The Sound of Silence

If you had spoken to me at the end of day one of my extended silence, I would have told you that I definitely suffer from both Narcolepsy and Tourette’s (the sweary type not the one with body ticks).

Thank goodness for the lady who said at the end of the call two weeks back that she was is an ex-nun and did extended silences and you will find that you sleep a lot and that ok. Those words echoed in my mind as I fell asleep and as woke I woke up again and again and again and again.

If you had told me at the beginning of my silence that it was humanly possible to sleep that much, I would have told you that only sloths could sleep that much. I’d gear up for a sit and within moments think, “hmm let me just meditate lying down” and yep you guessed it, next thing I’d be waking up.

As for the Tourette’s who knew that I spoke to myself so often, mostly when trying to eliminate “little crawly f&*@rs”. Mostly only one of those words would slip out loud before I caught myself. Luckily I got a handle on both fairly early on.

I had no idea how long I slept for during day one. The only clock that I had was on my phone and even though I’d switched it to flight mode and put it on do not disturb, I couldn’t bear the thought of anything disturbing my silence so I turned it off and decided to go solo.

I figured I could pretty much tell the time from the sun. When it came up it was morning, it would be in the middle of the sky at around midday and we’re usually eating dinner when the sun goes down, which would mean it was around six-ish.

My plan was perfect. We always have sunshine here. I have been living here for three years and I have never ever seen three days in a row where the sun was not shining. You couldn’t make it up but during the three days that I was in silence the weather was overcast.

So I had to just go with eat when I was hungry and sleep when I was tired and as I had nothing else going on I figured time didn’t really matter anyway.

Day two was another big sleep day. Again, I don’t know how I did it but I probably slept more in the last three days than I have done in the last three months – I have a two year old who is constantly waking me up during the night according to her because “I want you.”

You’ve got me kid, I’m right next to you, where I’ve been your entire life non-stop (…until these four nights that is. As yet, I have no idea how it’s all going at home as I’m not turning my phone on until the last possible minute.)

Strangely, looking back over my three days, and I didn’t plan it that way, in fact I didn’t plan it at all my thoughts progressed from past, to present, to future.

My thoughts on day one, were mostly to do with the past and the decisions that I’d taken and whether I’d made the right choices and what I could have/should have done differently. I was glad to get to the end of the night as I think that’s when I finally managed to turn the chatter off.

When you take time to think about your thoughts you realise that they are very loud. At the end of day one I was really glad to get a handle on my thoughts and have quiet.

I was still sleeping a lot on day two but it was much easier to quiet my mind. I could do it much faster and most of the thoughts I had were about where I am now and what had brought me here and whether I was at peace with where I am now.

My final day was all about where I’m heading and whether I was on the right track and whether I was doing the right thing. All the answers came back with a resounding yes, you’re on track. How could I not be really with the months and months of work that I’ve been doing in the Master Keys Experience?

I thought about and got answers about pretty much everything over the past three day. Towards the end I had a slight panic as to whether or not I had thought of everything that I wanted to think of, as if thinking time was about to run out.

What that made me realise though, was that we don’t; Actually let me own it and speak for myself – I don’t make enough time to think. The constant draw to the phone, to check this that and the other means that I never really shut down.

These three days made me see why that golden hour is so important. I’m probably going to have a golden couple of hours each day actually. Three days without my phone and the world didn’t stop.

I didn’t implode due to not immediately knowing the make up of the gut, or not knowing approximately how many alveoli there are in the lungs, the weather and cost of living in Mozambique and Rwanda, which of the eight countries on my new list offer digital nomad visas. It’s all ok.

This time in silence also really highlighted the fact that multitasking for me is more of a bad habit and there really isn’t a need for it.

Well, that’s all well and good me saying it right now as I sit here alone, no cooking to do, none of my three wanting attention, nothing to catch up on, no calls to make. But I have to admit often, I multitask not due to the fact that I have a lot to do, but rather as a preemptive strike. I’m going to do less of that.

I didn’t know what I was going to get out of being silent for three days. When my very annoyed (Blue) husband frustratingly huffed, “what is the point of all this? I just don’t understand!”

Even if I could be bothered to take the time and give him an answer in a Bluestandable way, which takes an awful lot of energy for a Red, I didn’t have a good answer. Now I know the answer as to what the point of all this is. Now I innerstand. Now I’m off to explain to the hubby. As for your explanation, well, when you do your silence it’s all clear.

See more about what I have learned in my Master Key Experience by clicking here.