of the very large volume of the same old thing, it has become essentially different. It is not just a larger amount of the same thing, but is something entirely new.

It's like the evolution of a pile of rocks into a mountain. At some point in its history it stops being a pile of rocks and starts being a mountain. When exactly does that happen? The transition point would be difficult to determine. Does this last eruption finally make it a mountain or must we wait for one more? So it is with the problem of too much: it has become what it is over a long period of time. For most of us, the point at which too much has become a mountain is long past. What used to be a pile of rocks has become the Mountain of Too Much.

It is vital to recognize this mountain as new because it is the newness that signifies the need for different coping strategies to conquer it. The tools needed to conquer a pile of rocks are very different from those demanded by a mountain. So it is as we face the Mountain of Too Much. A sturdy pair of shoes is sufficient for a pile of rocks, but an imposing peak demands carabiners, belaying systems, and training in specific skills.

Mary Helen, my bright, normally fun-loving and competent client, was truly puzzled. "Why can't I deal with this? I have always been able to cope, even when things have been difficult. Why not now?" But this was a new and challenging mountain, not just the same old pile of rocks she had walked over many times before. But that was what she needed to see.

So it is with all of us—we keep dealing with the problem of too much in the same old ways we learned before the pile of rocks became a mountain. As a result, we are overstressed, overloaded, overtired, and unable to solve the serious problems and challenges that are a direct result of our revved-up pace of life. It's time to learn a different way to face our Mountain of Too Much and to trade in our old ways of coping for new ones.

No matter how fast we go, no matter how many comforts we forgo ... there never seems to be enough time.

Jay Walljasper

2

Why Cramming and Cutting Don't Work

In the past, we used two ways of coping with the challenge of too much: We crammed things in or we cut things out. These are natural, normal, and effective responses to life at a certain pace.

Cramming is trying to fit more and more into the same, limited time and space using the same, limited energy and stamina. Until the pile of rocks changed into the Mountain of Too Much, cramming worked just fine: We became more efficient and more productive. We learned to manage our time better, to move faster, and to sprint through our day without pausing for breath. But that was before we reached the critical mass of too much. Now it causes us to be overwhelmed and stuffed to overfull; thus, we are left frustrated and feeling like we have no room left for ourselves. Whenever I feel this stuffed feeling, I often show it through moodiness, irritability, and spiritual malaise.

Think of packing your suitcase. Have you ever tried to cram things in? You cram and cram and even resort to sitting on it to force it closed, but there is a moment when, with just one more pair of socks, the suitcase will not close. And even if we manage to jam the suitcase shut, we may rip its seams or risk it popping open in midflight. Think of yourself as that suitcase: Your seams are ripping and your emotional insides are bursting out and spilling into the middle of your day. That's the point we're at. Cramming no longer works. There is simply too much to fit in.

Cutting out is excluding things from our lives to make more room for new demands. We become good at prioritizing: We drop old friends to make room for taking our kids to soccer, we eliminate lunch to get a little more work done, we cut short our days off to catch up on a report, and we wake up an hour early to have time for exercise. But this works only to a certain point. Finally, you can cut out no more. You get down to the essentials: work, personal responsibilities, and a necessary amount of sleep and social time. When demands from work or family crises intervene, leisure time, exercise, social life, and days off go out the window. Finally, there comes a time when there is nothing to cut and still too much to do. Our health—mental and physical—suffers. We voice the complaint that I hear most often in my seminars on stress: We feel as though we are moving through life, but not actually experiencing it. As you probably know from your own life, cutting just no longer works.

The Mountain of Too Much is new and therefore calls for new skills. It's long past the time to let go of these once-effective responses. They are ineffective habits of behavior. They are also a form of denial, that which is a lack of awareness of a situation too painful or disturbing to acknowledge in this case the problem of too much. Besides being futile, these habits are robbing us of the pleasure of life.

But there is something new that you can learn to do. I call it Stopping.

I have a very full and busy life and occasionally I am asked, "Scotty, how can you do all that you do?" The most telling reply I can give is, "Because I spend at least two hours a day doing nothing."

M. Scott Peck

3

Doing Nothing

The first time I became aware of Stopping, I was hiding. I was on the run and felt lost. I was trying to figure out what to do with my life and didn't really know what was happening to me or how it would all turn out.

I had been a successful and content Catholic priest for fifteen years, but all of a sudden I was in crisis. Nothing felt right anymore. My enthusiasm for my vocation had abandoned me. For the first time in my life I felt lonely. I avoided responsibilities, denied what was happening, and made some foolish decisions. Finally, not knowing what to do, I stopped doing everything. I escaped to a small, isolated cabin, perched high on a hill overlooking the Pacific Ocean on the northern California coast, for a month to figure it out.

I just stopped. And in so doing, I found my way again. I didn't stop on purpose, but it was the best thing I could have done for myself. It was not until much later, after many occasions of Stopping, some as short as ten seconds and others as long as a month, that I became conscious of its value and could actually define it:

Stopping is doing nothing as much as possible, for a definite period of time (one second to one month) for the purpose of becoming more fully awake and remembering who you are.

This is the simple practice upon which this book is built, a new skill to replace cramming and cutting that can help deal with the Mountain of Too Much. Doing nothing should not be confused with a total lack of activity. Doing nothing is indeed doing something very important. It's allowing life to happen—your life. Doing nothing is something quite profound.

The ultimate purpose of Stopping is to ensure that when we do go, we go in the direction that we want and that we are not just reacting to the pace of our lives, but choosing, moment by moment, what's best. The ultimate reason for Stopping is going. Going is what we of the industrialized Western world are known for. It's what we do best: get on with business, get things done, accomplish feats, and assume roles of leadership and power. So Stopping at first glance might not seem so desirable, it may even appear to be opposed to our fundamental values. But, not only is it not against these values, Stopping maintains and cultivates them. Without being awake and remembering our values and identity—in other words, without Stopping—our going can get us into deep trouble.

Stopping, even in its shortest form, allows you to realize the essential meanings of your life and to consistently remember what is truly important to you so you can keep your priorities in order and up-to-date. It helps you know what you want to achieve and how you want to behave.

Stopping works where cramming and cutting don't, because it calls a time-out and gives you the freedom to reorganize the game of life according to your own rules; to recognize your true priorities. It creates an oasis where the turbulent waters caused by the demands of daily life can quiet and where, in the stillness, you can again see your own reflection. It gives you time to be, not just to do.

Stopping is born of personal experience and, like many useful ideas, came to me because I needed it so badly. In most cases, we don't stop until we feel overwhelmed and don't know where to turn. For some reason, when I got to the end of my rope, I just did nothing and waited, not out of any virtuous inclination, not because I thought the waiting would solve anything, but because I didn't know what else to do.

Now I can look back and see the value in that time of waiting: There were moments, short and long (but mostly short), in which I remembered some important information about myself, became more awake to my life, and became aware of all the aspects involved in the issue I was dealing with. Stopping helped me get going again, but going in a focused and determined way, rather than a scattered and chaotic one.

So this book is about Stopping, and specifically about Stopping when you feel you have to keep going. This kind of quieting and self-remembering is designed specifically to fit the needs of people who must live their lives at an ever-increasing speed and with an overwhelming number of demands upon them. And because that description fits many of us, chances are you are feeling overwhelmed and overloaded in your life and are looking for something—anything—to relieve the strain. If so, you've come to the right place. Stopping will help. And it's easy. You can do it anywhere at anytime.

The fast-paced rhythm of modern life conditions us to skim the surface of experience, then quickly move on to something new.

Stephan Rechtschaffen

4

A Fast Train on the Fast Track

Stopping is not slowing down. There are many books on slowing down the frantic pace of life. This is not one of them, even though an important aspect of Stopping—even one of the reasons for Stopping—is, in fact, to slow down. The process of Stopping is very different from the process of slowing down. Trying to slow down does not slow you down. We have been trying to do that for many years now; it generally doesn't work. It's like trying to cut down on smoking: in a short time you end up where you started, except more frustrated.

Slowing down doesn't work because everything around us is going so fast. We get revved-up even if we don't want to be. In his book Timeshifting, Stephan Rechtschaffen, M.D., writes about entrainment, which he describes as an unconscious "process that governs how various rhythms fall into sync with one another." For example, if you were to place two out-of-sync pendulum clocks next to one another, in a short time they would be exactly in sync. "The same principle works," says Rechtschaffen, "with atomic particles, the tides and human beings." With human beings? That's quite a remarkable idea. We pick up each other's rhythms and the accumulated rhythms of the world around us. If most of the rhythms around us are fast, so are ours, automatically. That's entrainment. The word can also mean "getting on a train."

We have all boarded the train, the fast train on the fast track, and the process of entrainment is not under our conscious control. That's why trying to slow down doesn't slow us down. It's not because we're weak willed or quitters; it's because we're on a fast train where we're the passengers and not the engineers.
(Continues...)

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Excerpted from STOPPING by David Kundtz. Copyright © 1998 David Kundtz, S.T.D.. Excerpted by permission of Red Wheel/Weiser, LLC.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Table of Contents

Contents

Foreword          

I Stopping at the Speed of Light          

1. Facing the Mountain of Too Much          

2. Why Cramming and Cutting Don't Work          

3. Doing Nothing          

4. A Fast Train on the Fast Track          

5. Stopping at the Speed of Light          

6. Intentional Living: From Routine to Choice          

7. Stopping Before Everything          

8. Contemporary Contemplation          

9. Finding the Spaces Between the Notes          

10. Stopped: Awake and Remembering          

11. Stop and Go for It!          

II The Three Ways of Stopping          

12. Stillpoints, Stopovers, and Grinding Halts          

13. Stillpoints: The Heart and Soul of Stopping          

14. Breathing Is Inspiring          

15. Stillpoints in a Turning World          

16. Stopovers: More of a Good Thing          

17. Stopovers on the Way          

18. This Is Your Body Talking          

19. Excuses! Excuses!          

20. The Watersheds and Sea Changes of Life          

21. Grinding Halts Are Good for You          

22. Growing "Like Corn in the Night,"          

23. Freeing and Finding Your Truth          

24. Everyday Spirituality          

III The Gifts of Stopping          

25. Stopping's Benefits          

26. The Gift of Attention          

27. The Gift of Relaxation          

28. The Gift of Solitude          

29. The Gift of Openness          

30. The Gift of Boundaries          

31. The Gift of Embracing Your Shadow          

32. The Gift of Purpose          

IV Exploring the Challenges of Stopping          

33. Moving Down to the Roots          

34. When Society Says "Don't,"          

35. "I'm Afraid!,"          

36. Seeing the Enemy          

37. Owning Your Fear          

38. A Telling Relief          

39. The Doctor's Unthinkable Thought          

40. Saying It to God          

41. Some Help in Getting Help          

42. "Yes, but ...,"          

V Discovering Your Way to Stopping          

43. "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening,"          

44. Permission Granted Just to Be          

45. The Pathway to Your Stopping Woods          

46. Stopping while Going from Here to There          

47. Moving while Stopping          

48. The Young, the Old, and the Violent          

49. Stopping Is Caring          

50. Trust Yourself          

Bibliography          

Acknowledgments          

Permissions Acknowledgments