As soon as I get up every morning, I turn on the radio. This morning I tried to be silent. Still, I read through my emails, news, Google pages. I have to admit I felt uncomfortable and challenged. The impulse of filling and shutting off silence was very strong. Yet, my mind did not rest trying to jump from thought to thought. After around two hours, and after convincing myself that I had to be informed, I turned on the radio. I could realize though that silence cooperated with being more productive: I could focus deeper and worked faster (is it because I wanted to end up the discomfort of the situation?)
Silence helped me unlock my personality traits to meet the true ‘yo-feelings’ in the past; however, I discontinued the practice due to work obligations, expectations, and responsibilities (excuses?). Since practicing being silent is scary, because it means dealing with emotions that have no evident logical answers, I tried to practice it through composure: ‘not talking’ when emotions want to jump over for answers to understand reality in a grasp of desperation (although sometimes it is inevitable and end up letting the most immature emotions shout).
Silence could be complete absence or presence of communication. It has many forms, functions, and typologies determined by cultural norms, situational norms, and individual traits. Silence can be used to voice seduction, to establish leadership, to build control, to reduce pain, to ground, to guide the spirit, to fence our emotions, to dissent, to generate action, to show interest, to keep a secret, to express avoidance, to imply agreement, to express politeness, to refrain anger, to manipulate, to reveal thoughts, to show respect, recognition, courtesy, and emotional neutrality, and many more.
What traits, fears, and realities could silence bring out about me if I do not negate it?
Well, silence is strongly eloquent and powerful; it is a meaningful component of social and human interaction and development. However, Western cultures inculcate a negative connotation towards silence. We are educated to feel uncomfortable among silence; we do not know how to handle it or how to relate to it positively. For us Westerners, the word is a source of wisdom, a sign of intelligence and attractiveness, a sign of maturity and social standard. Consequently, we tend to quench silence because its eloquence puts us in internal places that we are not accustomed to walk, to face, to deal with. And, because silence is revealing, we deal with it at a hierarchical level instead of at a democratic level: we input silence norms of conversation and we do not let it talk because it could be hurtful, invasive, overwhelming.
Experiencing silence brings a healing aspect that transforms, redefines, and repositions our pillars toward happier mental, spiritual, and emotional constructions by generating questions that play on our real image that so many times a day we miss and do not want to deal with. Silence must be a honest encounter that comes from our inner most privileged emotions, thoughts, identities bringing liberation, self-being, guidance, sense of peace. How to start?
“Don’t talk unless you can improve silence” – Jorge Luis Borges
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