(This article is an excerpt in the book I am currently writing entitled: "Unleashing the Beauty Within". This will be released by mid of june 2010)
I love having morning walks because I get to appreciate the houses, people and scenes that I pass by. Despite of this enjoyment, there are times when I would barely pay attention to where I am going. From my reflections and observations, these moments happens when I am over-stimulated with work, concerns and lovelife(!) to the point of distraction. I remember though this incident when I walked up the hill with nothing in mind but the feeling of peacefulness. I closed my eyes and began to slowly breathe. As I drew my breath up my nose and felt my chest rise and my lungs filled with air, I immediately felt calmer and I started asking myself when was the last time I paid attention to my breath? To my lungs? To my fingers, toes, arms and legs? While my mind still had remnants of chatter running through it, I began channeling my breath and focusing on how each part of my body reacted to it. It felt good, really good. My work requires lots of silence and I am easily distracted by almost anything. Sometimes there is too much info coming from all directions keeping me destructed to form even a proper thought. As a teacher and mental health service provider, I always feel that I am always busy taking care of others that I forget that I have an inner self not as demanding of my attention but requiring it as much as outer demands do. Sights and sounds from technologies and media permeate both public and private spaces, making it difficult to find quiet places for reflection and thought. Very often, we are surrounded with noise all day long and we keep moving from one task to the other without taking a break to think, to reflect, to introspect.
In this busy phased life, most people forget one aspect of humanity that needs nurturance: the ability to quiet the heart or the ability to be silent from time to time and just reconnect with our inner self.
I met Janine* a year ago when her mother referred this young lass for counseling. Janine’s problem surfaced after she run-away from home and settled in Manila for almost 6 months. Her parents were puzzled why their only daughter had to abscond and leave her comfort zone and work in a bakery with meager salary knowing that her family can provide her needs and even more. During our counseling session Janine revealed to me a very important issue which I believe was never taught of by her parents. Janine felt suffocated with her mother’s constant and regular blubbering. Janine told me how bad she feels every time her mother would start nagging all of them in the family, would complain about almost everything and would chatter her frustrations endlessly. Janine felt throttled, choked and smothered. Thinking that only by going away that she could breathe…she could live.
One cannot underestimate the importance of silence in daily life. Silence can have a profound impact in the way we think, our daily actions and our relationships. In Janine’s case, she felt she needed a breather after the constant battering of her mother. Although I am against her act of running away, I felt that Janine needed the space for her own sanity. Her time off became an avenue to clear the clutter from her mind and to feed her heart and soul.
I am a believer that in order to unleash the beauty within, we should have the heart for silence and stillness. Quieting the heart opens the mind to creativity and better problem solving, builds emotional intelligence and competency and nurtures the inner world and the human spirit. Silence can likewise build resilience skills for life by improving the ability and capacity to think and lessen the numerous human fears all of us share whether it is imagined or real.
“God is the friend of silence. See how nature - trees, flowers, grass- grows in silence; see the stars, the moon and the sun, how they move in silence.......... We need silence to be able to touch souls”
-Mother Teresa
