I have ADHD, I am considered an extrovert, and my being quiet has often led to others believing that I am depressed. The truth is, however…I recognize the importance of being with myself in silence.
How often do we face silence and either try to fill it with words or with doing something (like play with our phones)? Silence is difficult for most people – when we are with another person, we feel like there should be some form of communication happening. When there ISN’T anyone around, we seek them out virtually.
Admittedly, no man (or woman, or child) is an island. Social well-being is, after all, a part of our overall well-being. But words are not the only way we can be social. Indeed, verbal communication makes up only a quarter of what we are sharing with another.
Those silences? They are actually full of conversation, we just don’t realize it. Consider how some silences feel comfortable while others agitate us. How we perceive the silence depends on so many things – It might be the person we’re with, or the context, our expectations or what we think the other person expects. It may even be the impression we want to make.
Silence is, in fact, an opportunity to use our non-verbal skills to express what we would use words for. I recall sitting next to my sister in silence one day. She sat there on her phone, I sat next to her, desperately restraining myself from telling her “you know, it’s rude to be on your phone when I’m sitting right here. If nothing, at least we could DO something together”. I knew from experience, however, that verbalizing this often led to arguments which I did not want to waste my time on.
So, I tried something new – I turned towards her at an angle, took my phone out and fiddled with it, but looked up at her in intervals. At one point, she caught my eye and asked, “what?” My response was simple – “if you’re done, can we do something together?” I had not said anything to catch her attention, and yet she heard me loud and clear. There is a reason that non-verbal communication makes up more than half of our communication (if you’re wondering, the other quarter of communication is para-verbal, sounds that replace words (like grunts, or “m-hmm”).
Of course, at times it is silence because there IS no one to talk to; an imposed silence (unless you listen to music, watch something electronically, or talk to yourself). However, even in this case, silence can be valuable. It is in silence that we can focus our attention inwards. Physically, our senses do not need to work as hard as they do otherwise – there is nothing to hear, nothing to say. No observations to make of the person in front of us. Instead, we can hear sounds we would not have paid attention to otherwise, natural (birds singing, trees and leaves rustling) or not (whirring refrigerator or air conditioner). In fact, one of the strategies for mindfulness involves focusing on what our senses perceive in complete silence so as to validate existing in the present.
Meanwhile, silence does not necessarily mean inactivity – we may not move around much, but our minds most definitely are. What has happened, what is happening, what will happen…our minds do not stop. When we are ensconced in silence, with our senses demanding less of us, we have the opportunity to direct our thoughts the way WE want them to go, without having them directed by unconscious processes or emotional states. Self-reflection, questioning the validity of how we thought about events or experiences we had, gleaning from them what we learned and where we confirmed our old strengths and found new ones…silence can involve a great deal more growth than we give it credit for.
So embrace silence. Use it. It isn’t an unnecessary and redundant vacuum – it is full of possibilities.
Think Again 