The Importance of Silence

There are many people who can’t stand silence. Their world or environment must be filled with some sort of noise. Whether it’s filled with conversation, noise from the TV (any of you out there who can’t sleep without a fan or TV on?), radio, phone, or the noise from the outside world.  

Many are used to noise because it is or has been their primary environment. For example, I’ve met many people from New York City who absolutely can’t stand when it’s too quiet because they’re used to their world being filled with noise day in and out. Silence is foreign to them.

One day I ran into my co-worker in the breakroom and bid her a “What’s up?” She replied, “You know what I’m realizing? People don’t like to sit with themselves.” When you ask someone “What’s up?” you’re usually waiting for one back or for them to say nothing much, or something of that nature. But clearly you still have some that will directly tell you what’s on their mind when you ask, and that was definitely my co-worker.

Her being my co-worker, I understood why she said this. At my job, there’s usually two people to a packing station working directly next to one another. I’d heard horror stories about two personalities that just didn’t quite fit working together.

In the world, and at my job, you have people who are talkers, and people who aren’t. And you have many that loathe the silence that can exist between the two of them.

After my co-worker made her statement, I yelped that I understood exactly what she meant. She talked about how people would force conversation on the other due to their own discomfort with sitting with themselves (well, standing in our case). We got into a healthy conversation about the importance of being silent sometimes.

When there’s silence, you’re left with your thoughts, what’s going on in your head. Maybe you’re replaying the events of your day, something that happened yesterday, last week, month, or year. These could be happy thoughts. Sad thoughts. Angry thoughts. As uncomfortable as these thoughts can be, acknowledging them is important, especially if you ever plan to heal them.

Everyone’s minds work differently. I’m a fan of Human Design, a personal body and mind graph that relates to astrology, outlining your unique “design” which includes your thought processes, and many of your conscious and unconscious personality traits based on when and what time you were born. Through Human Design, I learned that my mind replays events over and over until it gains its own understanding and interpretation of something.

I’ll be one to tell you that it’s absolutely maddening at times. I think to myself “I thought I resolved that.” “I that that was over with.” “Wow. This is still on my mind?” “How do I still feel about that?” and etcetera.

As annoying as this is, I have to accept this as part of my processing and understand that I may have to acknowledge something over and over before it’s healed and possibly accept that I may never fully heal from it.

As I mentioned in one of my last posts, the brain does what it does—thinks. You can’t stop it, so why try to? Now this is different from controlling your thoughts. We’ll get into that another time but acknowledging your thoughts in silence and not letting them take over go is important.

When we ignore our thoughts or try to distract ourselves from them (which is necessary sometimes, but not all the time), we deny the effects something had on us. We also have to remember that certain thoughts don’t serve us at all. The mind can be highly critical. I deal with it constantly. But in silence, stillness, and quietly reflecting on what’s going on, I can decide that a certain thought doesn’t serve me and work on rewiring it.

I challenge you to set aside at least 5-10 minutes a day to be quiet and see what comes up. What thoughts do you accept as your own? Which ones don’t you?