Silence: a weapon or a message; agony or balm
Secret or stance; sacred or torture
Empty space or full of meaning
Cowardly compliance or betrayal...
A medium of brave resistance.
Silence has been a protective device that may have come out of suffering violation.
It has been used as a weapon by others to chill dissent.
But it can also be the means to stir oneself to action.
It may have been a mechanism to shut down our own voice, but it did not keep us safe. Silence may have protected the perpetrator, but now silence itself can also reveal the violation.
Silence is uncomfortable for those who do not want to hear the old messages inside that scream at us… or the truth beneath those loud inner voices that brings us back to what we have always been.
Silence speaks, even if it has no mouth. Silence stills, in the middle of the explosion.
Silence can be a profound comfort when words are hollow.
So listen to the silence.
The body screams or alerts us in the nerves, the spine, the skin, the eyes, the hands, the soul. The power of silence helps us to hear ourselves, to release our energy and embody what is essential.
So let us use our silence, even when it is uncomfortable or confusing—not to retreat, even when afraid. Silence itself can enable the heart to discern when to be safe, but powerful enough to speak without words. But when the time is right, speak up.
We can listen and not withdraw. We can grow the stillness inside that resists or counters what diminishes or gaslights the essential truth to who we are.
“The mind cries out, explains, demonstrates, protests; but inside me a voice rises and shouts at it, “Be quiet, mind, let us hear the heart.””