Friday, April 8, 2016

The importance of silence.

It's not very often that I sit alone in a quiet room and just listen. Listen to the roar of the silence, the whisper of the Lords voice, the chatter going on in my brain.

I've been trying to figure out what to write about all day. I wrote two different posts and though they're not complete garbage and I saved them, neither of them felt like the right one to present to you. It was almost like I was not being sincere like I wasn't being true to what was really going on, both came across as shallow. As vulnerable as I tried to be in them they just didn't seem to go deeper than surface level.

So I stopped and just laid on the floor. I literally laid down on the floor of my bedroom, on my back and I tried to find the silence in my ever so noisy heart. I tried to find the topic, the poem, the reason for a post that would serve readers and I came up empty handed. So I decided to go out of my comfort zone and to meditate.

I know a lot of people that meditate. When I traveled in Up with People a lot of my colleagues and the students that traveled with us would meditate to get through the tour. I never considered myself to be the mediation type. I'm more of a go for a run and journal to unwind type of gal, I never really understood the importance of sitting in silence, until today that is.

Just this afternoon one of my co-workers told me about an app called insight timer, she told me that she uses it as a guide for her meditations. To be nice, I downloaded the app and told her that I would try it sometime, not expecting to ever use it. Not expecting to come home and to try and write, try and spend a few hours in my passion and instead spend an hour writing and rewriting words that meant nothing.

So I decided to try it. I went on the app and opened up a guided meditation called "Centering prayer:It is time" and I pressed play. The meditation was 34 minutes long and I'll admit I only got through 15 minutes of it, but that quarter of an hour was exactly what I needed to produce this.

The meditation started with soft airy sounds and the voice of a woman, a woman speaking about my favorite thing in the whole world,The Lord. As she spoke she led me through breathing techniques and instructed me to be aware of my body and then said a word of prayer before going into moments of silence. As I set there, on my floor in my completely silent apartment I felt so connected to God and to myself. I went from seeking after something to write about, to the perfect topic finding me.

This week I had a friend tell me that sometimes God speaks to us in a loud booming voice and other times he comes in a whisper, in a still small voice. I think that often times my mind is going so fast and my ears are tuned to so much noise that I miss the whispers, the still small voices, I miss the beauty of the silence.

I don't know if I'll start meditating everyday or if I'll only do it every few weeks but the peace that I feel right now, the calm that is resting on my shoulders is a welcomed feeling. For all my busy millennial friends reading this, I hope that this weekend or even today that you take a moment or two to embrace the silence. Coming from the busiest bee in town, you won't regret it.

Until next time friends. XOXO



1 comment:

  1. Even in silence and meditation there is still movement. Those are the thoughts I had while reading this. It is just a different kind of movement - the internal movement and focus as you meditate. It's really quite fascinating.

    I get curious to see how each person reactions to silence is. It is different for everyone. But one of my assignments this week is to be in a room with silence and notice what I do. What thoughts arise? What is my body doing? What is my body not doing? How am I breathing? What are the patterns that keep arising?

    So I am curious about my assignment and so therefore that will be my form of meditation for this week. It seems that you were able to find something to write - you meditated before writing this. What is your own habit before you write something? And what happens when you struggle to find something to write about? It seems like meditation worked this time, what about next time?

    As always, I enjoy reading you blog my dear :)

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