Listen to Your Silence

Listen to your silence - every now and then

Drawing by 6-year-old girl, of her grandmother in a bright yellow dress who is smiling and has her hands up in the air with happiness. — A drawing of me done by my granddaughter, Summer. Children naturally listen to - and see with - their hearts. Photo by Lara.

Are you listening to the most important thing?

According to statistics, we spend more time listening than we do writing, reading, or speaking.

For those who love facts, 80% of our awake time is spent communicating, and of that 80%, we spend 45% of it listening – which is, according to my calculator, a total of 5 hours and 45 minutes per day.

What do we listen to?

Other people – who are either talking, whispering, whistling, shouting, yodeling, singing, or playing musical instruments.

It’s time to stop listening to other people and start listening to yourself.

I’m not referring to listening to yourself talking. We do too much of that already. I’m referring to being silent, making no noise whatsoever, and listening to that.

Listen to a silent you.

You must be silent to listen to yourself.

What will you find when you listen to yourself?

If you’re like me, there will initially be a lot of noisy thoughts like:

what I need to do next
what I could have said to someone yesterday who was rude to me
what I’ll have for lunch
what my mother said to me when I was five that has impacted me negatively
whether I’ll live to be eighty
when is that hyacinth I’m trying to grow in water going to take root and bloom?
what will I do if the world runs out of coffee beans?

Let those thoughts settle down and drift away, leaving a brief silence in their place. The silence may only last five seconds, but you’ll agree it’s five seconds of bliss.

Consciously choosing to be silent changes us. It changes the space within and around us.

In a podcast on Not Strictly Spiritual, yoga teacher and retreat leader, Mary DeTurris Poust, said:

Listen to what is within you.