Finding Your Silence
Jake Knapp recognizes it. I wrote about it. In more than one way. We, the people, are craving some way to get our brains back. We need to clear our heads. We have to silence some of the cacaphony of our modern digital life. You, yourself, came here in a bored moment, in between tasks, and you’re not getting as much done as you want.
We need to build a practice of silence back into our lives.
This Doesn’t Have to Be Religious or Spiritual
Silence and a break in the action doesn’t have to have anything to do with good or bad or whether you go somewhere when you die. It can be just as secular and biological as you want. You simply have to accept that you want a reset, a way to focus in between projects.
What’s the Practice? What Does One Do?
The trick of silence is that it works great, even if all you can have are 5 or 10 minutes tops. If it’s noisy where you are, then maybe silence isn’t even exactly possible. Put in something with no real lyrics or melody like a Binaural Beats song.
Then? Set a timer or alarm for whatever you can do, 5 or 10 minutes (this is so you don’t have to be anxious and check the time over and over). Keep your eyes open but don’t focus on anything in particular (this is important - closed eyes let our mind wander too fast, and too-focused eyes make us think of that thing and not the “nothing” we’re chasing).
Focus, if you want, on just breathing out. (Hint: “in” comes quite on its own if you focus on “out.”) Whenever you catch yourself thinking about anything, just label it “thinking” and let it go again. Go back to your breathing.
Don’t work on anything. Don’t try to fix anything (you’re already amazing and magical). Just breathe out (and in).
When the time is up, just smile (even if you had a difficult attempt at it), and get back to whatever you want to do. The goal, always, is simply to do the work. It’s like getting into running. You don’t start with 26.2 miles. You start by trying to get from one telephone pole to the next, or to just get out the door. Right? Same here.
Then What?
If you get comfortable with this, then work on expanding it, or adding more than one attempt a day. I do my work in the very early morning, again at night, and often, if I can find some time, in the middle of the day. Just like most efforts, the more you do it (without overdoing it), the more you’ll see the rewards.
What are the rewards?
* A stronger ability to focus.
* The ability to let go of frustration.
* The chance to start from where YOU want to start and not follow other’s scripts.
* A chance to build your business instead of react to other people.
* Armor against letting emotions get too lost and twisted up inside you (sometimes, they just fall out while you’re breathing).
Advanced Might Be This
If we were to think of an “advanced” level of finding silence and quieting our mind, it might be this: the ability to drop into that mode quickly after someone or something upsets you. Meaning, it’s easier to find silence and build that place inside when nothing’s really immediately bugging you. It’s much harder when everything seems like it’s falling down.
But that comes later. Don’t force it. Just start with the practice. Maybe tonight or tomorrow morning?
Chris Brogan meditates every day before he thinks about Human Business Works.
