Six weeks in the wilderness, four days in silence

It has been a while. First rule of blogging broken – don’t ever write about how long it has been since the last post. The bar has been raised as each week goes by. It gets harder to write as the expectation in my head is that this next post had better be worth the wait. (Even though I am the only person waiting.)

A couple of weeks ago we were away on a week’s retreat – which included four days in silence. That’s the space where we become aware of all the inner chatter, the voices telling us what we are thinking and what others are thinking. It’s remarkable how much we think of ourselves as mind readers – being absolutely clear that we know what others are thinking even when they don’t say it. Of course, most of the time we are wrong. The ego thinks that other people’s thoughts are about us, when often they are about themselves. It’s a wonderful fallacy. In one of my favourite quotes, “it’s never about you!”

The coming of silence gives time and space for all of this to subside. We can find wilderness in our heads, we don’t need to go out into the woods. And the inner space can be so much more therapeutic and mind changing than the outer space. When we go in and go deep, we find ourselves changing, softening and opening up to possibilities. It’s not instantly apparent, but there is a liminal space of generosity and kindness to others that emerges as we work in this inner space. It’s a reaching out that finds connection – through ease and grace, through magic and miracles.

Also published on Medium.