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What Do You Do When Silence Screams?
What does silence mean to you?
I’ve never been on a silent retreat. Can you be silent? Even when you stop your inner narrator from saying mean things, can you silence it completely?
And not everyone is comfortable when their mind quietens and they hear their thoughts.
When you’re silent, you’re still chatting.
Can you experience an absence of sound? If you were somewhere quiet, you’d be able to hear your heartbeat and maybe a ringing in your ears.
And there are many types of silence. Silence speaks volumes.
Is silence always a good thing?
Silenced
Survivor and activist Tarana Burke founded the “Me Too” movement in 2006, but the hashtag didn’t go viral until 2017.
After women came out against Weinstein, Burke’s slogan was adopted overnight by people sharing their experiences of rape and sexual assault in Hollywood, in offices, in government, and everywhere else people had previously been silenced.
By October 2018, Twitter had used the tag more than 19 million times.
Abused people will not be silenced or silent anymore.
In cases of sexual violence, silence allows perpetrators to continue their abuse.
Social Silence
This is the silence of not knowing what to say or how to say it. The silence of not wanting to be heard.
Over the years, I’ve had many clients with social anxiety, and social silence terrifies them. They imagine that they have to fill a silence and don’t know what to say. Their internal noise ramps up as the external silence grows, and they become more nervous.
This is the silence of being afraid to speak up, wanting someone else to speak first, and feeling like your voice doesn’t matter.
I suggest that my clients fill the silence with listening. Not listening to their internal narrator but listening to whoever starts to speak. When you listen to someone else, the other person can feel your interest, and they don’t notice your silence.
