BEST SELF-HELP TOOL EVER!

I'm thinking of the DNA of my culture which is the United States. We talk a lot.
A whole lot.  If we can't talk, we keep a radio or television or streaming music with us as background. We fill in empty spaces in conversation. Heaven forbid, that there is a pause longer than five seconds. (There are all kinds of cross-cultural studies on this type of observation.)

And we also love love love "self-help" books and speakers and tapes and conferences.  Words, words, words (to make you thin, happy, less anxious,
a better parent, have a better memory) fill the air everywhere.  Improve for Pete's sake!  Do not accept yourself as you are because if you work hard enough you can finally be perfect!!!

And we also work every minute even if we are playing.  Ski more, ski better.
Improve your game. Cook faster. Measure. Improve. Keep score. Win. Your "playing" should be get better and better also.

Here is what I do to detox from this cultural frenzy and constant push.
I wrap myself in SOLITUDE. I sequester myself. Alone. Quiet. No reading. I takes some discipline to enter into solitude. Takes about awhile to settle in. I twitch at first thinking of all I could be doing. But then comes all kinds of good stuff—contentment for no reason, seeing more clearly, literally and a  slowing down of interior babble. Sometimes reflection and insight slide into view.

I don't meditate in any formal way. I just sit and let solitude do its work which aligns my inside and my outside and reminds me of all that is good. No effort. Just SOLITUDE. Cheap too.