In the past year, I have started off my mornings with something really special. SILENCE.
I wake up, perform my morning ablutions, and sit down on my bed or chair to stare off into space. I wouldn’t call it a meditation, but more like active day-dreaming. I sit and stare off into the white space, or close my eyes, and let my mind wander anywhere and everywhere.
It has actually become my favourite time of day. I let my mind journey to all of the different realms of time and space. In my daydreams, I can do anything and I can be anywhere. There is one difference between other people’s daydreaming and mine. I call my daydreaming active because I am quite conscious through the entire process. I pay attention to where my mind likes to wander.
When we are dreaming at night, and our subconscious is at play, there are no limitations to us and our capabilities. We are all-powerful. When I daydream during the day, and I let my mind frolic, I feel like I am listening to what my subconscious wants from life. I am listening to what I truly want from my life. In this way, I am not letting society, or my parents’ dreams for me dictate my own dreams.
Conscious DayDreaming
Have you ever daydreamed consciously? I bet not. If you did end up daydreaming, you probably thought it was a waste of time, like I used to.
The thing is that I realized a few months back that my daydreams always gravitate towards specific items. This is quite an important observation in my opinion. You know when people say the world is your oyster, that might be true, but I only want certain items from that oyster. I am not interested in the entire thing, just certain special bits and pieces.
Those bits and pieces I’m interested in, will not be the bits and pieces you are interested in.
I’m Unique In My DayDreams
That’s what makes us all so unique. Thus, when we start consciously daydreaming and watching where our mind wanders off to, we will find out what we are truly interested in doing with our lives.
In my case, my daydreams always tumble along to the same four or five spots: travel in fantastic locations, a successful business where I am financially independent speaking to big crowds of people about it live, a fantastic sexual encounter with a hottie, lucid flying in space where the sky isn’t even the limit, and lots of delicious food consumed by me in rapid succession.
With this observation, I’m able to craft my ideal life. It has to include lots of travel, lots of food, lots of business work, and lots of juicy kisses. The space travel is being replaced by air travel for the moment, but it will come as well.
Silence Changes Lives
We are lucky enough on this planet right now to have the disposable time to have silence in our lives. We do not live a life where we are surrounded by noise, and people all the time.
Most sages from old times and new, suggest silence and meditation as the primary way of getting in touch with that deeper essential self of us. That self which does not get affected by what is going on in the outside world. The Buddha that everyone holds inside of them.
The only caveat is that we can only access this beautiful part of ourselves when we are still, silent, and calm. Sitting down in silence during the mornings for me as become tantamount to communing with that true, and authentic part of me.
The birds are chirping outside my balcony door. Someone is brushing the floors downstairs in a rhythmic fashion. The sun is coming out slowly but surely. It is the dearest part of my day. I love it so much.
Silence Has A Musical Quality To It
Maybe it is just me, but I spend a lot of my day in silence. Of course, while I sleep, there is absolute silence. But during the day, a lot of times instead of filling my space with music or background white noise, I let the silence pervade my apartment.
When I am sitting down in silence, I realize that silence has a sort of musical essence to it. It isn’t complete silence that I am in ever. Unless, we go into a sensory deprivation chamber, there will always be some noise around us. The white noise is formed of A/C units, birds, planes, cars, and other random noises.
It is possible to either hate all of this cacophony, and wear headphones to eliminate it, or play loud music of our preference to drown it all out.
Or you can actually think of this silence as a beautiful orchestra that is playing exactly for you.
In Silence Our Heart Starts Singing
I cannot tell you how many times I have been sitting in silence during these morning sojourns, and I have had this burst of joy emanating from my heart. I cannot help but break the silence with the thought, ‘I love my life. I’m so happy to be alive right now.’
This happens because I am truly able to enjoy the moment without masking it with any other distraction mechanisms. Most people are uncomfortable with the idea of silence or time alone with themselves. We are more used to always having the TV running in the background, or some music playing in the foreground. Whatever it might be, there is always distraction from the silence.
Perhaps, we are afraid of what we shall see when the silence descends upon us. If we don’t like ourselves very much, the silence will reveal that to us. Or we hate certain parts of our previous lives, we shall discover the guilt or regret that has been sitting behind the mask of joy or indifference.
But when we sit in silence for a while longer, the hate, indifference, sadness, regret, anxiety, and fear all disappear. They are replaced with pure joy.
It is the natural transition of things.
Silence Leads To The Truth
When I’m sitting in silence in the mornings, I cannot lie to myself anymore. More often than not, I end up weeping or laughing about something specific in my life. As the silence descends upon me, there is no turning back, and there is no hiding.
The silence takes over, and I’m revealed to myself. I cannot hide from the absolute truth. Nor, can I run away from the absolute truth.
It is a dangerous place to be, for sure. In the beginning, I was afraid to be in the silence, because there were so many parts of myself that I hated, and didn’t want to see.
That is the fear that we all hold. We know there are monsters inside of us (shadows). These monsters lay dormant when we are moving about the world, staying busy and filled with noise. But as soon as the soundtrack of silence comes on, the monsters awaken. They stir about, they stretch, they yawn, and they are ready to wreak some havoc inside of us.
Day To Day, We Hide From Our Imperfections
That is when we all remember all of those horrible things we did when we were younger. That time when we bullied the little girl without a mother. That time we had sex with this boy hoping that he would love us. That time we told a lie and got caught in it. That time we cheated on our partner. That time…
So many times…
We are imperfect. We have demons. The silent times help us see each one of these monsters in the face, directly in the eye, and say, ‘I’m stronger than you now. You can go fuck yourself. I’m not afraid of you.’
As soon as we are able to say that to them, the monsters sizzle away. They aren’t here inside of us. They aren’t there outside of us. They are gone.
Only silence helps with this monster banishment.
Silence Is The Path To Self-Love
Can you sit in silence by yourself? Do you love yourselves enough? Probably not.
In the beginning, I hated myself. I couldn’t be in silence with myself. I heard all of my demons shouting at me.
‘You are ugly. You are fat. You will never be loved. You are hateful. You are mean. You are a bitch. You should just go and die. You should kill yourself. The world doesn’t need you. The world will be better off without you. You are a horrible daughter/sister/coworker/friend/partner.’
I feared that my demons were telling the truth, so I avoided them completely. I didn’t want to hear such horrible things about myself. I was having a hard enough time being who I was. I didn’t want to hear more negative voices against my worthiness.
So I Avoided Silence
But after a while, it became impossible to avoid. The first time I sat in silence, I did it as a meditation.
My back hurt. My legs went numb. My brain went ballistic; it had so much to say to me. My heart went sad; it couldn’t believe I would betray it like this.
I sit even though it is difficult. I knew the bounty was at the end of this journey.
I sat day in and day out. Somedays, I had music playing. Other days, it was silence.
As time went on, silence became the norm. Now my morning routine includes silence, and daydreaming as I said earlier.
The more I sat in silence, the more I learned to love myself. I realized how amazing I truly am. Even if, no one else loves me like I do, I still do. That is a solace to me like you wouldn’t believe. No one else needs to love me ever again. I love myself enough for millennia to come.
Silence And Creativity An Intertwined Ball
People ask me how I can create so much content. I write thousands of words every single day. I do tons of videos, podcasts, and workshops. I coach individuals. I am always creating new ideas, and putting it forth into the universe.
How do I do it?
I spent an inordinate amount of time in silence. In fact, the amount of time I spend in silence would probably freak the hell out of you.
I didn’t start off here though. In the beginning, maybe I spent ten minutes in silence everyday. Now I spend at least a couple of hours a day in silence, staring off into space, daydreaming, and just being.
But the more time I spend in silence, the more creative I become. All of these ideas float into my subconscious when I’m silent. It was like the tap had been turned off for the longest time, and all of a sudden, I had the hose turned on to the fullest capacity.
I can’t keep up with the ideas that come to me while I spend time in silence.
When I travel a lot or spend my time with people, I am not able to be in silence as much. In those moments, my creativity diminishes. I notice an almost proportional up and down with the two.
A Toxic Negative Mind Can’t Survive In Silence
I have had the chance to observe many minds in my time here on this planet. I have noticed two things.
- A toxic, negative mind cannot survive if that person regularly spends time in silence.
- A toxic, negative mind will usually avoid the silence like the plague at first.
The paradoxical thing is that a toxic and negative mind needs silence in order to get that toxicity and negativity. But that is probably the thing that they will avoid the most.
The first thing I tell most people who are afraid of silence is to go forth into that silence. The thing that you avoid the most is the thing you need the most for the evolution of your soul.
Just do it.
Spend a couple of minutes in silence. Gradually increase from there. In a few months, you will be spending hours in silence. With spectacular results in your personal and business development.
Silence Affects My Business Astronomically
My default mode in business is to work, work, and work some more. I want to be doing all the time. But I know from years of experience that doing doesn’t necessarily equate to success. Most of the doing ends up being useless.
But if I spend more time in silence, rest, stillness, and meditation, all of the doing I end up doing is useful and well thought out.
I hope this makes sense to you. Most of the busy work that we are busy doing is useless! It is a waste of our brain and physical space. We are just filling up time and space with it. Stop doing that to yourself.
The more time you can spend in stillness, rest, and silence, the more creative ideas that are actually going to transform your business will come running at you. You will not be working from a place of scarcity, fear, and anxiety, but from a place of joy, abundance, and true creativity.
Conclusion – Silence Matters
I’m keeping this post short (2400 words later), so I am going to end it off here. But I hope I got through the message to you. Silence matters, especially in this world we live in right now, which is filled with noise, distractions, consumerism, and negativity.
Do not let them get into your head. Use silence as a forcefield around you. The more silent you are, the less you will be affected by society’s messages of negativity, hate, consumerism, comparison, and putdowns.
In silence, we know ourselves, and we know who we truly are. No one else need tell us otherwise. Even if they do, we know better. Fuck them, and their marketing ploys. They won’t work on us anyways.
I am not fat. I am not ugly. I don’t need your special creams or makeup. I don’t need this dress or that bathing suit. I don’t need a boyfriend or a quick-weight-loss method. Go away and let me be in silence here right now with myself as I am. I am perfect as I am. Go annoy someone else with your messages. Someone else who hasn’t discovered the true powers of silence. Go away and don’t come another day.
It matters.
Will you start your journey into silent times today? If you do, let me know how it goes. I won’t lie and tell you it will be easy or fun at first.
It will be hard. But as all good things, it will be worth it. Au revoir and bon voyage into the silence!
