silent moments

Not being able to use my voice as usual, I have been slightly intrigued by the attitude of others to my silence and the odd and often times humorous occurrences it triggers......but even more so, I am surprised, dismayed and excited to discover the true nature of my silence in a noisy world...to determine how my illustrious partner has observed his own silence and how this has served his connection to response as opposed to reaction and then how a new approach can begin serve me...

But before I get too whimsical in my spiritual discoveries, let’s take a more entertaining glance at the silence fiasco....to start with everyone, even family has taken to either talking really loudly and slowly to me, as though my silence was an indicator of a more sinister problem with my mind than the innocent issue of nodes on my voice box...or they whisper, as if we are now in the throes of a secret conspiracy...either way it is an opportunity to see what the physically challenged have to deal with on a day to day basis!! Then of course there are the wonderful shop attendants who seem to zero in on me these days and insist on greeting me with big smiles and a ‘hello, how are you today’ that begs an answer ...and when all they get in return is a weak smile they look so despondent. I am sure, no absolutely convinced that they were not so eager to converse with me or greet me when I was full voiced! Then to top this all off, when I went to the local fruit and veg store with Miss Independent the other day, she happily explained to the check out girl, as I weakly tried to mouth my silent answer to all the attendant questions that ‘ Oh, she has no voice’ to which the poor girl’s face dropped in dismay as she began to talk slowly and with less intellectually demanding phrases to me until ( thanks for small mercies) my lovely daughter explained that oh no she usually has a voice it’s just gone for now. Relief swept across the check out girl’s face, and she resumed her normal chatter!!! I’m not sure if I should be feeling like a freak or coming to the inevitable conclusion that the general run of us are freaks.....at least in the conclusions we come to when others are a just a little bit different!

On the plus side and more spiritually I have to report that my silence has taught me about the art of really listening, silence of the voice alone will not make this happen; it’s about making that busy mind stop a while too. This should be self evident I am sure but I never really experienced this as a physical concept until now.......this stopping in my quiet as others talk lets me take time to respond..It’s slower when you need to write everything down...and thus it has helped me avoid those reactions I am prone to... Also, quiet enables listening to other people. Not only hearing, actually listening. If we are really silent, not just keeping our lips still, we can focus and listen to what is being said and even more than that – how it is being said, what is the body language saying, what is not being said and why it is not spoken.

I've also been recognizing that countless times, my experiences relating to other people have more to do with my own prejudices and predilections than they have to do with how the others actually are—because I am taking time and not just reacting I am realizing how much I knee jerk my way through life….My wonderful hubby always takes time before responding and I humbly admit that this at times drives my active, quick and impatient mind into a frenzy!!! Not any more, I understand now and I get his amazing patience and noticeable calm…..

So I will take many things away from this experience, a little humour, a little inner quiet, better listening skills and a lot of patience…..