Denzel Washington, we all know the name–the award-winning actor, mentor to many, dedicated husband and family man, and so much more. What we don’t often see is how Denzel lives his everyday life. Lately, as Denzel is in his 70th year, he’s been sharing more of his life’s lessons with young people and the general public. One his latest lessons is in peace. Especially in a world where there are wars, issues with the government, and ever-changing policies that may or may not affect us, how do we live a life of peace? Denzel share’s his answer in a video that’s gone viral on social media.
“Spend a half and hour every morning in quiet time first,” explains Denzel in the video. “Don’t go [yawn, and start looking at your phone]. Don’t go and [start getting on your computer]. We’re all guilty of it. It’s very hard to do. You try to do it.”
“Start with five minutes. You do it. Get on the floor, take some time, and say ‘Thank you’. And then just be quiet. You’ll find it very hard to do. When you’re quiet you start to hear things. Whether you pray, whether you meditate…no music, no nothing. No sound. Just try to be quiet first. Because what you’re reacting to then is peace. Instead of up and grabbing the things you need to do or whatever. What you’re reacting to then is chaos.”
“You can get addicted to peace and you can also get addicted to chaos,” cautions Denzel.
Stillness can help you reduce stress, improve your focus, and heal your body. It can also help you connect with your inner self and make better decisions.
Benefits of Being Still
Clarity
The top mental and emotional benefit of silence and solitude is clarity. Buttimer uses a snow globe analogy. Think about the snow globe when you shake it upside down, then turn it right side up and see the particles start to settle. This settling is similar to what happens in our minds when we are quiet. “When we’re constantly running around in life, we won’t be able to get clear on anything,” he says.
Time to process your emotions
When you practice solitude and silence, you allow your brain to process your emotions, rather than suppressing them and remaining on autopilot. You may feel some uncomfortable emotions through this process, but the sooner you recognize and address your feelings, the sooner you can move forward in health and freedom.
Better decision-making.
Neurological experts say that brain scans show that many people’s brains are overactive and hardly ever at rest these days. If the brain is hardly ever at rest, it cannot restore and regenerate, and therefore, you can’t think straight.” Having silence allows you to have clarity and make intentional choices that can improve your life.
Why is it So Hard to be Still and Quiet?
With technology being such a large part of our lives and waking up to notifications, meeting reminders, etc can make silence and solitude hard to come by.
“Although technology has so many rich benefits, it’s one of the main things that causes distress in people,” he explains. “They can’t have time in solitude unless they go to real lengths to make sure they’re not interrupted.”
In our culture, we’re task-oriented and efficiency-focused, Buttimer adds. Ironically, the more time you spend in stillness and quiet, the more productive you’ll become.
“The more skilled you become at mindfulness, the more you can produce,” he says. “Practicing mindfulness can help you bring your best self to each situation in life so you can make better decisions.”
“Make sure you treat people kindly. It’s hard.”
“I still do it. When someone cuts me off in the car. Frustration. And I say, ‘there you go, Denzel.’ Two minutes ago you said ‘Be peaceful’. Now, you’re like, [ready to fight]. So we’re human. So practice it. Anything you practice, you get good at it. Positively or negatively.”
How to Do What Denzel Does
It’s all well and good to talk about what award-winning actor Denzel Washington does to find peace, but what about you, a normal person? When life starts to get in the way with what you have to do versus what you want to do, things can get hard. So here are a few quick tips to actually get it done and start living a peaceful life.
1. Start your day in stillness. Whether it’s sitting with a cup of coffee as the world awakes, or sitting on a pillow and focusing on your breath, stillness is a powerful way to start your day. It sets the tone for things to come. Even 5-10 minutes is great.
2. Take regular stillness breaks. Every hour, set an alarm on your computer or phone to go off. Think of it as a bell that rings, reminding you to be still for a minute. During this minute, focus first on your breathing, to bring yourself into the present. Let the worries of the world around you melt away — all that is left is your breath. And then let your focus expand beyond your breath to your other senses, one at a time.
3. When chaos roars, pause. In the middle of a crisis or a noisy day, stop. Be still. Take a deep breath, and focus on that breath coming in, and going out. Find your inner stillness and then let your next action come from that stillness. Focus on that next action only.
One of Denzel’s Turning Points in His Life
So where did Denzel get all of this knowledge from? It wasn’t just from living his life lately. It all started with intentional steps he took after various turning points in his career. Here’s one of them told in Denzel’s own words.
“After they divorced, my mother was a woman in a man’s world trying to make money,” Denzel explains to Esquire magazine. She and her business partner owned the beauty shop—that was a big deal then. Then they opened an ice cream shop so that we kids could work there, to keep us off the street in the summer. I got so sick of ice cream. Oh, just the smell of it.”
“But really I grew up in the Boys Club. As I got older I started carrying my little switchblade, walking down to the club by myself, all swagger.”
“I had a mentor there, Billy Thomas. He’s still in my life. He slapped me in the face one time. And I’ll tell you what—that was a lesson. Billy’s not tall, but I was so little. He was on one knee, and I was standing, and he’s telling me something important. And I wasn’t listening. I’m looking around, like, Mm-hmm, okay, yeah, okay. Because I want to get back out and play with the other kids. And then Pow!Pay attention! I never forgot it. And I wasn’t about to tell anybody, ’cause, shoot. I knew what my mother was gonna say: ‘Well, why’d he hit you? What’d you do?’”
“But if I grew up in the Boys Club, I also grew up in the church. Always in church. And I would see the altar calls as a child, which to a little boy just looks like people come up and then they take them into the prayer room. I knew what that was—people being saved—but I didn’t really know. So now I’m an adult, 1983, ’84, and Robert Townsend and I used to run pretty good together back in those days. You know him. Great actor, great director. Directed Hollywood Shuffle. Directed Eddie Murphy Raw. Right now he’s on The Bear playing Sydney’s father. He’s so good. And we had done the movie A Soldier’s Story.”
“Robert turned me on to West Angeles church. And you have the prayers and everything at the end, and you get up and stand, and then they have that call to the altar, if anyone wants to come and be saved or whatever. “Come on up!” And you go up. Now, I had never gone up in my life, but this particular day, I said, I’m going up there.”
“I went up.
They said what they say.
They took me into a back room somewhere.
They prayed for me.”
“And then the strange thing is, after this thing happens to you and you’re all shaken: Okay, now what? What do you do with that? You go back to the back of the church, and they give you some literature, and your wife’s waiting for you outside, you get in the car and go have brunch.”
“Things I said about God when I was a little boy, just reciting them in church along with everybody else, I know now. God is real. God is love. God is the only way. God is the true way. God blesses. It’s my job to lift God up, to give Him praise, to make sure that anyone and everyone I speak to the rest of my life understands that He is responsible for me. When you see me, you see the best I could do with what I’ve been given by my lord and savior. I’m unafraid. I don’t care what anyone thinks. See, talking about the fear part of it—you can’t talk like that and win Oscars. You can’t talk like that and party. You can’t say that in this town.”
