Navigating through silence in life.

How can we explain silence? Could it be described as going through a journey to oneself? Like travelling internally? I guess somehow, it does feel that way to me.

For my part, this week feels especially quiet. Actually, I do feel a sense of quietness since I can remember, but I never thought that I was allowed to feel that type of feeling or sensation. I don’t really know why, but I do have some ideas. Well, to be honest, 99% of the time, it is not really true when I say “I don’t really know why”, because most of the time I already have some possible answers running around my head ready to be expressed or deepened.

And one of these ideas, is that I grew up in a very loud speaking family. A familiar system that communicates by yelling or with an elevated tone of voice. One day, it became mine as well. I have learned that sometimes there is nothing negative or worrisome going on even if people yell or speak loudly, especially when their discussions turn from speaking loudly to laugh-breaks. It kind of reassures me from inside. But in general, as a child, that volume seemed intimidating to me and it let some effects impacting my personality and life. I don’t know if this makes any sense to you, but I just try to write what pups up in my head and in my heart and then, I try to transform it into words, sentences that sound logical for our human brains and smooth to our human hearts.

Clarity for me is key.

In my opinion, both, silence and quietness, bring paradoxes within them. In fact, every feeling or perception does. I mean, life itself is a paradox and complementary at the same time. I remember being a silent child though. Now that I gained some educational knowledge in the area of psychology and trauma, there is something in me that knows that I wasn’t a happy child. I didn’t feel free and safe enough to explore. Today, I explain it logically in a way as if I would be stuck in a freeze mode, as if I’d not be able to speak up completely, entirely, or to just move dynamically. It feels as if my entire body from the very beginning felt really unsafe and not able to trust and relax. All of this deep analysis took me over 15 years, as I started very soon asking questions that made my parents feel uncomfortable and to which they, most of the time, didn’t have any answer.

Silence. A deep sense of security, internally. Like the foundation of a building you are just about to construct in its ideal form. Solid. Firm. Composed. Yet sensible, compliant, flexible. What does it do to me? I am now able to create silence within me and that, changed my life for good.

You never left. Now I do see. I thought I would find you only in the mountains, only in between trees, only in a library, surrounded by pure air, only and only then. Making excuses because whenever I felt you, I became afraid.

But I thought I knew what you were, I thought I knew how to handle you, how to navigate through you. I really thought, I’d understand you, that I’d master you until I realised that what I thought I knew, it was finding out about you only through books, explanations, methods in action. Doing, all in the doing. But I didn’t. I didn’t understand you until I started to sit with you.

It took me days, months, years to get so deeply in touch with you, the real you. I don’t feel you permanently everyday but when I do, every time it lasts a little longer. I took you for granted. I misruled you by thinking you, by trying to explain you, wanting to argue about you. But that’s not true. Not anymore. You are nothing to be thought of, you are nothing to be fought for, you are nothing to be explained too. What you are, to me, right now, is just experience… experience of deep stillness within me.

Exercise yourself into silence

Breathe. Try it, right now. Trust me. Put at least one hand on your chest.

If you feel comfortable and safe enough, close your eyes. If not, let them open.

Create safety, as much as you can.

Breathe. Inhale and count to three, and exhale and count to four.

Get in touch with the hand that’s on your chest. What do you feel?

Often, we become aware that we actually have a chest. There is warmth of the palm of your hand, helping to warm up the coldness of your heart.

Feel it.

Breathe. Inhale and exhale. Slowly, profoundly.

Feel the palm of your hand and chest becoming familiar with each other.

Notice the warmth dissolving and surrounding that space more and more.

Breathe in and out.

Notice the movement of your chest when you breathe, how it opens up, how there might be parts cracking up and parts that are not able to break free yet.

Give them time. Give them oxygen.

Notice, on every exhale, how it shakes, or just how it fluctuates back in.

Whatever is there, feel it with your feet on the ground and breathe.

It is okay, to feel.

Silent.

Quiet.

It is okay to be right now, in this very moment.

Give yourself time,

to breathe.