I set out to actively lead a life that truly feels good in the Spring of 2008 after a series of setbacks in my personal life. My aim is to spread whatever I learn about feeling good to others through this blog.
An Experiment in Silence
Over the last few months I have found an increasing number of references to the practice of meditation; it seems everything I see or read is telling me to meditate. I have tried it a few times but so far my results have not been pleasing. Most of the advice seems to be to try to quieten your mind and this is where I have a problem - my mind never shuts up, or if it does, it is only for very brief moments.
I concluded that I needed help with this meditation thing so I have booked myself onto a weekend course at a Buddhist centre for the end of the month which I am really looking forward to. But that’s not the purpose of the post…
This morning I read the book, The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success by Deepak Chopra. It was a totally engaging read and I read it in one sitting though I can see that I will need to read it again and again. It resonated with me with every chapter on every level and there was a specific idea in the first chapter that really hit me. As well as the practice of meditation, Chopra also encourages the practice of silence.
What is silence? Mainly not speaking out loud but also silencing the other external noises such as the TV. It occurred to me that it is no wonder that I find it hard to quiet my mind when I can’t even quiet my body! I am not a particularly loud person - I work alone, I don’t watch much television and yet I often find that I need conversation of some form. I use a tabbed web browser and keep my email tab open at all times. I am often praised for my quick replies :-) I use Twitter and tweet on a fairly regular basis throughout the day. I even (I can’t believe I’m admitting this in public!) talk out loud to myself! Yes there I am in my office all alone, chatting away to myself!
So, whilst I wait for my meditation weekend I am going to practice some silence daily. These will be the rules:
- No Internet - I’ll shut down my browser
- No TV, radio or any kind of music
- No chatting!… to myself or anyone else :-)
I will however continue to work so it is not the same as complete stillness but it is a start. I’ll begin with perhaps 15 minutes today and then increase by 5 minutes a day and I will simply see where it takes me. I am going to leave myself completely open to the results and not expect anything, not plan any time scale other than the starting time period.
What if I get interrupted? I do not live alone and I am frequently interrupted by people bursting into my office to speak to me. I could ask not to be disturbed but this is something I want to keep private (err, with the exception of blogging about it!) I don’t expect my family to understand and wouldn’t particularly want them to. If I get disturbed I shall simply start over. If this happens a lot it will be an excellent exercise in patience :-)
As a side note, you may have noticed an unusual gap between this post and the last. Something simply - stopped. I had nothing to say. I started this blog because I felt as if I had so much to talk about, so many questions to ask and then somewhere along the way I tried to become a ‘proper’ blogger and set out schedules for myself. That’s fine for a commercial-style blog where you’re trying to build an audience or an income but that has never been my goal with this one so I simply let go, stopped writing and decided to simply do nothing and see what happened. Today I had something to say, so I wrote this post. I have no idea when the next one will be :-)
Stumble it!
Parth
November 14, 2008
Hey,
First time reader, and glad this was my first read for your blog. I meditate on a sub-daily basis, so if u need any tips, ask away.
Meditation is tough for one reason: you find out scary tings about yourself. I once tried teaching meditation to my mom, and she started crying and saying something I won’t share here. But the point is she went to place she didn’t want to, and it scared her.
U need to be ready to basically talk to yourself, as you do out loud. Listen to your inner voice.
I wish u the best of luck on your experiment!
Parths last blog post..12-Month Advanced Strength Program - Month Two (With Free Printable Workout Logs)