Hey, can we hear ourselves under all that noise?

Our eyes dart around like hunters searching for prey, moving through montages of advertising, content, podcast clips, and news alerts. A symphony of voices in their thousands turn into sound waves lapping through our ear canals, telling us what we should think, what to do, how to feel. Advice given. Always, advice given. It all lands somewhere within us. This chunky chowder of external noise, begging for our minds to slurp it all up.

Somewhere lurking nearby, is our own noise. The inner noise of anxious ruminating, and fearful assumptions, that feel like an unwelcome guest who stays past 10:30PM at a dinner party; when bed is calling, tablecloths newly-blemished with vermillion stains, and starchy remnants making scabs on cast iron cookware bathing in the sink.

It’s all there.

It’s all in there.

The insistent cacophony of stuff that makes it hard to hear ourselves. I feel myself in this place of late, as these past few months ask me to push out of being and into survival mode. Where I was accustomed to daily moments of connecting with myself, I have felt them fade behind a water-smogged mirror, from once a day to a few times a week, to I can’t remember the last time. This tiptoeing away from the silent parts of me, as I respond to life eagerly. Wrapped up in its noise.

It doesn’t happen suddenly, this departure, it moves on all fours as if it were a poltergeist. Slowly moving you out of connection, and into things that can be called by many names, be it distraction, consumption, avoidance. Insert it all here.

Not a source of blame nor shame, either, for me it’s just a seasonal thing, a reaction to my current circumstances, and challenges. For some of us, it might always be this way, to not be fully in yourself is what is familiar, which is understandable as our world has been designed for us to do so.

I choose to rebel.

Photo: Becky Symes

I choose to connect. To go in. Never shying away from going in. Meeting myself wherever I find myself in there. Even the icky, shaky stuff. Yet, in this winter of healthy retreat, it has felt like a facade of introspection. Yes, I’ve stayed at home more, not seen as many of my friends due to a landslide of hard things. I’ve thought about things endlessly, spoken about them, and intensely felt them. I’ve reflected, and not forced myself into the motion of frenetic doing that the calendar asks of us.

I’ve greeted myself in my journal. Acknowledged thoughts. Changed them. Moved my body more. I’ve honoured winter. Well, at least that’s what I believed. Now, I see how I’ve been cocooned in noise. Internal and external. Noise that has masqueraded and role-played as my own voice, when I’ve not gifted myself what I need the most.

Silence.

A return back to myself.

The silence that I as a meditation teacher feel so held by. The silence that we must allow in. The silence that only comes from being with each breath. The silence that we can only invite in, without expectation. Not the silence that comes as a trick to receive answers or insights. Just silence.

The serene space of quiet.

I haven’t spent much time there recently, which is unfamiliar for me. My mind so feverishly trying to understand, logic, and rationalise in this harsh time. Keeping me away from myself. I catch myself trying to pilot my own plane, without realising that the passengers within me of truth, flow, passion, pain and love are the only ones who can direct me.

I haven’t been hearing myself, because I’ve neglected the ever-so-enchanting wisdom of silence. The space hasn’t been created or prioritised, and I understand why, of course I understand why. Sometimes we assume the silence will be louder than the noise already consuming us.

This is what it means to be in conversation with ourselves.

A conversation is listening. Eyes locked-in, witnessing what the parts of us care to share, not expecting it to only come in words, but knowing that we may only have silence to share. That silence is information. A conversation with the wisest, oldest, most true parts of us may come to us in a heart that beats a bit faster, palms suddenly itching, legs soothed, feet aching. The body gives us information.

Even if we hear words in this soundless lair of our own creation, the words may sound like they are in need of translation, but we listen anyway. A conversation is not always pleasant, discomfort tickling our throats, the desire to run, turn the TV on, go for a long nature-free scroll. We stay, anyway.

We ask each other how we feel. We ask ourselves what we’ve been doing. We have ideas. Or, we demonise the fact that we currently don’t have any. We make plans, or question if they’re the right ones, perhaps there aren’t plans, is that okay, we wonder? We do the work. Live in the spiralling thoughts about what we discover. The nags of fear, disappointment, regret, hyper-vigilance, anxiety and avoidance ring our interior bells. Put on another podcast. Get to the end of the book. Surrounded by the noise.

In the incessant desire to figure things out, have we actually sat with ourselves through all of that? Not to ask anything but just to listen, without expectations.

Prioritising a few moments to connect and remember; to be.

So I guess, that’s where I’ll be. Somewhere between the noise and the silence.

Maybe, I’ll meet you all there.