Stillness

Stillness has never come naturally to me. For a long time, I associated quiet moments with “not doing enough,” or with a kind of emptiness I didn’t quite know how to sit with. But over the past few years - gently, almost without noticing - I began to seek out small spaces of silence. Not as an escape from life, but as a way to finally arrive in it.

What I’ve learned is simple: stillness is not the absence of movement. It is the presence of yourself. And it often reveals itself in the softest, most ordinary moments, the ones we walk past without realizing they’re invitations.

Another place where stillness finds me is in the window seat of my favorite coffee–brunch–wine spot. It’s a simple place - nothing extravagant - but maybe that’s why it feels like a refuge. I sit there with a warm cup in my hand, tasting every note of flavor, letting the moment stretch just a little longer than usual. There’s a quiet intimacy in savoring something slowly. The kind of presence that says: I’m here. Right now. Fully.

Stillness often hides in sensory details — the scent of coffee, the glow of morning light on a table, the soft hum of a room that isn’t asking anything of you.

One of my favorite forms of stillness is sitting by the Danube. Budapest’s river is rarely truly quiet - trams pass, boats hum in the distance, people cross bridges overhead - and yet, somehow, the water itself offers a kind of grounded calm. There are days when I simply sit, watch the slow current, feel the air on my skin, and exhale in a way I didn’t know I was holding.

The river slows me without asking anything in return. It reminds me that pace is not a moral measure, and that even when the world rushes, I can choose not to.

By the water

In the window of a café

In my body

Sometimes stillness is as small as holding a yoga pose for a little longer than comfortable, feeling my breath, my muscles, the weight of my own body supporting me. There’s a particular kind of truth that arrives in these moments. A clarity that isn’t loud, but certain. Stillness isn’t emptiness. It is connection, to the body, to the breath, to the parts of ourselves we often forget to listen to.

Between the lines of a book

There are also moments when a single sentence in a book makes me stop.
Not because it is dramatic or profound, but because it lands exactly where I am. I close the book, look up for a moment, and let the words rearrange something inside me. These micro-pauses, these soft inner shifts, are forms of stillness too.
Sometimes even wisdom arrives more clearly in silence than in constant searching.

In the depth of a conversation

Stillness can even appear in connection, those rare moments when someone truly listens, when the exchange feels spacious rather than rushed, when a conversation slows enough for honesty to enter.There’s a different kind of presence in these moments: the kind that makes you feel seen, softened, understood.

Walking in winter lights

Lately, I’ve found stillness in evening walks through the winter-lit streets of Budapest. The city feels both awake and half-asleep, glowing, reflective, gentle. I walk slowly, letting the cold air sharpen my senses, letting the lights soften them again. Even movement can be stillness, when the pace is chosen, and not demanded.

In the sound of slow music

And right now - in this season - stillness often finds me in the form of slow Christmas music. There is something soothing about it, something nostalgic, like a reminder to soften expectations and return to what matters. December can feel heavy with noise, deadlines, gatherings, emotions. But stillness doesn’t require perfect conditions. It only requires a moment of willingness, a breath, a pause, an exhale.

What I’m learning

Stillness isn’t about disappearing from life. It’s about inhabiting life with more presence.

It teaches me:

• to listen before reacting

• to rest before breaking

• to feel instead of rushing past myself

• to choose what matters and let go of what doesn’t

Slowly, gently, stillness is becoming a kind of home. If you’re longing for calm, for clarity, for softness in a world that rarely slows down — know that you don’t have to escape to find it. Stillness is already around you, waiting in the smallest, quietest corners.

Sometimes in a river.
Sometimes in a cup of coffee.
Sometimes in a sentence.
Sometimes in you.

You may feel drawn to these gentle reflections as well.