The Art of Stopping

How to Be Still When You Have to Keep Going (Mindfulness Meditation, Coping Skills)

David Kundtz

• Publisher: Books That Save Lives
• Year: 2021
• eBook ISBN: 9781642504408
• Topic: Personal Development
• Subtopic: Personal Success

Coping Skills for Dealing with the Overwhelming Responsibilities of Life

“An elegant, powerful, and simple tool for finding serenity. Just what the world needs right now.” ―Richard Carlson, author of Don't Sweat the Small Stuff

We are always on the go. Balancing work, family, friends, and everything in between is a routine of running and never stopping─a cycle that can be tiring. We forget the beauty of the smaller moments and sometimes we forget to stop and use our coping skills.

Stopping is a gift to yourself. Knowing when to breathe and regain a clearer vision of yourself and your surroundings helps give you a fresh perspective and an inner balance meant to help you feel in control of the bigger things.

Who are you? What are your true priorities? Your responsibilities may have taken over and are preventing you from living to your fullest potential. Dr. Kundtz gives you insight into key questions you should be asking.

Stop whatever you’re doing and enjoy the sunrise. Big things can grab your attention but don’t forget to turn around and find the serenity in stillness─the peace in a deep breath, and the happiness in remembering who you are.

With this valuable guide learn to:

• Connect with the spiritual aspects of your life
• Practice mindfulness and reduce stress
• Acknowledge when it becomes too much and take a step back
• Use proper coping skills to create healthier habits

If you enjoyed books like The Way of Integrity, Giving Grief Meaning, I Am Invincible, Time Management for Mortals, or The Road Less Traveled, then you’ll love The Art of Stopping.

 

Author’s Introduction

How to be still when you have to keep going—that’s what this book is about. It offers practical help in coping with the complicated and challenging world of the twenty-first century, which, as this book goes to press, is experiencing the global crisis of Covid-19. The pandemic came into an already struggling world that seemed to be losing its sense of fairness and decency, and was foundering about in search of leadership and unity.

This is, however, the world we actually live in; and we have no choice: we have to keep going, often now through unknown territory with no precedents to follow.

Thus, the art of Stopping: a process of accessing your own untapped inner wisdom and strength.

Stopping is doing nothing, as much as possible, with the purpose of becoming more awake, remembering who you are, and what you want. Its elements are Stillpoints, Stopovers, and Grinding Halts.

It is based on the belief that only if you have enough stillness and relaxation in your life are you able to access your ever-present inner wisdom and live the life you want, the life you choose to live. Otherwise that wisdom never finds its voice, is drowned out by distractions, and you forget what is truly important to you, only to live a default version of life that the unenlightened and wild forces of the world dictate. In other words, your life becomes a tragedy.

The title of this book is The Art of Stopping. Stopping is an art rather than a process or an activity. It is an art because it depends on your own creativity and style and it is based on accessing your own rich and wonderful inner life. Your experience of Stopping is your unique creation.

Stopping is compatible with all faiths or none, has no doctrines or politics, and is elegantly simple.

Welcome to your true life. Welcome to Stopping.

David Kundtz
Kensington, California

Part I

Stopping at the Speed of Light

Chapter 1

Facing the Mountain of Too Much

“The dogmas of the quiet past, are inadequate to the stormy present…As our case is new, so we must think anew and act anew.”

—Abraham Lincoln

“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 have seen that Mary Helen was in trouble: anxious, stressed, unfocused, irritable, unable to sleep, over-whelmed 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: “It’s too much.” Upon further exploration, I found no underlying psychosis, no debilitating personality disorder, no family-of-origin dysfunction making a sudden midlife appearance, and no 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.

“Being overwhelmed means that your life or work
is overpowering you.”
—Daphne Michaels, writer

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 enough 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 the practice of Stopping.

Most of us in this hurry up, instant message/text/tweet/email world of immediate response are feeling the same sense of overload that my client Mary Helen felt. Indeed, the primary challenge to successful human life in the post-modern, post-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; even, for many of us, too many opportunities and too many choices. Too much of everything for the time and energy available.

As we all have been noticing, 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 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 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 li...

Table of contents

• Copyright
• Table of Contents
• Foreword
• Author’s Introduction
• Facing the Mountain of Too Much
• Why Cramming and Cutting Don’t Work
• Doing Nothing
• A Fast Train on the Fast Track
• Stopping at the Speed of Light
• Intentional Living: From Routine to Choice
• Stopping Before Everything
• Contemporary Contemplation
• Finding the Spaces between the Notes
• Stopped: Awake and Remembering
• Stop and Go for It!
• Stillpoints, Stopovers, and Grinding Halts
• Stillpoints: The Heart and Soul of Stopping
• Breathing Is Inspiring
• Stillpoints in a Turning World
• Stopovers: More of a Good Thing
• Stopovers on the Way
• This Is Your Body Talking
• Excuses, Excuses!
• The Watersheds and Sea Changes of Life
• Grinding Halts Are Good for You
• Growing “Like Corn in the Night”
• Freeing and Finding Your Truth
• Everyday Spirituality
• Stopping’s Benefits
• The Gift of Attention
• The Gift of Relaxation
• The Gift of Solitude
• The Gift of Boundaries
• The Gift of Embracing Your Shadow
• The Gift of Purpose
• Moving Down to the Roots
• When Society Says “Don’t”
• “I’m Afraid!”
• Notice, Name, and Narrate
• Expressing Feelings: Three Stories
• Some Help in Getting Help
• “Yes, But…”
• “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”
• Permission Granted Just to Be
• The Pathway to Your Stopping Woods
• Stopping While Moving
• The Young, the Old, and the Angry
• Caring and Trusting
• Acknowledgments
• Permissions
• About the Author