Hi.
Living with severe ME/CFS, the thing that I get to practice more than ever these days is sitting quietly and doing nothing. Currently, I'm in search of people who would like to spend 20-30 minutes of "Quiet Time" with me. This is your opportunity to slow down, breathe, listen, ponder, reflect and experience the calming effects of quiet. Please sign up to sit with me in silence.
No Sign Up Necessary for Zoom (worldwide)
All are welcome. Sundays at 4 - 4:30 pm EST. Arrive on time. STARTS TOMORROW Sunday, Feb 25
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87644318240
Meeting ID: 876 4431 8240
Sign Ups Available for In-Person (Kent, Ohio)
Local to Kent only. Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays at 4:00 pm. Find the complete instructions in the sign up link here. (https://calendly.com/halwalker/quiettime)
Quiet Time with Hal
Hi. I'm Hal. This is the Living in a Body podcast. I'm glad you're here. Thank you. Today's episode is completely improvised. For the first time ever, I'm just going for it.
So, here we go. It's episode 77. It's called Quiet Time with Hal... and it goes something like this.
This post is made possible by a half milligram of Ativan. I don't think I could do it without it. Ativan is a benzodiazepine, also known as Lorazepam. And I use it very conservatively, half milligram a week. I don't want to become addicted to it. And I don't want to build up tolerance to it. So I use it very conservatively.
It calms my nerves. It calms my fear of having a crash.
Yeah, fear is such a big part of this illness. I'm living in constant fear of it getting worse. Throughout the week, one of my mottos is "God, be my Ativan." God, calm me to the core. Slow me down. Calm me on a cellular level.
I find Ativan to be more fast acting though. And more... reliable... more reliable than God. But I'm working on it. "God, be my Ativan."
Today's episode is basically an advertisement for you to join me in my latest endeavor. It’s called “Quiet Time with Hal.” I hope by the end of listening to this, you are convinced to sign up.
"Quiet Time with Hal" is basically an opportunity for you and I to sit quietly together and experience all the healing benefits of quiet.
I came up with "Quiet Time with Hal" a couple of weeks ago. A couple of Quakers reached out to me and asked if they could come over and sit and have silent meeting for worship in my room with me. And I said, “yes, of course.”
And they showed up. Margi had flowers with her and brightened up my room. And we sat quietly for an extended period of time.
No one spoke. With the Quakers you can speak out of the silence, but no one spoke. We just listened. And it was so beautiful. I realized this is what I want every day.
I want people to come over to my house at four o'clock with no obligation for conversation and just sit quietly.
So I came up with this idea of "Quiet Time with Hal." And then I went over to calendarly.com and made a sign up calendar for people to come and sit quietly with me in my home.
And then I posted on Facebook and I was expecting... To be honest, I had high expectations. I was expecting people to come running. Like, I was thinking I should put seven days a week for sign up because there's going to be so many people.
It turns out that "Quiet Time with Hal" is not as attractive as I thought it was gonna be.
It was crickets.
Actually, within 10 minutes, Cameron signed up. (Thank you Cameron.) But I called Cameron and I said, "Cameron, leave your spot open for someone else. You and I can meditate whenever we want."
But I was kind of a little bit disappointed at the the extent of the crickets. I know people don't go to Facebook looking to sign up for something. You know, they “like” it and move on. In a way, "Quiet Time with Hal" is the opposite of scrolling on Facebook.
So.. what I'm offering is the eternal, the age old, the forever, real benefits of quiet... shared quiet.
The first time I ever discovered shared quiet was at Farm and Wilderness camps in Plymouth Vermont.
I graduated from college, went out to Mount Hood National Forest and worked as a trail maintenance and backcountry patrol person for the summer. Then I met this woman Ami, she was working there too. And we went on a six week bike tour around California. No credit card, no cell phone.
And then she went back to Germany where she was from and I connected with JP. He said, "Hal, in the spring, let's go to my uncle's mountain top cabin in Idaho. Elk River, Idaho.”
So JP and I drove out to Idaho, lived in this cabin with no electricity for a couple of months. We used a refrigerator with snow in it to refrigerate our food.
And then somewhere along the line, I got a summer job at Farm and Wilderness. It's these Quaker camps in Plymouth, Vermont. And I came home from Idaho and that early summer, I rode my bike with my friend Chris. We rode our bikes to Farm and Wilderness from Ohio.
Anyway, the point of the story is that at Farm and Wilderness, it was Tamarack Farm, a co-ed high school camp on an organic farm. There was something called fifth freedom. You had the freedom to go naked in the gardens and in and around the lake. This was an old camp. When I was there, it was the 50th anniversary. And that was 1989. It was a really well established Quaker camp in Vermont.
And every morning, the whole camp would come together and sit in silence in a big circle in the woods. And I just fell in love. I fell in love with shared quiet. I fell in love with shared speaking out of the silence. I knew I had come home.
I thought I was going to spend my life at Farm and Wilderness but I got distracted and did other things instead. But I loved that place.
In the mornings, we would have work projects. All the campers would go into work projects and in the afternoon was all creativity workshops. I actually taught a class in Navajo weaving. I learned Navajo weaving when I was working for a summer at ghost ranch in Abiquiu, New Mexico.
Anyway, we would sit in the woods and everyone just sit quietly and when the spirit moves, you could speak out of the silence. Well, I came back home and eventually ended up back in Kent. In 1995, I got a job with the Unitarians. So my Quaker days went on hold for 25 years.
But just this last summer. I was looking for something to do on Sunday mornings. I wanted to get free of all my baggage at the UU church. So I started attending the Quaker service and it's very small. You know, they're not packing it in over at the Quakers, or the Friends Meeting. They are not packing it in... even though they should be because it's one of the most peaceful places you'll find in Kent on Sunday morning.
And I went over there and I sat there. And all my years of arranging the music, running the show, running the orchestra, running the bell choir, running the choir... all that was put to rest. And I just sat there in my wheelchair, and I sat quietly with the friends, the Quakers.
And I felt like I was home, I felt like I could find God there.
And then, you know, after just a few couple of months of that, I started having these downturns, having these crashes and I got to where I wasn't well enough to go on Sunday morning.
And I reached out to the Kent Friends (Quakers) to let them know what was going on. And they reached back and offered to come sit with me in silence. So that's what happened last week, or a couple weeks ago.
And I decided I want that every day. I want people coming over to my house and sitting quietly with me. But then I went to Facebook and realized people were not as excited as I was.
You know, I admit, in my previous life, I wouldn't have had time to go sit with some guy. Some guy in his house for 20 minutes or a half hour. I was too busy. I was too driven. I was too driven. I was always too busy.
Now I'm not busy. I'm living with severe ME/CFS, mostly bed bound, in a lot of physical discomfort, a lot of fear, a lot of grief. But little by little, I'm adjusting to this way of life. And the way I'm doing that is by getting quiet.
I've put down Tik Tok, put down Instagram, essentially put down Facebook and put down YouTube. When people come over, we sit and we whisper or we pass a notepad back and forth to write.
I'm very fragile.
So, quiet time is the best thing for me to spend time with people. I have to be careful even of passionate talking. It's amazing. This illness is brutal.
But I'm adjusting. My sister keeps saying, "Hal, you're getting an A+ in the hard class." And I gotta say, I am.
Thanks to my 12 STEP program. It’s saving my life. Thanks to several different things. Like Mango. Mango is here full time right now caring for me.
So anyway, I hope you'll sign up for a "Quiet Time with Hal." If you're local, sign up in person. You get to choose between 20 or 30 minutes.
All the instructions are there at the calendarly.com link right here.
And if you're not local, join me on Zoom. I don't know how this one's gonna go. Four o'clock Eastern time on Sundays. We gather at four, we say hello, we bow to each other. We greet each other. We welcome each other to the silence.
And then we go on mute and we'll sit silently together for 20 minutes. Zoom is going to be just 20 minutes. I know you're busy.
Anyway, seriously, please consider this. Consider joining me.
It's going to be either in person Tuesdays Thursdays or Saturdays at four o'clock Eastern time in-person in my home. All the instructions are in the calendarly.com link. — or on Zoom on Sundays at four 4pm. Eastern time.
I think that may be all I have for you. But let's talk about what the benefits are.
First of all, you get to help a guy with chronic illness. And I get to help you. I feel like it's the one thing I have to offer you... is silence. We get to explore connecting through quiet.
And we’ll get to exchange a few words, a smile, some eye contact. But then we sit quietly and we just listen. And we get to soak in it. I have a very quiet room. It’s a quiet neighborhood.
Usually, right now there's a beautiful sun shining through the window. You don't have to bring anything. Don't bring flowers. And then we'll just sit silently together.
Have I sold you on it yet?
Reduce your cholesterol! I mean, I don't know if it'll actually will reduce your cholesterol but reduce your blood pressure. Slow your brain down. Our brains are too sped up. Mine is anyway.
I need every chance I can get to slow down. All right, this is my offer. I'm gonna let go of all expectations and trust that you will do the right thing.
Thank you so much. This was fun. Thanks to my sponsor, Ativan and my other sponsor, Jim.
Ah man.. what a life.
I miss you guys. That's the main thing. I miss human beings. I miss being out in the world. I miss the people that you see at the store, the Kent Natural Foods. I missed just the daily life of human contact. So that's what you'll be giving me.
All right.
And what I'll be giving you is just my quiet presence.
Thank you so much.
Enjoy living in that body of yours today. Believe me, it's not going to be around forever. I miss you. I love you. Sending you my very best wishes. See you next time. ❤️Hal
Quiet Time with Hal