However, when there is something to be said, but we do not say - this is a kind of corrupting silence, a silence that will surely lead to the death of communication and thus interaction with another.
I have had to face silence a lot this week, silence from some clients I wanted to see, silence with a friend and silence with someone I am building an agreement with. I wrote about annoyance at silence recently.
Fascinating how I can get annoyed when someone is silent when I want an answer, but when there is something I want to say but fear it could offend my friend or the person I'm building an agreement with then I justify my own silence for periods of time which limits communication and stabilization of the relationship.
It has been a cool, to slow down and accept that I cannot force others to speak, I can only make sure that I am clear myself and ALWAYS speak when there is something of worth to share, as it is only through sharing that cooperation and solutions are built and can be lived.
I pushed myself to bring up some uncomfortable points and it became clear that as I have seen every time I have built an effective relationship in anything, it is based on facing the difficult points as soon as they come up, not delaying.
Hannah really assisted me with this as we were both noticing silence towards each other for periods of time. Then when we sat down and discussed it, we both realised there was multiple reactions we were both having towards each other.
It really is fascinating how we expect each other to be mind readers, yet when we actually just speak whats coming up without fear of what the person will say, then the level of enjoyment that comes from creating clarity with one another is so cool. Yet it is no plateau, this is a constant work because the points we became clear on together over the past few days, does not mean revenge of the ego cannot come up in a few days etc.
Now this is not to say that silence cannot be supportive, because when we just immediately spew the first thing that comes to our head without consideration of others that can be equally abusive - silence can be a great support to give myself time to slow down and see in self-honesty what is coming up and breathe/apply common sense to see what is of value to share.
I must make sure there is no patterns of corrupting silence that I allow.
I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to dislike it when someone is being silent towards me, but then I myself have multiple moments where I will justify my own silence towards another to "protect their feelings".
I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realise that to not speak when there is something to share, is a corrupting abusive silence that destroys relationships.
I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realise that silence can be supportive when the starting point is clear, meaning I am clear, there is nothing coming up that would be of value to share in this moment.
I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realise that silence can be like under watering and over watering a plant.
I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realise that the idea of an "awkward silence" is only awkward because of knowing I have something to share and I'm not which makes me feel awakward.
I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realise that I fall into a patterns of believing it is acceptable to question someone and clearly share my thoughts when its someone I don't consider "close to me" but when its someone I consider close to me, I then go into these moments of justifying not sharing what I'm thinking as I see how my words can often make people react and fearing that I will piss off the people close to me.
I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realise that my assumption people will automatically attack me if I tell them how I experience myself is not real, because when a person is clear on taking self-responsibility for their own reactions then actually they will not attack me.
I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realise in every breathe that it always come back to my starting point as to whether or not I should speak or not, speaking to try to cause reactions isn't unacceptable and speaking to build constructive criticism is of value.
I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realise when someone is set in their ways silence and bringing it back to self to see what you can learn from it can often be best.
I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to expect people to be mind readers who are close to me, when actually whenever I test this, I genuinely cannot read someones mind no matter how close they are to me - sure I can become clearer on my awareness of another the longer I spend around that person, yet they will never be certain on my thoughts and I will never be certain on theirs until we share openly with each other as equals.
I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to hold onto memories of perceiving silence as strength, where I have defined speaking as egotistical and silence ans humble, that polarity - So I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create and feed into that polarity.
I commit myself to not allowing corrupting silence to fuck up my interaction with anyone, so as and when I see my mind having thoughts come up I stop and breathe I do not allow myself to participate with teh thoughts, I breathe and continue to do so until there is no more thoughts that come up.
I commit myself to living the realisation that silence when it is clear, when there is nothing of value to share, then silence is actually a fantastic support for me and others around me.
I commit myself to exposing the corruption of silence in this world through living as an example of supportive silence, the sound of silence.
No comments:
Post a Comment