What Is A Love Of Silence?

Are you afraid of silence? Are you afraid of being with yourself?

We are blessed (and cursed) to have access to 24/7 entertainment, news, and noise. It is possible to spend our entire life distracted and avoiding ourselves. But that comes with a cost.

There is tremendous healing and peace to be found in the silence that is available to us in most moments.

Mantra: May silence become my beloved.

Transcript

What is a love of silence? Well, It's us learning to be okay with. Us in this moment right now, Without external input. Modernity is great. It gives us a whole bunch of stuff to do. There's a lot of interventions and actions and things that have been invented to help us exist safely. Great. But every tool is like a double-edged sword. It is possible for us to wake up, Spend the entire day with input, Without allowing ourselves to settle into the moment, To just simply be. We have an evolutionary pull to constantly be receiving new information. Why? Because it might keep us safe. If someone speaks as I am with confidence and certainty. People listen. Because I might be saying something that is evolutionary beneficial to your survival. Telling you about what is safe and what is not safe. The problem is that this response, This important survival mechanism, Can be and is exploited. By technology. In your hand you hold a device that you can scroll infinitely to get infinitely more information. Information about your current space and state. But also about the world, Places that you will never interact with. Useful perhaps? But is it actionable? Does that information change your ability to exist in your world right now? Chances are not so much. But it's also coming with an additional cost. It's not letting you sit in silence. The analogy of cement setting to be able to be walked upon. Or a glass with dirt in it being shook up. Allowing the dirt to settle to the bottom so the clear water is at the top. We're constantly getting more information, More inputs, More things coming in. But we're not letting it settle anymore. Are you afraid of silence? Are you afraid of being by yourself? Could you sit for 10 minutes in meditation? Or take a one hour commute in silence. Could you do the dishes, Vacuum, Mow the lawn without input? What is in the silence there that you are running from? Get curious about that. Learn to love it. Say to yourself, May silence become my beloved. Because the thing is, Is that if we block off aspects of things that are challenging perhaps all the way back to childhood, Childhood traumas, Or current stresses, We block it off. We never get a chance to process it. And our body keeps the score, The tension builds up, And then we're left with chronic issues, Responses, And other patterns of behavior that are no longer appropriate. We're just constantly running, Skidding, Not being settled. I'm starting to fall in love with and crave silence itself. But it was a slow process. It is one that involves a little bit of self-reflection, A little bit of bravery. And the ability to respond to. To become aware of, Accept and take action upon the things that arise. But ultimately it's causing me to settle into the moment. To be myself. To realize that I am here now. I am here now and this moment is safe. And I'm falling in love with that idea. Because the more silence I discover, The more silence I embrace. The less of the past I'm experiencing. My brain doesn't go there anymore, It's processed it. The less of the future my brain throws up. Yeah, Things are going to happen. But it's not just going to be bad, It's going to be good too. It's going to be unknown. Being here now. In silence and accepting that. Is deeply healing. And I encourage you. For a moment at least. Embrace the silence. Maybe you'll learn to love it.