July 27, 2008
Day 7: Silence Appreciation Day
Stop reading for a few seconds. Close your eyes. Listen. What do you hear?
Maybe it’s music. Maybe it’s talking. The buzz of an air conditioner. Barking dogs. Loud neighbors. Chances are, you hear something.
Today’s task is to appreciate silence.
We live in a really noisy world – we spend so much time talking, watching TV, listening to music, etc….and these are all great activities. But taking time out of each of those activities and sounds, and instead, taking time to appreciate the silence we find can help us out a lot as we break out of the Muggle Mindset.
Silence is a tricky thing. We all define it differently. For some, the buzz of that air conditioner may be as close to silence as we think we can get. For others, we can find silence simply in not talking. Let’s take it the extremes today. Let’s take time to find as much silence as we possibly can. Then, let’s take some time to really explore the Listening side of that silence.
Today, I challenge you to do two things:
1) Find Silence
- Find a place where you can enjoy silence. Try and eliminate as much sound or background noise as possible.
- Decide on a period of time. Make sure you give yourself enough time to really “feel” the silence – I suggest at least five minutes (although you can go for longer if you want) If you can, set a timer. That way, you don’t have to do anything but sit and let yourself be silent.
- Get comfortable!
- Think. What are you getting out of the silence? A good place to start is to think about what you can sense during silence. What’s the closest sound? What’s the furthest thing away? Focus on those things, and see where it takes you.
2) Use Silence to Listen
- Find a place where you would normally be talking. Maybe it’s a classroom. Maybe it’s a dinner table conversation. Maybe it’s singing really loudly to music.
- Decide to stay silent for a few minutes. (I recommend five here too, although this one you can also follow your instinct). Try and let this be a spontaneous decision – don’t plan it out in advance
- Instead of speaking, focus on listening. What can you hear? Focus on words or music. Start narrowly. What do the syllables and letters of the words sound like? How high or low is the person’s voice? Does that change?
- Let those sounds merge into broader ideas. Start thinking about what’s actually being said, and how all of those sounds affect the way the words come out and sound they make. Think about tone and the emotion in the voices.
I know that this is hard. It’s okay to feel a little weird or silly as you do these things. Just remember – they’re short periods of time. So let yourself be a little bit silly about it, or feel a little weird. Really challenge yourself to be silent and to listen. Try it and see what happens.
I’ll also be doing each of these today and posting about my experiences in this thread in the forums. Please come talk about your experiences, too!
Shivani
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I love this…I’ve actually done it before, on a whim. I’m more a listener than a talker, so I know how important it is to ‘hear the silence’!
Awesome idea, Karen! =)
Ivy
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This is a really cool idea! I’m gonna go try it…wish me luck!
AmandaB
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I hear an Ozzy Osborn concert a few miles away, and sirens. …not much silence around here! But I’ll try this once things quiet down. (Though it’s already 11pm. Sheesh!)
I do the listen thing all the time though, otherwise it’s hard for me to tell what people are saying. I also like listening to music, picking out all the little bits of it.
And birds, they are very nice to listen to.
Ella
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This is a good idea. I am also more of a listener than a talker but I think it will be a good idea to just stay silant. To listen to the silance instead of trying to fill it with noise. My town isn’t really that loud so it won’t be to hard to find some quite.
Import from China
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I came across this blog the other day and you got some great info here – thanks.
Tina
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Sorry to not talk about the day 7 activity, but I just noticed that the date is posted wrong and as a friend and not as someone pointing out your mistakes,Karen,(because I too make mistakes as well,) I thought you would like to know that the date should read the 27th of July, instead of the 26th of July. Later I will posted my comments on this topic, but for know this is all I have to say!!!
Karen
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Hey Tina,
I fixed the date. The reason it was showing up on the 26th is that I posted it just before midnight on my time zone. It should read the 27th now.
Thanks for pointing it out! Karen
Tina
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Sorry this was so late, but I did keep my promise of responing to the comment and as a side note, I wanted to say your welcome to Karen. Use Silence to Listen(Family news talk time with t.v. as the background0: Calm voice, one after the other. Movements nature specking, voices stop, other voices talk(t.v.), people talking at once. Disagreement leading to higher pitch voices, movement starting to fade away, and than endness begins. The tone and words stayed the same, even when the words and tone had changed to anger. Find Silence Laying in a hammock: Nature, ticking of alerm, animals(dogs)talking, pg turning, and paws moving(dog paws). The end!!!