This one is going to be sitting with me for a while and I'm grateful. I've been more and more aware lately of my inability to be still in silence. Part of this is a life long dance with ADD (made SO MUCH WORSE by technology and my ties to it), but part of it is avoidance but I'm not sure of what yet exactly. I find that I fill almost every minute with some kind of noise--an audiobook, podcast, music. These are awesome, I could not live without them but I know that I need more space for quiet bc my mind and my soul feel like they look like static right now.
I live in South GA, but I often have to drive to North GA for work and a few weeks ago on my way back home it rained (read: it RAINED) almost the entire way home and by the time I made it to calmer stretches of the highway, I was so overstimulated the windshield wipers were a trigger. This was mostly because of the storm, and the traffic but also because I felt it necessary to continue to try and listen and process an audiobook in all of it. Finally it dawned on me to hit pause and I've never welcomed silence more in my life.
I'm reading Padraig O Tuama's In the Shelter right now and quote, "Hello. Be Muzzled." Thank God for muzzles. I need a muzzle. (Also EPF, I vote for an interview with Padraig!)
“as we wait for our body to heal on a timeline that is always longer than we'd hoped” 🥺 ::nod:: ::continued nodding::
“Where are you avoiding silence?” 🤐
Emily, I don’t think I was ready for this reflection. As always, you’ve managed to scratch through to the upside-down of the main joyful experience. It’s always a great reminder to look beyond the surface and evaluate what the moment revealed in myself.
My own healing is taking nearly a decade beyond what I expected, and has only been compounded by additional crises and trauma. I suppose that’s to be expected since my role moved from personal care to parent caregiver after the grief of losing the other parent. What a journey! I knew the grief would remain after a death, but I wasn’t quite prepared for the daily griefs that come from caregiving. Nor was I prepared for the constant limbo of waiting for other shoes to drop before the finality that is inevitable.
Events like the eclipse provide a calm within my raging thoughts, and it was so very welcomed. It was also sweet to experience it with a niece who views the world in the same dreamer ways as myself. That I managed to get my mom to join us was such a welcome respite from the daily. And yet, as you mentioned, the memory is a haze. How odd. I took photos to document, but when I look at them I have no recall of the the individual moments. I’m grateful for the photo though, because I can still use it as an ebenezer to bring forth wonder and silence at will.
Your closing question was a bit of a gut punch. To consider where I’m avoiding silence immediately overwhelmed my senses, and I wanted to run from the question. Thank you for teaching us methods to face these questions head on.
I’ve found myself reminded just this week that time is fleeting and many decisions need to be made before it’s too late. Small daily decisions have become easier and the large end-of-life questions have been answered, but I’ve been avoiding the medium questions about what comes next after the caregiving but before my life moves on. Too many decisions to face and too many open-ended questions to be able to answer. So what I have is a whole quiver of arrows that I haven’t been willing to address. This is a reminder to sit in silence for a while and touch each arrow.
As I sit here contemplating the meaning of this post for me, the sound of the bathroom extractor fan finally stops after it’s 30 minutes of work. The funny thing is that I didn’t even notice it was on until it had turned off. The noise became so familiar.
I wonder how I can move gently and kindly towards turning off the other sounds that are surrounding my true quiet today.
Hmm. Sort of a conundrum for me, if that’s the right word. I am by nature a quiet person. I crave quiet, yet there is sound all around me all the time. For me, the desire is to connect, so my automatic default when by myself is to turn on a podcast or the radio in the car, or to turn my phone on when I’m alone. I am nudging myself towards real-life, real-time actions and moments: stopping for a spontaneous walk yesterday in a pretty park in the midst of errands, sitting in the backyard on Eclipse day where we were not in totality, and watching a giant swallowtail butterfly flit about our wild lime tree, picking up a book to read at lunch instead of browsing on my phone, trying to focus on gratitude right now today rather than dwelling on the ever-present worries of tomorrow and the next day.
I have been avoiding silence from my thoughts for quite some time. I realize it is a delay tactic in facing actions I probably have to deal with. I needed the noise of busyness, of reading, of getting things done to push down hard truths. I knew they were still there, I was just not ready to deal with. Scared to break, I suppose.
I wear hearing aids, so I when I want silence, I simply turn them off. But I've noticed I only do that when I am going to read or do something else that will require my concentration. I never just sit in silence. I'll be honest. It's hard to sit alone with just me and my thoughts.
Just the title sparked such an emotional response in me. I am in a season where I feel so much agitation about so many unanswered questions. I can literally feel my body begging me to stop moving, to breathe, to just get still and quiet. I know I need it desperately but if I am truly honest I think I am afraid to. I am afraid of the torrent of emotions that may come pouring out. I am afraid of the grief I've yet to sit with, the truth I know I need to acknowledge in order to move forward and the changes that will bring. I feel like I have spent so much of the last four years in sadness and I don't want to feel that anymore. I want joy, bliss, freedom, peace.... I know that constantly moving, numbing out with my ever growing to do list, and countless hours of doom scrolling, is only prolonging the natural healing process.
I am so thankful for your gentle voice that has so many times helped guide me to my next right thing. It gives me courage and hope.
Here's to breathing and being in the quiet that heals our souls and wakes us up to the things that make this life worth living. Blessings.
I’ve just got home from a weekend camping in Suffolk and although I had my phone with me, just being elsewhere temporarily helped weaken my connection to it.
My dear cousin is trialling turning hers off from 6pm Sat to 6pm Sun and says it’s really helping her to make that time into a sabbath. When I’m brave enough, i’ll try it.
'Part of what it means to be a soul minimalist, for me, is to write so that griefs, celebrations, milestones, and other life experiences have a way out, so all of the input has a place to go.'
Emily, this is the perfectly spoken reason why I've loved every minute of blogging since 2008.
I have taken to the practice of weekly Eucharistic adoration at my parish. We are lucky that adoration is available 24/7. I try for an hour each week and I read a devotional, bible study or other religious book and write in a prayer journal. Recently I was so tired that I started to doze off and when I woke up I realized that I was at great peace. I'm tying to spend at least 10 minutes of my hour in silence. I don't think God minds my reading or journaling but I think he is looking for his opportunity in the silence.
While your words invite me to considerj even more, I am drawn to the day of the eclipse. I was in Jackson County, IN, just south of where you were. I was with much of my family, but not all that had hoped to attend. Even with the people I was missing, being in that place (I have lived in MN for over 30 years) and experiencing it with family, in addition to all of our other conversations was a balm I needed more than I realized!
Thank you for adding layers to my thoughts about that day!
Megan Febuary at “Healing Your Story” shared a post this week about writing a poem each day without a prompt. Just listening. Attending. Seeing what surfaces in that silence. I need it. But I don’t know how to cultivate it. I’m just tired. Want to take a nap. But that’s not listening, is it? Just another method of avoiding silence while being in it.
Why not plan for silence after a nice nap when you are rested? God told Elijah to rest in the wilderness. Grace dearest Linda from one tired traveler to another.
This one is going to be sitting with me for a while and I'm grateful. I've been more and more aware lately of my inability to be still in silence. Part of this is a life long dance with ADD (made SO MUCH WORSE by technology and my ties to it), but part of it is avoidance but I'm not sure of what yet exactly. I find that I fill almost every minute with some kind of noise--an audiobook, podcast, music. These are awesome, I could not live without them but I know that I need more space for quiet bc my mind and my soul feel like they look like static right now.
I live in South GA, but I often have to drive to North GA for work and a few weeks ago on my way back home it rained (read: it RAINED) almost the entire way home and by the time I made it to calmer stretches of the highway, I was so overstimulated the windshield wipers were a trigger. This was mostly because of the storm, and the traffic but also because I felt it necessary to continue to try and listen and process an audiobook in all of it. Finally it dawned on me to hit pause and I've never welcomed silence more in my life.
I'm reading Padraig O Tuama's In the Shelter right now and quote, "Hello. Be Muzzled." Thank God for muzzles. I need a muzzle. (Also EPF, I vote for an interview with Padraig!)
“as we wait for our body to heal on a timeline that is always longer than we'd hoped” 🥺 ::nod:: ::continued nodding::
“Where are you avoiding silence?” 🤐
Emily, I don’t think I was ready for this reflection. As always, you’ve managed to scratch through to the upside-down of the main joyful experience. It’s always a great reminder to look beyond the surface and evaluate what the moment revealed in myself.
My own healing is taking nearly a decade beyond what I expected, and has only been compounded by additional crises and trauma. I suppose that’s to be expected since my role moved from personal care to parent caregiver after the grief of losing the other parent. What a journey! I knew the grief would remain after a death, but I wasn’t quite prepared for the daily griefs that come from caregiving. Nor was I prepared for the constant limbo of waiting for other shoes to drop before the finality that is inevitable.
Events like the eclipse provide a calm within my raging thoughts, and it was so very welcomed. It was also sweet to experience it with a niece who views the world in the same dreamer ways as myself. That I managed to get my mom to join us was such a welcome respite from the daily. And yet, as you mentioned, the memory is a haze. How odd. I took photos to document, but when I look at them I have no recall of the the individual moments. I’m grateful for the photo though, because I can still use it as an ebenezer to bring forth wonder and silence at will.
Your closing question was a bit of a gut punch. To consider where I’m avoiding silence immediately overwhelmed my senses, and I wanted to run from the question. Thank you for teaching us methods to face these questions head on.
I’ve found myself reminded just this week that time is fleeting and many decisions need to be made before it’s too late. Small daily decisions have become easier and the large end-of-life questions have been answered, but I’ve been avoiding the medium questions about what comes next after the caregiving but before my life moves on. Too many decisions to face and too many open-ended questions to be able to answer. So what I have is a whole quiver of arrows that I haven’t been willing to address. This is a reminder to sit in silence for a while and touch each arrow.
Eternally grateful for you, Emily!
The “medium questions” ~ what an appropriate description! I knew exactly what you meant.
As I sit here contemplating the meaning of this post for me, the sound of the bathroom extractor fan finally stops after it’s 30 minutes of work. The funny thing is that I didn’t even notice it was on until it had turned off. The noise became so familiar.
I wonder how I can move gently and kindly towards turning off the other sounds that are surrounding my true quiet today.
Thank you as ever Emily. X
Hmm. Sort of a conundrum for me, if that’s the right word. I am by nature a quiet person. I crave quiet, yet there is sound all around me all the time. For me, the desire is to connect, so my automatic default when by myself is to turn on a podcast or the radio in the car, or to turn my phone on when I’m alone. I am nudging myself towards real-life, real-time actions and moments: stopping for a spontaneous walk yesterday in a pretty park in the midst of errands, sitting in the backyard on Eclipse day where we were not in totality, and watching a giant swallowtail butterfly flit about our wild lime tree, picking up a book to read at lunch instead of browsing on my phone, trying to focus on gratitude right now today rather than dwelling on the ever-present worries of tomorrow and the next day.
I have been avoiding silence from my thoughts for quite some time. I realize it is a delay tactic in facing actions I probably have to deal with. I needed the noise of busyness, of reading, of getting things done to push down hard truths. I knew they were still there, I was just not ready to deal with. Scared to break, I suppose.
Working on it one crack at a time.
I wear hearing aids, so I when I want silence, I simply turn them off. But I've noticed I only do that when I am going to read or do something else that will require my concentration. I never just sit in silence. I'll be honest. It's hard to sit alone with just me and my thoughts.
Just the title sparked such an emotional response in me. I am in a season where I feel so much agitation about so many unanswered questions. I can literally feel my body begging me to stop moving, to breathe, to just get still and quiet. I know I need it desperately but if I am truly honest I think I am afraid to. I am afraid of the torrent of emotions that may come pouring out. I am afraid of the grief I've yet to sit with, the truth I know I need to acknowledge in order to move forward and the changes that will bring. I feel like I have spent so much of the last four years in sadness and I don't want to feel that anymore. I want joy, bliss, freedom, peace.... I know that constantly moving, numbing out with my ever growing to do list, and countless hours of doom scrolling, is only prolonging the natural healing process.
I am so thankful for your gentle voice that has so many times helped guide me to my next right thing. It gives me courage and hope.
Here's to breathing and being in the quiet that heals our souls and wakes us up to the things that make this life worth living. Blessings.
Praying and longing for courage and hope with you, Jessica. You’re right that stopping and welcoming silence is scary. Feeling all this also.
I’ve just got home from a weekend camping in Suffolk and although I had my phone with me, just being elsewhere temporarily helped weaken my connection to it.
My dear cousin is trialling turning hers off from 6pm Sat to 6pm Sun and says it’s really helping her to make that time into a sabbath. When I’m brave enough, i’ll try it.
Grateful for you xx
'Part of what it means to be a soul minimalist, for me, is to write so that griefs, celebrations, milestones, and other life experiences have a way out, so all of the input has a place to go.'
Emily, this is the perfectly spoken reason why I've loved every minute of blogging since 2008.
I have taken to the practice of weekly Eucharistic adoration at my parish. We are lucky that adoration is available 24/7. I try for an hour each week and I read a devotional, bible study or other religious book and write in a prayer journal. Recently I was so tired that I started to doze off and when I woke up I realized that I was at great peace. I'm tying to spend at least 10 minutes of my hour in silence. I don't think God minds my reading or journaling but I think he is looking for his opportunity in the silence.
While your words invite me to considerj even more, I am drawn to the day of the eclipse. I was in Jackson County, IN, just south of where you were. I was with much of my family, but not all that had hoped to attend. Even with the people I was missing, being in that place (I have lived in MN for over 30 years) and experiencing it with family, in addition to all of our other conversations was a balm I needed more than I realized!
Thank you for adding layers to my thoughts about that day!
Megan Febuary at “Healing Your Story” shared a post this week about writing a poem each day without a prompt. Just listening. Attending. Seeing what surfaces in that silence. I need it. But I don’t know how to cultivate it. I’m just tired. Want to take a nap. But that’s not listening, is it? Just another method of avoiding silence while being in it.
Why not plan for silence after a nice nap when you are rested? God told Elijah to rest in the wilderness. Grace dearest Linda from one tired traveler to another.
Thank you, Misty. ❤️ I practiced some breathing exercises for stillness before drifting off yesterday. I think I might go for it again today.