Let me explain.

For the last two weeks, I’ve been running a quiet experiment. 

I enjoy these little tests. If you’ve been reading these Elixirs for a while, you’ve probably picked up on that.

Each morning, without fail, I’ve gone to the same coffee shop.

Same table by the window. Same order. One cappuccino, one croissant (with a secret drop of my Lion’s Mane tincture, naturally).

The baristas don’t even ask anymore; they just smile, and I tap the card machine.

Part of me wonders if it’s becoming a little sad, this hyper-repetitive ritual. 

But there’s a purpose.

And not just indulging in buttery pastries :)

​​I sit there for an hour.

No phone. No laptop. No pen. No journal. No music.

Just me, the coffee, and my thoughts.

I stare out the window into nothingness.

I sit, and I observe my mind.

What bubbles up?

What emotions creep in?

More importantly, why do they appear?

Even when life seems objectively good, we can still be prisoners of our minds.

Recently, I’ve watched close friends struggle with this. 

These are people with lives that seem straight out of a lifestyle magazine.

Great careers. Beautiful homes. Happy, healthy children. 

Yet inside, they feel trapped, stressed, depressed and never enough.

I have been there, I can relate.

It’s easy to look at someone’s life from the outside and think they have it all figured out.  

We're quick to compare the filtered lives we see of our friends online but fail to see their inner struggles.

The world reflects our feelings back at us. Reality is neutral.

True peace comes from letting go of what you can't control and focusing only on what you can: Our thoughts and our actions. 

It reminds me of Blaise Pascal’s timeless observation:

"All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone." 

Over the last two weeks, this coffee shop experiment has taught me one great lesson:

When the world spins around you in a frenzy, how still can you be inside?

Can you be like a rock at the bottom of the ocean—steadfast, unshaken, even when storms rage above?

A rock doesn’t resist the crashing waves; it simply stands, unshaken, yet aware.

With this idea of stillness, you become the observer, not the prisoner.

No reaction. Just awareness.

Detached and free.

This is the beauty of meditation. It isn’t confined to sitting cross-legged in a dim room, with the scent of sandalwood swirling around you...

It’s woven into every moment of your day.

I’ve found a few things that naturally increase these moments: a long run, a quiet walk, driving in silence, or getting lost in a book.

They’re moments when your mind softens, the noise fades, and you simply become the observer of your own life.

Stillness is not about escaping your mind. It’s about making peace with it.

This is one of my favourite quotes from Claude Debussy...

"Music is the space between the notes." 

We create space when we stop bombarding ourselves with constant inputs, endless notifications, and dopamine cycles. 

It’s in that space that the true music of life begins to play.

It is in this stillness that we can be present and feel our truth.

It’s always been there.

We just have to slow down now and again in order to hear it.

With love & kia Kaha,

Chris