The Power of Silence
When was the last time you spent a couple hours in total silence? Have you ever taken a silent retreat? Would it be possible to have more silence in your busy life?
Medical studies are proving that silence renews us, and more of it leads to a life with less stress, less fear and anxiety, and more creativity. Why? Because even subtle noise sends messages through our auditory system to our brain that we need to be aware, prepped, on guard and that eventually taps our minds, our adrenals, and ultimately our ability to create.
A study out of Duke University found that two hours of daily silence prompted the growth of new cells in the hippocampus–the part of our brain responsible for memory. They also discovered that even subtle noise, when constant, causes the adrenals to produce cortisol–the stress hormone that puts us on notice that danger is around the corner.
In the last several months, I’ve been using a BOSE noise canceling headset even to be in my home. From Willow, our rescue dog’s, nails on the wood floor (and her barking) to the hum of the refrigerator, I’ve witnessed my mind seeking complete silence. When I spend ample time in total quiet, I’ve noticed my creativity and ability to find creative solutions to my work strengthen.
I wonder how often you get to be in total silence? I wonder if there has been a time you could hear the silence and feel your body relax into it?
My goal for this newsletter is to continuously spark your next inspired move, to give you the thought-nuggets that will help you uncover and rediscover those hidden aspects of your higher nature so that you can realize not only your genius, but your divine-original nature. I know from hearing from so many of you that you crave creative time, more abundance, and more joy. I believe we can find all of those things through the gateway of more silent time.
When we begin to spill over from our creative silences, we know it as a sensation, a need to share. Wanting to share with others our work, our ideas, our inner being.
So often we “leak” into the world around us, before we have truly germinated the ideas within us, before the well spills over its nectar. We share too early and watch the facial expressions of others—seeking validation begets seeking validation.
But when we give our work time, when we give it silence, when we give it singular focus, when we emerge with our original song – that which only we can sing. We transcend seeking.
True creative work emerge from cutting the noise from outside influence, voice, advertisement, or old mantras that hold us back like: You can’t really do this. You can’t say that, can you? Or That’s not important. Or worse: Who will buy it? Originality comes from the depths of silence; it is excavated from the soul. It is something so original in its vibration that we cannot know anything other than its truth.
In silence may we know our sacred name. Sound not word, the seed of our soul springs forth in the quiet we feed it.
When we rise early, before the light we are able to shape time to fit our creative needs.
In silence, we find the thread of the universe as it leads to true, divine, creative expression.
In silence, we give more weight to our creative lives than to our email and our day jobs.
In silence, we are able to choose our original voice over our tamed and pleasing tones learned from making due, from making peace within the walls of our family home.
What abundant sojourn awaits on the other side of our commitment to ample silent time?
Your soul’s language is not like any other before or since the birth of humankind.
Commit to be free from wants and commerce.
Commit to be free from what others think.
Commit to write, speak, and create from the heart behind the heart.
How will you engage and explore such a bounty?
We leak our time like pierced vessels.
We sway when the other people’s tides shift.
We make this-and-that our business, avoiding our one and only call to create.
We use what once worked as children to supplant the honest drive in us as adults.
This week, let us plant the seed of our creative silence into the world in which we find ourselves. Learn to be alone. Learn to revel in silence. Engage with the quiet pre-dawn. Experience sunrise as renewal. Be no longer beleaguered. Be no longer engaged with this and that nonsense of others. Be firm in your grip as you wield the tool of discernment—a pen, a paintbrush, a kiln, a voice.
Be the creative you were born to be.
Because true creativity is not derivative. It is fresh. It is the answer to all of your heart’s desires.
It cannot be replicated either. Yours is not hers, nor can it ever be his.
Silence gives birth to the original voice found under cover of your thoughts.
Your original, creative voice sings in solidarity with the divine river found underneath the surface of the city. Sing out. Sing wide and tall. Sing the song of silent reaching and finding.
I am grateful for you brave, beloved one. You are here with me, we are here together, pick axing the mountainside in search of our vein of gold, our vein of divine, original expression.
With Silence and Grace,
