Transitions: The Gift of Silence

"If your mind is not clouded by unnecessary things, this is the best season of your life."

Wu-Men

Like most kids in my town, I attended the Catholic school that was associated with our local church. The parish was made up of large families—many of my friends had 5 or 6 siblings. The classrooms were crowded, and it was not unusual to have 40 kids packed into each room. Classes were taught by one teacher, typically a nun who was solely responsible for controlling a pack of energetic, distractable grade school children. The transition from morning classes to recess was a noisy affair that spiraled out of control for many of the teachers, except for my sixth-grade teacher, Sister Teresa. She was a petite woman who could command the attention of 40 shouting, jumping, pushing 12-year old’s with just a safety pin and a bible. When the bell rang at noon to signal the start of recess, the room broke into chaos, with books flying and kids pushing to get coats. At that moment, Sister Teresa would calmly climb up on her chair to stand above us with her bible in one hand while suspending a safety pin over it with the other hand. Within seconds the room fell silent and the crazed herd of middle schoolers would freeze. She would calmly wait, dangling the pin while we stood motionless. After what seemed like forever, she’d let go of the pin and, in the silence, we would hear it drop. What intrigues me is how that one moment of silence created a calm that persisted as we lined up quietly and made our way out the door in a single file.

Silence brings us into the present moment. It can come in the form of a pause, a moment of anticipation, such as when a 6th grader listens for the sound of a pin dropping on a bible. Even brief moments of silence bring us into the present by creating a gap that allows us to take a breath and calm the nervous system. We can schedule silences into our day, such as a regular meditation practice, or we might encounter silence unexpectedly, as when we notice a quiet stillness while walking in the woods. Importantly, silence is more than just the absence of external sound; it is also the quiet that comes when we intentionally reduce our mental chatter by focusing on our breath. Whether it is a pause or a stretch of time, silence is the only portal through which we can truly step into the present.

Many of us go through our days without a moment of silence. We live in a noisy world that offers endless opportunities to be drawn outward. It can be hard to find quiet, as we are pulled toward the alarms that wake us up, the news, music apps, streaming shows, Zoom calls, and personal conversations. Earbuds allow us to withdraw, but only by tuning out the noise of the world while we tune into our self-selected distractions. We’ve become so accustomed to noise that when our external world becomes quiet, we unknowingly rush to fill the silence with endless mental chatter. Most of us are unaware of how much we think—some estimates say we generate 6,000 thoughts a day. We get so used to swimming in the incessant flow of our thoughts that silence seems unnatural, and we feel restless, concerned that we should be doing something. We run from silence by focusing on what our mind is up to, jumping into the endless stream of our thoughts—planning, judging, ruminating, fantasizing.

Unfortunately, we have within our reach the ultimate distraction—our phones. Over the past ten years phones have become increasingly capable of capturing our attention which, in 2016, was estimated to occur every 15 minutes (most experts think it is closer to 10 minutes in 2021). Our devices have become a necessary part of our lives, making communication faster and more efficient while helping us get through the day with less demands on our time, more efficiency, and greater ease. But there is an adhesive quality to many of the platforms we use on our devices. Successful platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube are quite skillful at shaping our attention in ways we may not notice. As we scroll and linger in our search for information, these platforms are continuously gathering information about us. This is not necessarily sinister, as it does make our searches more efficient and tailored to our interests. The danger, however, lurks in how easily our devices capture and shape our attention. Over time, the information they offer can become so tailored to our preferences and beliefs that it has the potential to become personal “click bait”, causing us to spend less time in the present and more time on scrolling on our devices. We may think that all this information helps to inform us in the present—and in many ways it does—but its appeal can be insidious, with the potential of becoming a dopamine drip that rewards our attention with a pleasing stream of information, always ready to draw us out of the present and drop us into the river of churning thoughts.

We may think that our devices make us happier, but research is showing that the opposite is true. Not only do many of the platforms we use make us feel sad or dissatisfied, extended use can lead us to believe that our lives as more stressful, even if objective evidence tells us otherwise. One of the reasons we feel stressed is not necessarily because we are doing stressful things, but we leave so little time for silence. When faced with a problem, we typically want to do something—have a meeting, call people, and, of course, google it. Problems ignite a stream of thinking as we try to figure things out, nail down the answer, clear the confusion. Certainly, mental activity can be helpful but frequently it only increases our internal noise while creating anxiety and confusion. Usually it is better to pause, get quiet, breathe, and let the present moment unfold. Much like the explosive 6th graders, we benefit by creating a gap, take a moment to downshift, disconnect from our frenzied thoughts, and land softly in the here and now.

The National Science Foundation reports that, of our 6,000 thoughts per day, 80% are negative, and 95% are repeats. Given these statistics, that doesn’t say much for the quality of our mental chatter. Who wants to hang out with someone who talks about negative things most of the time and constantly repeats herself? Silence is our teacher, revealing to us what is happening in real time. In stillness we watch the moment without trying to change it. We see what is happening, feel bodily sensations, and notice colors, shapes, and sounds. Silence gives us the space to be and let go of thinking about the past or the future so we can wake up to this moment, which is the only place in which reality exists.

You might be wondering why I chose to discuss silence rather than meditation. Wouldn’t it be better to describe the many health benefits of a meditation practice? Meditation is an intentional, systematic process that is more structured than the organic process of cultivating silence. Not everyone finds meditation appealing, nor is it helpful for everyone. And I know plenty of people who meditate regularly but spend the rest of their day making lots of noise. Silence is always available to us. We can find stillness at any time by drawing our senses inward or retreating to a quiet space. It is a simple process that can be done at any time—no need for mats, incense, or Buddha statues. Having this simple practice at our disposal makes it more likely that it will become a habit. We can take a moment of silence whenever we transition from one activity to the next or when we feel depleted or overwhelmed. The more we make time for silence, the longer we stay awake in the present.

The next time restlessness makes you itch for your phone, stop and create a pause, focusing on your breath, becoming quiet. Cultivate the silence and rest in the stillness. After a few moments, notice how it feels to be present. Do you really need the distraction of your phone? Or would you rather stay awake, living fully in this one precious, wild, and vivid moment?