Silence is associated with the feeling of emptiness, loneliness, fears and wounds of the past that we prefer to hide with the noise of the outside world. But do we know all that silence can offer us?
Last update: 23 September, 2020
We get into the car and turn on the radio; we get home and turn on the television; we play music from our mobile phones, sing or think while taking a shower. Silence frightens us and we demonstrate it in thousands of ways. The emptiness evoked by the absence of noise torments us, and with this fear we lose important opportunities. Perhaps if we knew how to appreciate silence, we would stop running away from him as if he were an enemy.
When was the last time you were silent? When did you feel the total absence of external and internal stimuli? For most people it is almost a utopia, an impossible condition to reach and to maintain.
According to this point of view, silence is even dangerous and causes concern. But why does this happen? What can we do about it?
Silence scares us
You will have noticed this widespread trend in our society, or maybe you have not. You may even have recognized this fear of silence in yourself, although you don't know exactly what it is due to. The truth is that we demonstrate this phenomenon every day.
We surround ourselves with any technological device capable of offering us visual and sound stimuli. And we don't just do it to entertain ourselves during our free time, but during any daily activity. While we cook, clean, play sports, external noise always accompanies us.
The same happens when we spend time with friends, with colleagues, with relatives. Even if we meet a neighbor in the elevator we prefer to start a trivial and condescending conversation rather than remain silent. Very often we don't have something to say, but we still strive to fill those terrifying gaps with words.
Even when we remain in apparent silence, with no external noise covering our sensations, even then we call upon our inner resources to escape.
Has it ever happened to you that, going to sleep, in the quiet of the evening, your mind began to accelerate taking you from the past to the future, in a continuous brooding of thoughts? These mechanisms serve to avoid the silence of the present.
Why does silence scare us?
Because we don't know ourselves
Silence frightens us because it forces us to get in touch with ourselves. We escape them because we run away from ourselves. It is the fear of being alone with a part of our being that we refuse to see, with the fears and wounds that we have ignored over time. It terrifies us to hear our own voice, an inner cry that we have buried for years under the voices of others and external noises.
We don't know ourselves because we are never alone. We do not know each other and it scares us to do so. When silence peeps, it brings with it the sounds of our shadows, of those dark sides that we do not recognize as such when they are.
Where does this anxiety come from, this feeling of loneliness and emptiness, that inherent anger that emerges when we remain silent? We are all of this, despite decades of efforts to deny it.
Because it is not our habit
Still, it's not all our fault. We were born and live immersed in a society that does not teach us to connect with ourselves nor to listen to us, but rather, it continually distracts us.
Self-knowledge, personal development, meditation ... all these activities seem exclusive to a minority that suffers and needs shelter, in fact we should all practice them.
Silence is stigmatized and we are taught to look at it as something negative, as a sign of anger, offense, sadness or absence. Silence evokes loneliness, emptiness, shyness and negative emotions, but it doesn't have to be.
We begin to train in silence
Training in silence helps to analyze fears, hurts and desires. It helps us to know ourselves, to heal and to grow. It offers us the opportunity to discover our desires and our opinions, to regain strength and voice.
When we know and accept each other, when we learn to love each other and to be alone with ourselves, then there is no comparable place in the world. Only we can fill our voids, heal our wounds and overcome our fears.
Only we can work on our dreams and our goals. So why are we afraid to stay with ourselves? Let's give ourselves a chance and we'll find out how much we've needed it all this time.
