Silence

“After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music”- Aldous Huxley

“Gods only voice is silence” – Anon

Well it’s that time again huh! So why silence?

A good place to start is the inspiration behind this essay (I am calling my meandering thought’s essays now!), was on the train to work, an intercity train with moulded tables and trolley services.

The train was full, which is not unusual and was full of commuters getting ready to work early in the City and in today’s climate of fear and recession, the mood was already tense to say the least.

In amongst the grey depressive suit wearing banking fraternity, naturally minus me and my flamboyance with camp frivolity were two young ladies who were aged around 19-25.
The scene was a total contrast and was not a well received oasis in the Sahara more of a fly in the ointment, although there presence was of great amusement to me as one of my most loved pastimes is people watching.

Lets just say the girls were loud, I knew a lot of intimate details about there “friends” as gossip was served back and forth between each of the girls like cat tennis. I did take great pleasure in listening to every detail and then something happened, it struck me that I have maybe worked out some part to a human’s psyche that has previously eluded me.

The volley of viscous gossip was intense but it just stopped, this moment was quite uncomfortable as both of the girls just broke each others gaze looked down towards their feet reached for the inevitable comfort blankets of all under 25’s – the mobile phone and began to text away. After several minutes they re-fixed each others gaze and one served a juicy gossip ball and then a rally again ensued.

So what was my thought? Well it is that some people are scared of silence!

This is surely irrational but what can cause this?

Silence when acknowledged can be very useful, for many years my studies have included body language and handling customer complaints. It is amazing what you can achieve or say by holding your response for an extra 2-3 seconds.

This of course is mild manipulation or what Neuro Linguistic Programmers (NLP) use in something called “re-framing”.

There are two experiments that are part of this blog Essay and the first one is something that has been used by me in the past.

However have re framed this, “it is my theme du jour” , my favourite Shakespeare play is Midsummer’s Nights Dream and love the notion that you can enter the fairy land under the light of the moon and want to adapt this with silence.

Take your partner or loved one up to a place where you can be together (preferably in the moonlight) and sit down and ask them not to make a sound, sit opposite each other and hold each others hands. Then proceed to look into each others eyes for a period of time (2 minutes will suffice).

Then after that period of time tell them that you love them with all your heart, and then ask them if they feel the same?

Two things will happen;

1. If they look down / up to the right and answer and every muscle on the face is full and expressing there answer then they are telling the truth when they say yes!

2. If they look down / up to the left and when they answer the face is stiff and frowning then maybe we need to resolve and heal.

This is not about exposing people but we all want to be on the path to happiness and being in a loving relationship is part of that. Looking down to the left may not mean that they are cheating it is just that they have not falling in love with you on every level, do you remember the love equation Heart + Soul + Body x Commitment = Love

The previous essay about comfort does compliment the falling in love process but want to talk about how silence is equally important.

Lets go back to the two girls on the train, now if they were comfortable with silence do you think they would of spilled all the gory details about there friends? The answer of course is NO; the conversation would always therefore be on the accent of the positive.

I want to forget about the details of how we got to this place whether it was too much Television, bad parenting, computer games or mobile phones but concentrate how to achieve the happy state of using silence for our benefit.

Over thinking does play it’s parts in this, I have an office poster (been removed) that listed the difference between a Man and a Woman and one line stated that “A man can sit in a room with his buddy for hours on end in silence without thinking that he must be mad at him!”

Although it is a veiled sexist comment let’s just break down the gender aspect as there is a lot of truth in that statement.

Lets although look at it from another angle, as adults when we are not getting attention we do revert back to childish behaviour and do things to attract attention to ourselves.

All because we can cannot accept silence.

To truly master silence is of course the destination of long journey and can best be achieved through Yoga and meditation.

We can start to achieve this with “baby steps” the little things you can do to ease your journey, the first thing you need to do is to every day dedicate 10 minutes to yourself.

If you are busy or have something on your mind then write it down, it will be there when you return.

So how does this work? Well get yourself into a comfortable place where you cannot be disturbed, once comfortable and your legs are shoulder width apart, your arms by your side then close your eyes.

Take a slow deep breath over five seconds and hold for two seconds, at the point then slowly exhale over five seconds. Repeat this up to 20 times.

You will feel empowered and re-energised after this and the trick is to make this a habit and a fact that if you do something 12 times it because a habit, if you do something 31 times then it’s a habit for life.

There are some behaviour’s that also compliment this, and would concrete love between two people by choosing to commit silent thoughtful gestures to each other. The little things are the building blocks for True Love.

These are special things between two people but could include for example when a partner is in the shower you tumble dry a towel so it’s warm when they get out. When you get up early on a really cold morning you re-set the central heating so that your partner is warm when they rise. You partner has an important job interview or meeting with a client, so the night before you do all the cleaning and washing up so that they don’t have to worry about it.

The most romantic image my mind can conjure is that when I am in my declining years I’m sat on a bench overlooking the Sea, eating Fish and Chips with the woman I love, not saying a word and we both know that we are totally comfortable with each other, and the silence is so powerful, it is almost deafening.

It would appear that a religious quote was used at the start of the essay and in my own context love this quote “Gods only voice is silence”. I believe God is a metaphor for our own creative subconscious and we only truly listen to ourselves when we are silent.

“All of my best thinking has come about, when not talking” – Scott Everest

My next Blog, it is a blog and not an essay! Will be; Religion V’s Faith.

This will polarize a lot of my readers but hope that I will provide a balanced informed opinion.

"My delivery is smooth like a fountain, that's why I can move any mountain" - The Shamen