Is There Strength in Standing Still?

I recently woke up one morning with a quiet voice telling me, “DO NOTHING.”

It wasn’t the voice of resignation or defeat. It wasn’t the voice of laziness or avoidance.

It was something deeper……

……….Something ancestral.

……………………….Something ancient.

Lately, life for so many has felt overwhelming. The weight of the world pressing down in ways that feel both unfamiliar and crushing.

The chaos of the news cycle, the uncertainty of the economy, the tightening of personal and professional pressures, the exhausting emotional labor of living in a world that expects you to keep pushing forward, even when your soul is screaming for stillness.

But that morning, before I had even opened my eyes, the message was clear:

………Do nothing

……………….Stand

I rolled my I Ching coins, seeking confirmation. The hexagram that appeared before me was Chun 3 – Difficulty at the Beginning.

At first, I resisted. Difficulty at the beginning? Haven’t we all been through enough beginnings? Enough cycles of hardship? But then I sat with it, and the meaning became clear.

This hexagram speaks to the patience required in times of struggle. The understanding that chaos precedes order, that confusion comes before clarity. That sometimes, the wisest course of action is not action at all, but rather the quiet strength of waiting.

Wu Wei: The Power of Non-Action

Taoism calls this Wu Wei, the art of effortless action—or, more accurately, action through non-action. It’s the paradox of movement without force, of knowing when to flow and when to be still.

This is not the Western notion of passive waiting, not the kind of inactivity rooted in helplessness. No, this is the deep, powerful stillness of standing firm when the storm is raging.

It is the wisdom of the river, which does not push against the boulder, but simply flows around it, knowing time itself will wear the rock down.

This is what the gospel singer Donnie McClurkin meant in his gospel song “Stand.”

“After you’ve done all you can, you just stand.”

It’s the kind of faith that requires surrender—not as an act of giving up, but as an act of transcending struggle.

And in that moment, I realized that this is a lesson Black Americans have always known.

See, I believe that Black folks are the strongest, most resilient people on the planet.

Period.

We have already lived through what the rest of the world is just now beginning to understand: what it means to live with evil being hurled at you, to move through life with an unshakable spirit while forces beyond our control shift and shake the very foundation beneath us.

We know how to live through financial crashes, through political upheavals, through systems designed to break us but somehow never do. We know how to gather strength in silence, how to sit at a table, knowing the world is on fire, and not waste a single breath discussing the flames—because this is not our first rodeo.

I recently attended a Black professionals group in Fort Collins. If you could have witnessed the strength and solidarity at that table…

We didn’t need to speak of Trump, of the economy, of the fear coursing through so many in this country. We’ve seen this before. We’ve seen it in different faces, different policies, different names—but the story remains the same.

And yet, here we still are. Standing.

The following morning, when that quiet inner whisper said “do nothing,” I realized the message wasn’t just for me. It was for all of us navigating this world right now, feeling the overwhelm, feeling the exhaustion, feeling the crushing expectation to keep going at all costs.

But what if the way forward is to stand still?

Are You Struggling Right Now?

Feeling overwhelmed, uncertain, and exhausted. Then this message is for you.

You are not weak for feeling weary. You are not broken for needing a pause. You are not lost for not knowing the next move.

Sometimes, the strongest thing you can do is nothing.

Wait.

Breathe.

Stand.

The world will try to convince you that stillness is failure. That if you are not grinding, you are falling behind. That if you are not fighting, you are losing.

But the Tao tells us otherwise. The river moves without forcing its way. The tree stands firm without rushing to grow. The sage does not interfere with the natural unfolding of life, knowing that everything is happening in its own divine rhythm.

Trust that rhythm.

If you do nothing today, let it be with intention. Let it be an act of radical self-preservation. Let it be a reclamation of your energy, your spirit, your resilience.

Stand.

And when the time is right, the way forward will reveal itself.

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Diamond- Michael Scott — aka The Chocolate Taoist