‘I think 99 times and find nothing. I stop thinking, swim in
the silence and the truth comes to me.’- Albert Einstein.
Quiet. Quiet is the thing.
I crave it. I thirst for it like water. If a day has been
noisy I can feel the quivering anxiety of overload building in me and I seek
out quiet like one would search for a port in a storm. Quiet, for me, is a
refuge. A state in which I can recharge, absorb the day and reconnect with
myself and my body.
Quiet wasn’t always a sanctuary though, for years (4 perhaps
or 5) I made sure I was never alone in silence. I was alone for long stretches
during this period of my life when I was so unwell, at such dis-ease, and I
started to realise that I was always ensuring that being alone never meant
being in silence.
I avoided being in a space quiet enough to hear my own
thoughts, I drowned them out, drenched their chatter with audiobooks, podcasts,
tv, films, radio, music.
The realisation unsettled me, yet despite the growing unease
in my gut, I couldn’t stop filling any silence with sound. Eventually even instrumental music went, I
needed someone else’s words, someone else’s thoughts to hook my brain on to, to
distract my own. I would fall asleep with an audiobook playing and leave in
playing all night so that even my dreams were distracted by another narrative,
reluctant to allow my brain to process my own, even subconsciously. To make
sure that if I awoke for even a second it wasn’t to a room made huge with the space
quiet can bring.
I would watch the same episodes of a program again and
again, finding the familiarity soothing.
No effort was needed to follow a story
when I knew what was going to happen but the distraction and repetition
comforted me like a child requesting the same bedtime story over and over. At
times I would find the constancy of the chatter repellent and intrusive but,
that discomfort was preferable to making room to hear the wrestling discomfort
within. I used noise like one uses a pain killer, not to fix the problem but to
drown it out.
When I think back over this time now and try to see myself,
my state then, with compassion, I think I was just doing what I needed to do
until I was ready to do more. In order to help myself and to grow back into
silence I needed to wait until I was strong enough to listen.
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| 'Sweet are the thoughts that savor of content, the quiet mind is richer than a crown' - R Greene |
Gradually, as I started taking small steps towards getting
better or even towards wanting to get better (or even to believing it could
happen) I saw that I was allowing minute gaps to a emerge. Little gasps of
noiselessness, like dipping your toes in to test the waters. Now I can see the
power of allowing this incremental soundless space to thread its way back into
my days and how hugely that helped me listen to myself. As I took tentative
steps towards healing and recovery, I took steps back toward myself in these
spaces. I began to lean in and listen to my heart, to hear the cacophony of
battling voices in my head and only by paying attention could I begin to
understand the state I was in.
So much of what we do to take care of ourselves seems to be
a seeking of space. By creating space in the body through yoga or exercise,
creating space in our days with breaks from work, creating space in our lives
with the gap of a holiday, creating space within ourselves through meditation, mindfulness
or simply breathing. This is true of silence too - creating space from sound in
soundlessness.
Now, I need it. I cannot cope with noise all day, I just can’t.
Time spent it quiet feels healing, calming and regenerative to me. Too much
noise can feel crushing, intrusive and repellent. Many years into having
Fibromyalgia I recall learning about Audiophobia and thinking “YES! That’s it!”. The
way bright light feels intolerable when suffering from a migraine and you have
to shield your eyes against it; during a flare up sound feels too loud, like being too close to
the speakers at a gig.
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| 'The quieter you become, the more you are able to hear' - Rumi |
I’ve been thinking a lot about quiet recently. With all that’s
been going on in the world we have been forced to slow down, to change the
shape of our lives and with this, for many of us, comes more quiet.
There has been much talk of bird song seeming louder and
more present as the world has paused, the falling away of the noise we make on
this planet seems to have amplified the noise of nature. I’ve found this so
comforting. It feels like whatever happens, nature remains. At this time of
year the world is so full of the noise of life. The leaves are back on the
trees now and walking through the woods feels like bathing in the calm of soft,
whispering white noise as they rustle in the breeze. There is peace to be found
now the volume has been turned down.
I was so afraid of these gaps and what would be there behind
the din, but now I find these are the times when I feel most present in my
life, most acutely aware of what’s around me and fully rooted where I am. This
quiet allows me to sit firmly in the here and now, to witness those moments of grace
that are drowned out by the clamour of the everyday. Here, too, is where I
check in with how I am. Pain, it turns out, is loud and painlessness is quiet
so in order to connect with the joy and gratitude of those blissful days when
my body is at peace I need to be quiet in quiet spaces.
To hear this quiet, to feel safe and calm in places free
from sound, to be able to sit with my thoughts and fears, feelings and body, to
be totally present and at peace in the silence feels like a precious gift.
My prayer for you, in times such as these, is that you can
explore your quieter days, that you can find grace in the silent spaces, that
the slowing down may allow you to witness how you are, where you are and
connect to what’s around you.
Listen to your breath.
Listen to your birds.
Listen with compassion.
Rest in the silence.
Take solace in the quiet.
Pause, until we can be together again.
And then we’ll sing.
