Silence

Silence always yields a better result. Sometimes it is the silence that helps us to truly see what responsibility we failed to have in a situation. I don’t think people ever realize how much of their interactions with people are driven by their egos and I don’t mean the healthy part, I mean the parts that prevent us from seeing the actual way we treat people. After much deliberation, I believe the ego is the worst part of us. It is the part of us we seek when we are afraid or hurting because it tends to serve as a protective measure. It screams and yells when it’s aggravated. It’s a defense mechanism in overdrive because how could someone actually survive the bruising of their ego? I have found that we can survive anything as long as we are willing to acknowledge the hold that it has on us and that at times our behaviors are hostile and toxic. We are as much light as we are dark, but it is in the darkness that we can uncover the parts of us that need the most tending if we are willing.

There has been a lot of loss in my life lately and it has been difficult to see the silver linings. I have joy in my life, I have my children, a career I love, I have friends and family but there is a profound loss that continues to haunt me, and I am struggling to reconcile how this will shape and change me. Missing someone is painful. You feel pain throughout your body where the person once resided. You imagine interactions, hear their laugh, feel their presence, you feel the void they leave behind. There are times that the “missing” prevents me from breathing. It stops me dead in my tracks and drops me to my knees. The pain at times is unbearable.

In the midst of the silence, I have identified a voice that has been speaking to me for years but which I had silenced to avoid acknowledging the less than favorable sides of myself. In the silence I have begun to relive moments that yielded the most tremendous conflicts. I have navigated each one with a fine-tooth comb and slowly but surely, I am seeing what actually had occurred not the story I wanted to tell about them.

My demands and my expectations have been so unreasonable. I have acted like a petulant child, having a temper tantrum because I didn’t get my way. Within the silence the truth has been my guide and I have been able to look at myself with minimal judgement which has guided me towards necessary change. Change is necessary if we ever want to live a happy and fulfilled life.

I want to be clear; my revelations do not mean that I am a horrible person. They do not mean that I am not worthy of love, that I am a dictator terrorizing those that I love. Each person has their own trauma and wounding that gets activated when conflict arises. We are each responsible for calming that otherwise we are destined to remain adversaries. What I have come to realize after much time processing is that when you can see the truth clearly, when the truth is the only thing being considered, there is no space for fault or blame. What gets opened up is reconciling that you made a mess and that you can either clean it up or continue to leave destruction wherever you go. Sounds harsh I know but it’s the reality we need to live in, in order to truly embrace and affect change within ourselves.

I have zero patience and it has become abundantly clear that my inability to “wait” has shown very profoundly in all areas of my life. I don’t know if it is my need for control, my desire to want to fix things or because I desperately am trying to connect but my need to use words versus actions to fix conflict has backfired on me over and over again. My triggers take over and I strive to be heard and understood and I let words fly out of my mouth and what I have come to realize is that those words of desperation serve no purpose. They are feeble attempts to fix, control, manipulate, rather than pausing and practicing the discipline of patience and waiting. Listening rather than responding. Silencing my triggers and interpretations and holding space before speaking. Only in the silence will I find what is most needed to be heard.