Silence

[Dazon50]

Silence
Breathe.

Stop for a while.


Give yourself permission to just sit down and be still for a few minutes.

Silence is so much more than “the condition of being or keeping still and silent.” We need silence to hear ourselves and make our own choices.

In the twenty first century we unwittingly choose noise at every opportunity, inviting it into our lives and into our heads; no wonder one third of the population needs anti-depressants at some time.

We need silence to bring us back to the present moment, to the here and now. We need silence in order to reflect on what has recently passed so we can avoid repeating mistakes. We need stillness to recharge and to relax and to free our mind from the constant stream of desires that propel us to a future where our life doesn’t yet exist.

We need silence to allow creativity to flourish and to realize our dreams. In crushing the necessary peace needed for imagination and recuperation, we crush our potential.

We need silence to know who we are. Enslaved to noise, we can only focus on escape and the future, looking forward to becoming the person we believe we might be.
Ten steps for bringing silence into our noisy world



Becoming aware of the dominance of noise is the first step to bringing more silence, stillness and peace into your life. The benefits of silence are real, no matter how small the periods you can manage:

Be aware that you need daily time for silence and stillness.
Start your day in silence by changing your alarm from a buzz or a beep to a radio and set it to a classical radio station.
Start your day earlier and give yourself twenty minutes with no agenda. Just wake early and be still and quiet. If it feels strange to begin with just relax and breathe with it – the rewards are worth the effort.
Leave the radio or TV off in the morning – there are many other ways you can catch up on the news during the day.
Pay attention to each thing that you do as you do it. For example, as you shower be aware of the sound of the water and the feeling of the water on your skin.
Go perfume free for the day – notice your sense of smell today. Without your own personal olfactory arsenal blitzing your delicate nasal passages you will notice more smells today (good and bad).
Listen on your way to work. If you drive, leave the radio off – if you take a train, try the journey without reading a newspaper or listening to your ipod. Instead pay attention to your surroundings and really see what is there. Why not try a different route?
Don’t eat lunch at your desk, go out instead and sit under a tree. Look up at the leaves and listen to the sound of the leaves moving. You only need five to ten minutes to commune with nature. Pay attention to the colour of the leaves and the texture of the bark; touch the bark and feel the roughness of it and contrast that with all the smooth textures that you are used to in your usual environments.
Do something different this evening; leave the TV switched off. Try walking around your neighbourhood on a route you’ve not travelled before – introduce yourself to some neighbours you’ve never spoken to before.
Clear the clutter from your bedroom and spend some time in there in quietness. Write down your thoughts from the day and reflect on what you have noticed. Sleep without reading first, even if it takes longer.
Making space for silence in your life is a choice that will reward you with a clearer mind, protection from stress and a good physical recharge. Find space for silence in little pockets throughout the day – you will find that the more mindful you become, the more space for silence you create.

Mark Owen-Ward is a wellness coach, personal trainer, minimalist, photographer, and father of three. His passion lies in helping people develop new habits for simple wellness which he writes about at his blog, Energy Applied.

[Dazon50]

:-)  thank you for sharing.  You have had quite a journey.

[Dalubaba]

Voice you hear is because of tinnitus, caused by pinging of nerve-ends on ear drum. Some get occasionally, I get for 24 hours. It may increase progressively. I thought that I am getting divine sound because of meditation. So I used to concentrate on the sound with very high expectation. ENT surgeon made me aware of the disease. There was no curative or even preventive therapy. Some consultant at MH did tell that there are some possible treatment –not for cure but for stopping the progression of the disease. Till date, I have not heard of any effective treatment. In yoga, they say a bhamari pranayam(humming to send vibration in the ear) may work. It has not helped me. I am sure it is not allergy. My all siblings have this problem along with hypothyroidism and deafness. Hypothyroidism is easily treatable whereas tinnitus is difficult. I am having this problem since last 35 years. I am acclimatized to it.
I was musician my self up to 32 years of my age , playing many instruments, including classical music. But after tinnitus, music became my enemy. People are less aware of this problem. You may do audiometric test to know about your hearing system. you may learn some new and advanced treatment.

[Dazon50]

Interesting.  I have noise also I hear continually...high pitched shrill hard to describe.  I have learned to tune it out a lot of the time.  Lying down trying to sleep can be annoying.  It was worse when it pulsed...seemed like a power substation with humming and pulsating...lol.  Not sure if it is allergy related.  The Doctor thinks using a prescription nasal spray will work.....doesn't.

I am comfortable with more silence at this point in my life when I get it.  I enjoy the thoughts & perceptions and words to songs, new ideas, etc. that seem to come more easily when I am silent.  I experience more peace and tune in to what is around me.  I realize how little I really listen or look and feel bad.  Today I enjoyed seeing the red cardinal land on the ramp outside and other small wildlife, feeling the breeze through the screen door.  So many thoughts came and I wish I could have written them down however, I know like jewels and stones, we can never possess them as our own.  It is all temporary.  I want those simple moments to mark my soul and heart and touch me in profound ways about the preciousness of those moments and each life.

Today I found myself thinking about "freedom" and how little of it we really have.  

Thanks for sharing :-)

[Dalubaba]

This may be a digression from the subject but it has some relationship as per my perspective.
There is a lot of noise. we hear selectively.If we happen to hear all the prevalent noise, probably we may go mad.
I have tinnitus, hearing ringing of bell for 24 hours. I think i can distinguish 3 types of sound. yes, it is disrupting as well as interrupting.Trick is to get used to it.
Sometimes, I concentrate on this sound as an object of meditation. Twice, I happened to concentrate so much that the sound disappeared for few minutes causing some peculiar feeling.I do not know that it was good or bad. Sorry , drifted to some other direction.
I prepared one reply for your elderly patient" I am paid to be  your employer" When this idea struck, it felt very witty, but now when i have typed, it feels flat. As it is addressed to you, i do not delete- you will understand.

[Dazon50]

I found an interesting quote:

Noise is the most impertinent of all forms of interruption. It is not only an interruption, but is also a disruption of thought.

Arthur Schopenhauer

[Dalubaba]

Whenever we think deeply about improvement in life, we end up with some type of meditation. we have 'MAUN' meaning silence. Even thoughts are to be silenced. Complete silence gives peace and enhances energy. For practice we sit with some spiritual person in a group. this is called sat-sang. Sat means truth and sang means company. You are in the company of truth. Sat sang is a regular feature in many spiritual societies in India. Many techniques are employed to achieve total silence. A good subject.