“All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” ~ Blaise Pascal
About Silence—
by Donna Quesada: Silence is defined as the absence of sound. I think of it as a tool for personal healing and reparation.
It is the way to maintain sanity.
Silence is also where creativity thrives. By this, I don’t just mean making art, but also, solving problems without force…because in the silence, is a field of endless possibilities, where solutions just pop up, like daffodils in the spring.
Silence enables you to regulate your emotions, also without force.
But, silence is all the more rare, as the world is increasingly saturated with noise.
Thus, true silence is a luxury.
That’s why it’s important to make the time to find a quiet place and just sit. It won’t find you. And if it did, you would likely fill it up with something, anything, to avoid confronting the void.
We all do this, unless we make the conscious decision to sink into it and explore its infinite curiosities.
Like anything of true value, it’s a discipline… a decision to make it a priority and honor the commitment to sit in silence for a chosen amount of time.
Silence is a place to reconnect with your own self… with your own internal world.
The time might be found early in the morning, before everyone else gets up… Or perhaps, if you’re a natural night person, it might be found late at night, after all the early birds have retired.
Some people think that silence is a time to reflect, and to clarify… to think.
But really, it’s a time NOT to think.
You see, thinking is part of the noise. It’s the noise on the inside.
You Can Call it A Meditation, If You Want—
Just watch your thoughts. Take five. But, if you’re too busy, take 10!
I wanted to say, “It doesn’t matter how you sit,” but that’s not true.
It matters. Because when you sit, and not slouch, it communicates an important message to your psyche… that this time is important. Essential. Vital… It’s a part of my mental health regime… a necessary part of my daily ritual, and of no lesser value that other indispensable daily rituals, like going to the bathroom, or brushing my teeth.
The act of sitting says, “This is my time.”
And in that time… and space… you simply sit. Thoughts will bombard you. But that doesn’t mean you’re thinking. Thinking is when you engage with the thoughts. But, you’re not… you’re just watching them… and also ignoring them. You’re watching them, in the same way I watch the birds gather around the feeder, in the morning… from a distance, through the window, and with love. I stay out of the way and let them do their thing. They come and they go… the big ones and the little ones. And sometimes they don’t come at all.
A Worthwhile Challenge—
Everyone is looking for “action,” and running from silence. Action means “fun.” Or so we’re conditioned to believe. We ask each other, “What did you DO last night?” And, “What are you DOING this weekend?” And after a while, we develop a complex… We better DO something!
So, we get busy and make some plans.
We never articulate it in this way, but we resist silence.
We bathe in a world of hyper-stimulation… social media… notifications.
So, part of your silence-discipline might be to Turn Off Notifications on your phone for a designated period of time. Put your phone on the charger with the sounds off for a while. And then sit.
We are like our phones… we need to recharge, too.
Like our phones, we are ON all the time… running… always running, from one activity to the other… There’s never enough time. The TO-DO list is endless.
But time is relative. There IS time.
The perceived lack of time is all the more reason to STOP. Because then… time stops. You suddenly have more time than you thought, like magic. The lack of time was all an illusion. That “busy-ness”… he’s a trickster!
Taking time brings more time. And space, too… because time and space are ONE.
