
Anyone who suffers from migraines or similar head pain will immediately understand this post from their perspective of suffering. When your head feels as though it’s being smashed apart by a hammer, silence is absolutely necessary. Most who suffer from migraines prefer a dark solitary room as they try to sleep off their misery.
When recovering from an acute or chronic illness, silence can play a similar healing role. When I was at my sickest, I could not tolerate noise. When I worked on my computer, I needed silence. When I drove in the car, I needed silence. My body was so wracked with pain and my brain so overwhelmed with the constant internal stimulation that it simply could not handle the external noise as well. As my health improved, I slowly saw a return of music into my life. I started by being able to tolerate calm classical music. Slowly but surely, I returned to calm pop music as well. Even now, though, on days when I’m feeling overwhelmed, I return to silence, meditation music or classical music in the car, while working on my computer, or while in my sauna. My body needs that silence or low key energy to heal.
Silence can play a similar role in emotional healing. Many of us don’t like to be alone with our thoughts: Being alone with them means we have to actually pay attention to them and confront them. It’s easier to ignore that nagging voice in the back of your head that wants you to work through your spiritual and emotional issues if one has loud music and other surrounding noises helping block it all. Silence can force us to face what we need to work on in order to heal.
Spending time alone in silence can be vital to healing on all levels. This is one of the many reasons that some spiritual practices include silent retreats for days, weeks, even months. Others take on commitments of silence that last for years. In that silence, it becomes easier to hear the higher powers that surround us. We can use their assistance to heal those emotional and physical pains that are dragging us down.
If you are struggling with an issue, be it emotional, physical or spiritual, try spending some time each day in silence even if it is only for a few minutes. That silence can be spent sitting next to a lake or outdoors listening to the wind blow in the trees. You might be laying in shavasana in your room on your yoga mat. You might be simply staring at a lit candle while curled up on the couch. But take yourself away from your smart phone, your computer, your iPod, your television, and any of the rest of the chaos that is a part of our lives. You may find the silence more healing than you ever expected.
© 2014 Green Heart Guidance