The Sound of Silence... ahhhhhhhh
 

:a213:

Our summer schedule is very different than our winter. With DD out of school I work from home a couple of days & then she bounces from my RAH, mom, BF & my sister/niece for the other 3 days each week depending on what activities everyone has planned. She has been doing a lot of extra sleepovers with them as a result & I try to make the most of those odd, unplanned moments.

On Monday she went right from one sleepover to another (lucky girl!) and I checked out a new yoga class while RAH did his meeting/sponsor meet & I found myself home, alone, at a reasonably decent hour.

It was sooooooo quiet. Just utter silence with the exception of the water filters running in the turtle tank. (which has a kind of waterfall sound)

I usually jump on those times to catch up on a show or DVD or something but once I caught myself listening to the "Silence" I was absorbed in it. I can't remember the last time things were so utterly quiet that I could HEAR the silence. There were no appliances, no TV/radio, no cell phones ringing off, no talking, no traffic, no nothing. Just me & the cats, sitting in comfortable silence.

It was so lovely. It reminded me that Silence is something I NEVER make time for, but I should. It probably belongs on my "Top 10" list of important health things along with drinking enough water & getting enough sleep & exercise. It's definitely beneficial recovery-wise; I started googling articles about the health benefits of silence & not surprisingly, reducing our exposure to noise pollution can help all kinds of things health-wise - emotionally, physically & psychologically.

So, are YOU getting enough silence? ;)

Good post.

I personally don't even believe it's possible to get enough silence.

I should have lived on Walden's Pond.

I spend a lot of time seeking silence and I live alone, so you wouldn't think it would be that hard to find!

I CRAVE silence... I'm just not sure where to find it. LOL

When I do get it.. sometimes only in the middle of the night when everyone is sleeping, it's WONDERFUL!

Beautiful post, FireSprite. At this point in my life, the only consistent alone time I get is on my commute. Not exactly silent!

RAH is a late-night TV watcher (needs the chatter to fall asleep) but I h*a*t*e the sound of the TV when I am falling asleep. Even when he falls asleep in the living room with the TV on I would wake & b@tch in the middle of the night because it sounds WAY louder in the dead of night than it did at 10pm, lol. We have a timer for all of our TVs but you have to remember to set them for them to work, right?

Now that we switched to Netflix it doesn't bother me because when his show ends & he's fallen asleep it just sits on the menu screen with no sound.... ahhhhhh...... so I am no longer waking to the sound of the TV in the middle of the night.

I love the silence, too. Thrive on it sometimes. I rarely have the TV on when I'm at home alone, pretty much just in the late evenings when I want to shut my mind off and can skip through the ads with my DVR. I need silence to help me keep my focus, stay settled.

On the flip side, I've had to learn to train my brain not to slip into negative thinking mode. Because it's easy to do that in the silence, too. One thought can go bad and multiply and stay there for a long time. Stinking thinking, I guess you could call it. Thoughts are incredibly powerful. I've had to work really hard to recognize quickly when I'm in that stinking thinking mode and switch it off to live in the present.

Me too, and you know, I think I had convinced myself that my 45-min each-way commute every day WAS my silence/downtime..... but the more I am paying attention & being aware I realized it's actually my most stressful time. Super loud, lots of emergency vehicle/accident situations to watch out for along with terrible local drivers, seasonal traffic issues & construction. Wow, how chill. Not!

GREAT point!

The absolute best name I ever heard for this stinkin thinkin is "the itty bitty sh*tty commitee" inside my head. hahahaha :Dance1c:

Exactly. My headphones died a couple of months ago, during some awful midwestern weather and I nearly had a panic attack one morning having to listen to everything. Also, heaven forbid anyone approach me with even a friendly "hello" at the bus stop. It wouldn't be out of the realm to imagine myself biting their heads off: "I don't really want to talk to anyone right IS THAT OKAY WITH YOU?????

DH will get cast in another show before too long (he works way more often than I do) and soon enough I'll be back on that lonely silent schedule of weekends where I can't find anything to do with myself and end up watching HOUSE marathons for six hours on a Saturday... :)

Hahahaha! Well, next time they show up in my head, I'll know what to call them when I kick them out.

I get a good dose of silence once or twice a week....when AH is out on a binge. Does this count? Maybe it's the silver lining in my cloud? ;-)

Love it!!! Thank you for the reminder!!!

Silence was one of the things I craved right after I left AXH. He was one of those people who would get up and immediately turn the TV on or put a CD in the CD player (often both). There was never silence in our home; in retrospect, I think silence made his thoughts too loud in his head. I notice during times of upheaval, I have a hard time with silence, too -- there were periods when I would always put my handsfree on and call someone while driving, simply because I couldn't stand being alone with my thoughts.

These days, I crave silence. It's like I can't get enough of it. I'm blessed with an office of my own at work, where I can decide whether I do or don't turn on the A/C when I come in. Most often, I don't. And at home, after the kids go to bed, there's only that one yappy little neighbor dog that disturbs the peace... and I hate that thing with a vengeance... :lmao

My RAH is a movie watcher--not just movies but loud, banging, crashing, exploding, testosterone-laden, manly ACTION movies. I usually go somewhere else to read during these times, plus I do go to bed earlier than him b/c of my job. We bought a pair of these Wireless Radio Frequency Headphones - MDRRF985RK Review - Sony US about a year ago and OMG, I wish we had bought them LONG before that!! Truly, they are so worth the price. He can crash and explode to his heart's content and I can quietly relax w/my book and we're both happy!

You may guess from this that I'm a fellow silence-valuer, and yes, I totally am. I almost never put on music, radio, etc., when at home, and never ever wear earphones while running, not even back in the days where I'd be out for 3-1/2 hours on a 20-miler. I love the ambient sounds of the world, and when that sound is silence, that's fine w/me.

I think someone recommended those headphones to me before - I completely forgot, thanks!

I also love the sounds of nature - love that phrase, "ambient sounds of the world"! I often spend Sunday mornings just sitting on my back deck because it's like a country symphony with the squirrels, birds & other wildlife chirping & scurrying. On my walks I appreciate the sounds of nature because it helps me to be on the lookout for snakes, etc.

We currently have a rouge wild hog loose in the woods near our house. (which has become the Moby Dick to a neighborhood full of Rednecks) He is black as night & moves swiftly when startled.... DD & I have seen him 3x. A few nights ago I stepped out onto my unlit porch & there was no moon... so super dark..... After a few mins our loud A/C unit shut off & it got quiet. I turned to go back inside & made a noise & the hog must've been on the other side of the porch/fence line because all of a sudden I heard him squeal/snort & go running through the high grass.

I never saw him in the darkness & he must not have heard me until the A/C unit shut off; we scared the heck out of each other & went running in opposite directions, lol!

xabf used to fall asleep every night with the TV on (probably still does.) When I asked him about it once, he said he and his brother grew up that way. I always wondered if it was to drown out the noise of their abusive alcoholic father, but we never talked about his dad, so I never asked about that part of it. The topic of his AF struck some deep-rooted pain in him. It was always interesting to me that silence was often hard for him...unless he was high, but that's a different kind of silence...just a different way to numb the thoughts and feelings in your head.

~bumping for my own benefit~ :)

I can see that I've been overdoing my multi-tasking in an effort to accomplish more but I end up feeling like a spinning top, wobbling, exhausted, until I just topple over every evening.

I've also been skipping/shortening the final pose (corpse pose/savasana) during my yoga workouts because I'm doing them in the morning vs. night & am in a hurry to shower & get on with my day. Even on nights that I meditate, I use a guided track so it's still not silent in any way. I've filled my morning commutes with audiobooks & TED talks so that I'm getting the most out of every minute most of the time.

This morning I took time to relax into corpse after my workout & realized immediately that I've been shortcutting myself right out of the benefits of observing that extended moment of silence.

5 Life-Affirming Benefits of Corpse Pose - mindbodygreen.com

Silence is truly golden - it creates space for all of those underlying thoughts to surface naturally & bubble up to get processed out & (Note to Self) I need to focus on making it part of my regular routine until it becomes habit again......

Good Reminder thanks FS!

I don't ever just sit and BE....that needs to change.

http://s32.postimg.org/s8843gfh1/c0b...a53917f5d5.jpg

And here is a thought to hold during that meditative time:

http://s32.postimg.org/u727hj7th/Nat...ifulprayer.jpg

Not as much as I would like. I do try to capture some silence in my studio and book some time just to meditate. Other than that we live in the middle of a big city, noise is part of it. Sirens, horns, cars from 7 am to 1 am. Sometimes late at night if I happen to wake up I will sit outside and its quiet. Our doors are pretty solid it is quiet in my bedroom with the exception of a siren going by.

I get my real silence at our beach house. Little wave action and wind, for the most part nothing. Birds in the daytime, but that's not "noise". I have never heard one horn or siren there.