Creating Stillness of Heart & Mind

     It’s a new year.  And time for resolutions. 

     My resolution is -- to be quiet.

     As a talkative person who began speaking before the age of one, this is going to be quite the challenge.  For months now I’ve been feeling the need for greater stillness and silence in my life, but it’s not been easy to break this habit of chatting.  

     However, there’s nothing like a strong incentive!  And I just received a spur to silence.

     A friend and I were on the phone discussing our group of friend’s aborted New Year plans.  In the run up to this holiday trip, I had become the de facto liaison between the various parties.  In the relay back and forth of people’s wishes, desires and wants people became upset.  I find myself in the unenviable position of being blamed for plans falling apart.

     So I can delay no longer.  It's time to honour the yearning for stillness!

     To break a habit, we have to establish new ground rules or failing that, create some distance from the things and situations that encourage our habit.   Support systems quite naturally coalesce around our habits and ensure their perpetuation.  For instance, at social gatherings, especially with family and friends, our habits are nourished because we all unconsciously role-play our designated parts. In my case, because I’m gregarious, quiet people tend to rely on me to carry on conversations and keep the “party going”.  

     So it becomes imperative when trying to make changes that we examine our lives and lifestyles to determine the existing support systems that keep us playing the roles we no longer want to maintain.  Forging a new habit will necessarily require new ways of engaging or less frequent engagements.

     The advantages to being silent are manifold.

    Silence enhances our senses.  A few months ago I went on my first trip to Hawaii.  On the first morning there, I noticed something I hadn’t realized I’d unconsciously been paying attention to. After meditating, I began my other practices which I had typed on paper.  As I picked up the pages, I was struck by their muted sound.  In Hawaii’s humid air, the papers had absorbed so much moisture that their characteristic hard crackling sound was completely transformed. Not only was the sound of the paper different, its texture had changed too; it felt soft and velvety and almost leathery in my hands. 

    In stillness - stillness of the mind, body and speech - the mind becomes attentive to such subtleties.   When the mouth stops moving, our sensory consciousnesses expand.

     A very important benefit to speaking less is that it creates the space to notice our thoughts and bodily feelings.  We are constantly receiving signals of what’s going on mentally and emotionally for us, but because our attention is turned outward in conversation, we often miss them.

     Listening to our thoughts and feelings helps us interact skillfully both socially and with ourselves.  This mindful attention to our thoughts and feelings calms the nervous system, and helps us be present and non judgmental. 

     To maintain this new habit of being silent, ask yourself the following questions before speaking:

1.       Am I going to improve the silence by speaking?

     2.      What of value am I contributing by sharing now?

      If you can’t refrain from commenting, then write out your feelings and thoughts instead of speaking them.  When you calm down, go back and read what you wrote; it will reveal how much wiser it was to be silent. 
     Journaling is a powerful way of processing our emotions and thoughts.  It can also provide helpful kinder ways of sharing our feelings. 

     I think I’ve given myself and hopefully you too enough reason to speak less and thereby increase your inner peace and calm.

     May your 2018 be filled with love, happiness and stillness of heart and mind.