Alive

I was getting ready to go to sleep and thought... there's something missing...

There's a great buddhist thought that says something like: " don't say anything that doesn't sound necessary in silence."

I started thinking and i realized the only thing that's missing right now is silence. My life started really changing for the first time, a year ago, when i decided to listen to silence for the first time. Believe it or not, i work with my voice, so silence was never something i had understood until then. So the first time i actually understood what silence really meant was when i watched an independent, portuguese movie, without a soundtrack. There was no sound but the sound of the actual taping, no effects, nothing. And for an hour and a hath i watched that movie. I went to walk in those same streets where the movie was tapped. I started listening to the sound of silence in the world's words. That movie changed my life for its rawness, toughness but also because i related so much to the need of fulfillment of the character. That character searched for love in the "wrong" places. I searched for self love in love and in sabotaged pain. I started thinking about silence. I don't think i got it fully yet, i feel like i still imagine how it is, remembering that movie. It's funny cuz in the most intense times of my life, there was silence. When i woke up in the hospital, when i was leaving the one i loved, when i joined Sr...

Isn't it weird, that it was always there and i need it now like water....

I love that word, Silence, it gives value to a needed word....

Anna

Hi Karim,

I think this is so important.

I think I used noise, background noise, music, chatting, all of that, as a way to not listen to myself and to my soul. I think it was just so much part of my life to try to drown out everything that might take me inward. I just wanted to bury things and move on.

Silence is the route that has enabled me to find that voice within myself that guides me.

Krissy41

So true, silence is very important in teaching ourselves about our inner self. It's ironic though Karim, I work in a profession that demands alot of silence and yet I did not find true silence until I stopped drinking.

Good thread

Alive

Everything in recovery and life is a path. Things aren't instant, they build up to a moment of greatness.

Today i heard myself on my mind saying "Nuno this is what you really want and need right now". I had never actually stopped and listened. I had stopped and i had listened but not to myself. I now know what is a whisper of self. Someone very enlightened told me one day: There are two voices you can listen to in silence : 1)the instinct that is right and 2)stubbornness (witch may be confused with the first one). When you learn to distinguish those two you're on to something. When you learn to listen to the truth and not what is easier in a given time...you're on the right road....

Jomey

Awesome thread hun...lots to think about...I would like to add thoughts later, but thanks for sharing. Love, J

Anna

Yeah, I really think silence is the key to serenity.

I think we become so accustomed to tuning out our inner voice and listening to all the 'noise' in the world around us.

nodrinkingzone

Yes! I agree, 100%.

That silence allows us to hear our instinct, our intuition. It raises many questions about the inherent nature of right and wrong, but I have turned my back on that intuition so many times, and the stubbornness has ALWAYS landed me in a worse spot than I started.

When I listen to my inner heart, and don't struggle, life seems to flow much more easily than at other times.

Lots of deep philosphical implications here, i.e. where does that voice come from? Is it the same as other internal dialogues? Or does any of this even matter, and should we just listen to it and do the right thing?

Great thread. Funny, I've been into aggressive political hardcore/punk rock for a long time, and it's as I get older that I've gone back to much lighter acoustic/piano/contemporary music because the rest of it's just too noisy.

Amrita

I find loud political punk music too much for me lately, too, even though I love it at times, it tends to jagger my nerves like too much caffeine does. When I'm in a good space with meditation, I hear music in everything in "silence", that is, the hum of the refrigerator can be music, the sound of the furnace kicking on and the air moving through the heat vents can be music, etc. I just felt a wave of gratitude, for my refrigerator and having heat in the house.

Thanks for this thread, I have enjoyed reading what you all have had to say.

IO Storm

I take medication for bipolar disorder. I have been (thank God) able to decrease the

dosage..(Dr.'s orders of course)..to a minimum amount to stabilize mood swings.

But..it is very difficult to sleep now. The least little noise jolts me awake. And the

racing..grandiose thinking starts. I do not want to go back on night time meds.

So I am trying something new. ..I am s-l-o-w-l-y training myself to stop

the (thinking) process..and just listen to the chimes on the patio..or a cat's soft

meow..(we have a little stray my mom and I feed daily).

Or, after I have said all my prayers and done my 10th Step and meditation..I just

turn my MIND over and say the word 'serenity'..and be quiet.

Before you know it..I am asleep.

Thanks for posting this Kari.

Rella927

Karim awesome thread and from a "codie".........silence is a way to peace and serenity in my life today-without it I feel as if I'm back in that place where I was for many many years as a child and an adult...that I have worked so hard to come out of & still working on!

Silence allows me today to feel myself and trust myself that I'm doing what I need to do for ME! I find a lot of things now in recovery that were not annoying when I was not that actually make me a little :crazy today when I hear them!

I agree with Anna-and this is so true for so many of us here at SR if we are addicts, drinkers or just little annoying codies like myself! I know it was for me as it was what I was use to as a child growing up-if there was noise I did not have to feel or deal!

Anna51 Love this thread Karim! you are awesome!

I wanted to add this poem-It speaks a lot-I just love it!

Alive

I painted a simple painting and its name is "the silence".

If you look at it, it's a river, and in it you have two roads, the quicker and straight one is the road of instinct(that whisper of self), the other one is the road of stubbornness..

Change4life

It sthe noise in my head that sabotages me. Its the noise I surround myself with to drown out the noise in my head that keeps me unable to focus on whats important. Silence is such a valuable tool.

Thanks for the reminder.

Thank you fro the painting also, visualizing a thought really makes it clearer and more tangible.

Alive

One last thing i want to add. This might sound strange, but i felt for so long and still feel many times that even with a lot of silence outside, my brain is everywhere, there's no silence in the silence itself. So yesterday i was reading a meditation book, that explains exactly what Sherry said. For example, listening just to the waves or simply focusing on one sound out of all the others. I've been thinking how all this means there's an inner silence..Wow..this is getting philosophical. So there must actually be a road to get while in silence to that inner silence and in that place we listen to the right voice......the whisper of self!

Anna

Karim, you are moving forward so much in your recovery and in taking care of yourself. I am so glad you are sharing this with us.