silence

Practicing Silence in a Noisy World

Practicing Silence in a Noisy World

I’m being tested.

Earlier this week I listened to an online class that I signed up for to help me deepen my skills as a SoulCollage® facilitator.

This role is so different from when I did presentations for kids with my dachshund, Frankie. Kids are so open for the most part, and haven’t yet been conditioned into how they should think. While I saw myself doing workshops for women someday even when doing my work with Frankie, I didn’t know at the time exactly how that would play out.

It’s a whole new experience for me even though I’ve done quite a few workshops now. But I continue to learn, and most of all I continue to wish to be the very best I can be as a facilitator so that I’m providing a safe container for which others can explore their creative consciousness.

Listening to the instructor, Selene, a psycotherapist and fellow SoulCollage® facilitator, she talked about how everyone is different when it comes to tapping into their creative consciousness.  While some need silence, some need to be chattering to distract their cognitive mind.

She went on to say that this then becomes a practice for those who wish to be in silence because the fact is there is always noise in our world. I’d never really thought of that before, but it made sense. To be in silence within when there is noise around you and not let it distract or bother you is certainly a practice.

I’ve really been thinking about that and of course, as it usually goes when one begins to give something deep thought, it seems you are presented with situations to put this into practice.

This morning as I moved through my yoga routine, listening to a soothing, instrumental, meditative station on Pandora. all of a sudden I was yanked out of my calm and serene space when a commercial interrupted – and it was so jarring. I silently cursed Pandora for not having sent me an email letting me know my subscription had run out so I could have perhaps prevented this intrusion from happening (a subscription means you avoid the commercials).

But then I remembered what Selene said and I realized I was being called to practice being in silence among the blaring commercial ads as if they weren’t there – a conscious shift to not be annoyed or let that shake me from my calm and quiet foundation.

And then I was tested again. After returning from an errand, I came home to find a crew of landscapers working in the neighbor’s yard. They are still here. And with them they brought loud machinery. I began to feel my insides tense up and feelings of being annoyed begin to surface again, along with feeling like my personal space was being invaded as they are right outside my writing cottage.

And then I remembered again….to go within to that silent place of my own even with all the workers and noise right outside my window. This is going to take practice I must say. But I’ll bet that if one can truly do this then that is, ah, yes, the ultimate peace. I’m working on it!

Namaste.

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Listening Below the Surface. Signposts Along the Way.

Listening Below the Surface. Signposts Along the Way.

Three years ago at this time I was learning how to just be still.  In our crazy go, go, go world, the idea of just stopping most of everything I was doing in my working world and take a sabbatical felt like a very scary thing to do.

In part, because I was afraid of losing all I had worked so hard to build. I worried that others would think I was selfish or wouldn’t understand. I was afraid to hear what was just below the surface of my consciousness. But this inner niggle had been trying to get my attention for quite some time. It’s request to me was to slow down and re-evaluate what I wanted for my life.

I ignored that inner voice for too long, in part, because I just didn’t know what it was I wanted and that was scarier than just being and feeling uncomfortable. Until my dog, Joie, died…she was my wake-up call to be still and go within.

I can say today that I’m so glad I took that two month sabbatical. There were so many spiritual signposts during that time that were my guides, as they have also been while I worked to complete the writing of this time in my life, and now as I get ready to release that story.

The quote above is one of those, what I call a spiritual signposts, that crossed my path last Friday while perusing a magazine. This quote, and the time I spent on a personal inward mission speaks to what I learned…and that wisdom finds us when we are willing to be still and in silence. Just like when sleeping, answers oftentimes come to things we struggle with come to us during time of rest.

And may I share one other thing?  When I’ve been open to the spiritual signposts it sure has made my life that much more enriching and meaningful – besides the many goosebumps they’ve given me! And that is my intention – to continue to awaken to this time and space I’m within, and all it has to offer me if I continue to practice stillness, listen to my heart, and pay attention to how it truly is all divinely orchestrated if I just stay out of my own way.

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The Whisper of Winter that Fell in the Night

The Whisper of Winter that Fell in the Night

Winter came in again like a soft whisper overnight and we woke to a fresh blanket of white powder.

A hush of stillness fell over the neighborhood for just a time being before snowblowers broke the silence.

But in my writing cottage, I lit a candle, stepped my bare feet onto my yoga mat and drank in the view outside my window, sinking gently into the stillness within me.

Just like the snowflakes that fall so gracefully in the silence of the night weaving their creative beauty for all to see in the first morning light.

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