Bliss Talk: Following The Silence

Let's get curious about silence. The power it holds. The magic it can bring. The peace that may surface after we brave the storm. The delight in the pause after the sigh. The stillness after the passionate dance. The pause between two songs. Let's tune into silence and let it speak to us.

Transcript

Let silence speak.

What does that mean when we let silence speak and when we find the bliss in that?

I would say the first point is probably curiosity.

What happens when we let the external noise fade away?

What happens when we become still inside?

When we allow everything to slow down?

When we take a pause from all the input that we usually get?

What happens there?

All of a sudden,

There is some space.

Space for what?

Space for whatever wishes to come through.

And sometimes what comes through can in part be a little uncomfortable.

And that's why we don't always want to go there.

Because when we allow the silence,

Then what's going to happen?

We don't know.

Uh oh.

And every time we don't know.

That means I gotta let go here of control for a moment.

Monkey mind don't like letting go of control.

So it's an act of courage to seek out the silence.

An act of courage to let the noise around us fade away.

Let that sink in for a moment.

Your meditation practice is an act of courage.

Because you dare to let go of the control of curating the experience of every single moment.

You let go of needing to fix.

You allow what wishes to come through to come through.

So that's the first point where my curiosity takes me.

The curiosity means I let go of the need to control.

And then magic can unfold.

Ooh yeah.

A lot of magic can unfold.

That is the second piece.

Because it's not always possible to make magic appear by the snap of a finger.

Oftentimes,

And maybe this rings true in your experience,

It is about letting the magic unfold.

Getting out of our own way.

Oh wait.

Why am I standing in my way in the first place?

Well not all of me.

Sometimes my overprotective monkey mind is standing in my way.

So when we surrender to the flow of how things go,

Maybe we will see that all of a sudden a little more magic unfolds.

Sometimes that is because in the spaciousness of the stillness,

I will see a connection in between two things that I hadn't connected yet.

And all of a sudden things start making more sense.

Whether that is about something at work I was trying to resolve,

Or whether it is about a personal relationship,

Or whether it is about something of what I wish to invite in.

So for that magic of life to unfold,

We need a bit of spaciousness.

Let that sink in for a moment and become curious about that spaciousness inside of you,

Inside of your silence.

Can you feel into the spaciousness?

Can you let go of the urge of maybe doing something at the same time?

Can you be courageous enough to look into the silence and feel into it?

So what happens in acts of courage?

And when we let the magic unfold,

Is that we realize while we may not be in control of everything,

We certainly do have power.

There is a lot of power in silence.

And interestingly,

It is the power of not doing,

And the power of stillness,

The power of silence.

And to give that point a bit more space,

When you are in an argument with somebody,

When you are not saying a somewhat heated conversation,

And they say something that you are very opposed to,

Or that may be insulting to you,

And instead of reacting or even responding in that moment,

You look back to them silently.

And this is very different from giving somebody the quote-unquote silent treatment,

Because when I give somebody the silent treatment,

I ignore them.

This powerful silence is keeping the connection.

It is looking directly into the eyes of that person and letting the silence speak.

And what that does is it creates space again.

In this case,

Space for somebody,

Hopefully the person on the other side of that argument,

To see that maybe the heated way of going about this is not the best way.

Maybe they notice the insult.

There can be space for whichever insight may be next.

Maybe the insight that it is better to cool off before continuing.

So silence can be very powerful.

Take a deep,

Slow breath.

Exhale with a sigh.

So that was one example for silence after a storm.

That storm doesn't necessarily have to be with another person or with only one person.

That storm may be inside of you.

That storm may have been your entire day.

If you had to take care of many,

Many things and were on a tight schedule,

I sometimes say those days when my calendar runs me instead of me running my day.

At the end of those days,

Silence is also very powerful.

So silence after the storm.

And what unfolds there?

We may notice that everything had rained upon in that storm.

We also may notice that because of the rain,

The air is now fresher.

Everything is green and lush.

We may notice a tree fell over.

Now we get to tend to that.

And we may notice that we get to tend to ourselves.

The silence in between reminds us that we're not human doings.

We are human beings and that there is so much magic in being.

We feel into that.

Over the past year,

I have made it a practice to very much feel into being.

For quite a while,

My meditation,

Even though I had trained Vipassana,

Where we walk with our consciousness through the body to perceive it,

Is still very mind-driven or mind-oriented.

For the past year or so,

I've continued to feel more into the delight of being in my body,

Of being in my heart.

And it has made the silence so much richer.

Yesterday,

After what was a bit of a stormy day,

Where I allowed myself to get stuck really late in my office and then I had missed the last ferry,

And so I locked up my bicycle again that was all snowed over.

And instead I took the long bus route and when I walked to the bus stop,

I was not so happy with how I had allowed time to glide by me,

Because I felt I needed to do a little more and a little more and a little more.

I started singing for a bit at the bus stop.

And then once I was inside the bus,

I was silent.

And I felt into the joy of being in my body.

I remembered that all those thoughts that I had about how my time management could have been better and this and that,

All of that didn't matter,

Because right now I was sitting in the bus on the way home with a while to go.

So I felt into my womb space.

I felt into my heart space.

I felt into my hips,

Into my booty,

Arms and legs,

Into my shoulders.

And I allowed myself to feel that pure delight of being alive.

Maybe you can allow yourself to feel into that right now.

The pure delight of being alive.

Take another deep slow breath.

Exhale,

Let it go.

And notice how good is it to be alive,

To be able to breathe,

To be able to digest food,

And to recognize all the wonders of your body.

I would call that the delight of the pause.

Especially the delight in the pause after a big sigh.

Let's do one more of these,

Deep inhale.

Exhale with a sigh.

Notice a difference.

I do.

It doesn't have to be stormy all the days.

Luckily.

So many other days it may be the silence after a passionate dance.

And that dance can have many forms.

Salsa,

Bocchata,

Rumba,

Tango,

Waltz.

Kidding.

That can also be the dance of playing with your kids.

It can be the dance of painting,

Of singing,

Of writing.

A dance of cleaning the house,

Of repairing a car.

The dance of woodwork.

The dance of metalwork.

The dance of cooking.

The dance of caring for others and helping them out.

The dance of a medical nurse.

The dance of refilling and restocking shelves in the supermarket.

The dance of driving a bus.

The dance of sailing a boat.

The dance of riding a bicycle and going on a walk.

The dance of a good phone conversation.

The dance of organizing an event.

The dance of cutting hair.

The dance of working out.

The dance of drinking tea.

Maybe most of your activities could be a dance,

If we choose them to be.

By the way,

That doesn't mean that it all has to be flowy and elven-like.

It can also be a very passionate dance.

There can be dancing with a lot of drums.

So it's your dance and it's your rhythm.

And nobody else has to recognize it as a dance as long as you know it's a dance,

If you like that picture.

And what I mean by nobody else has to recognize that it's a dance is as long as you feel internally that you are dancing.

And I use that because to me it brings a sense of lightness and joy.

That's enough.

I used to be with somebody who said that he had a straight-line smile.

He said sometimes when other people ask him why he didn't smile more,

He said,

But I am smiling.

So his straight-line smile to him still gave him joy even though it wasn't visible to everybody around him.

So as long as your dance gives you joy,

It's not so important whether others notice it as a dance.

Maybe they can perceive you being joyful.

And then after any of those dances,

There can be a pause.

And that pause in between two dances is really important.

Because there is a slightly different rhythm in between my bicycle dance and my cooking dance.

So it's good to have a brief pause in between them.

A brief pause in between the two internal songs that accompany the dance.

In other terms,

We could call that transition meditation in between all the tasks of our days.

And these transition meditations,

They allow us to be more graceful in our interactions.

That way we don't get into a rush.

When we try to from one step to the other,

From one beat to the other,

Switch from a salsa into a waltz or the other way around,

Maybe there is a higher chance of stumbling than if we took a few breaths in between to reset.

So let's honor the pause in between two dances.

Let's give ourselves time for transition.

To feel the spaciousness and how that increases our capacity and to remember the joy of pure being.

And that we are worthy of all our love,

Independent of what we do.

You don't have to earn your own love.

You're always worthy of your own love.

Feel into that.

To me that feels like a big relief.

Every time I remind myself,

Every time that reminder comes from somewhere else.

I am worthy,

Independent of achievement.

I am worthy because I am.

And so are you.

You are worthy and you are lovable and you are loved.

So let's allow ourselves to tune into the silence and to let that silence speak to us.

There is so much richness and depth in being in silence with yourself.

And this was a lot of talking about silence.

So now I invite you to be in silence with me for a few minutes and to let the silence speak to us and through us.

Silence.

Silence.

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So the magic can unfold to have the courage to be so that all the richness of life can come through.

So the peace after the storm,

The delight in the pause after a big sigh,

The stillness after the passionate dance,

The pause in between two songs.

Tune in and let the silence speak to you.

If you wish,

You can stay here for some longer time to let the silence speak some more.

Reviews

Very good

I appreciated this unique meditation

Thank you so much I loved listening to this. Finding The magic within calm and comforting. The best way to describe your day dancing. Melting anxiety away. Good for the running up to Christmas or anytime
🙏✨🥰💖