How do you use silence?

V-Tog wrote: I don't really go out of my way to incorporate silence because for me, silence is something that I gravitate towards without thinking about it. I need it, and plenty of it, for my sanity!

I rarely play music at home and if my radio-loving colleague is away from work I won't put the radio on. I love to just sit in silence and let my thoughts wander, sometimes for quite long periods of time. Silence gives me the chance to just Be, with myself, and I always find it interesting that so many people actively struggle with it.

Of course, it's difficult to actually encounter total silence. There are always birds chirping or distant traffic noises or something else. I love the silence that you find in the dead of night but even then there'll usually be the wind in the trees, or the faint buzz of an electronic device on standby, or occasional gurgling from the pipes in your walls.

So even with my love of 'silence', if I was to set myself a challenge of resting in absolute silence, that might be both quite difficult and quite unfamiliar!

It sounds like you've got the use of silence pretty integrated in your life without needing to purposely work it in.

Edan wrote: It sounds like you've got the use of silence pretty integrated in your life without needing to purposely work it in.

Probably, but that's not to say it wouldn't be an interesting exercise!

I like silence a lot. When I'm at work 8I work in a laboratory) it isn't very loud but lately we had the ventilation system repaired and sometimes they shut it off. When this background noise was gone it felt like being under water with pressure on my ears.
As for the silence of mind, I do that when I can't fall asleep, I let my thoughts trail away and set myself not as the thinker but as an observer of my thoughts. It's hard not to hold on to them but in the end I usually fall asleep It's a good exercise to get free from thinking again and again about the same things.

How do I use silence.. :blink: Often when it is silent, I tend to fall asleep very quick.. Sigh.. :blush: Silence is amazing to meditate, though I do enjoy sound meditation too. Especially when the rain outside is smashing on the windows, during a lightning storm or something very dramatic... Using silence to think is rewarding and precious even though I confess not doing it a lot. :pinch:

Generally speaking, I do not cope with silence well. I often end up singing a song when I'm alone or thinking out loud just to break the silence, so I look forward to giving this ago.

Thanks for sharing Edan

I use silence to purposely remove myself from distractions. I can't say I get to spend much time there but when I do I make use of it opening to my own internal dialog. On another perspective, I use silence in conversations a bit. Sometimes there are deeper messages hidden in what one does not say than what one does.

Kobos wrote: On another perspective, I use silence in conversations a bit. Sometimes there are deeper messages hidden in what one does not say than what one does.

It's funny you say this... Jeriko finds spending time with my family difficult because we're quite used to just stopping in a conversation and being silent.. he finds it awkward.

At Quakers, conversation often come with silence as they are quite well versed in reflection, and it's quite normal.

Does anyone here find silence in conversation strange?

Edan wrote: Does anyone here find silence in conversation strange?

It makes me highly uneasy if other people have difficulty with it. I have nothing against silence in a conversation outside that.. :blink:

Does anyone here find silence in conversation strange?

On the contrary , i find it very draining when someone keeps talking all the time or i have to "entertain" them all the time , i am perfectly ok with just sitting with people and stare in the distance or whatever

It depends who I am with.
If I know the person well then silences feel natural but if I dont then it feels strange and I tend to start rambling just to fill the gaps, or leave.

I personally spend most of my time alone in silence, so I enjoy the silence but I also enjoy lots of noise.