First disclosure, I realllllly wanted to name this blog “The Sound of Silence” as a nod/play on words for the content of this blog, but I didn’t want to get into any copyright risks with the music industry. For those of you who don’t know me and my love of music and puns, please give me a golf clap for how awesome that title could have been.

Thank you!

Onto what I want to share, now that I have captivated you.

How loud is your world? I’m speaking mostly to the external noise. Take a minute to reflect and think about how much your ears and brain consume in a day. Here’s a snapshot of my experience on a weekday:

Husband’s alarm to wake him up
My alarm going off
(On a good day) My exercise instructor (on the bike or app)
Kids in the morning (waking up, breakfast, getting them ready)
Kids in the car (since we are a music family, they choose which songs they want to listen to on our drive to school and daycare)
My morning radio
Work which includes my amazing clients, noise machines, my heater (as my clients know, that things is always on), building noises, outside noises that occur, interactions with coworkers
Drive home which usually includes music and/or audiobook
Kids in the evening (homework, dinner, hanging out, getting ready for bed, bedtime routines)
Evening with husband which is usually watching TV

My point? There’s a substantial amount of noise in my day. And this doesn’t include the internal dialogues going on in my head! That’s another blog for another day.

Life can be *loud*. Some people do fine with the volume in their life. I grew up a pretty quiet life since my Dad worked third shift; when I got home from school, I needed to stay quiet so he could keep sleeping. Plus, we just weren’t a loud family. So I know that I may be a little sensitive to noise. **But for real**, life can be or get loud. Which can be overwhelming. Volume can cause or increase anxiety. It can cause or increase stress.

We currently live in a world where culture says “keep improving” or “keep growing” or “if you aren’t striving, you aren’t thriving.” We live in a world where people constantly have headphones in. When doing household chores, make sure there’s a podcast playing! Driving home- better listen to an audiobook. Because if we aren’t filling every moment with some sort of growth, then obviously we are failing.

Um, excuse me?! I beg to differ.

How do YOU feel? Do you subscribe to this notion of must-always-be-growing? Or do you wish life could get a little more quiet?

I like to think there can be a balance between quiet and growth. I mean, I am a therapist and clearly value personal growth. But growth can come in so.many.different.ways.

Ever given thought to growth via silence?

Hear me out. (Yes, pun fully intended.)

Maybe listing out all the noise you consume in a day is a good place to start. Or maybe you know all the noise and said list would just be overwhelming. You do what feels best for you. The step I encourage you to land on is- where can you sneak in some silence? Even 5 minutes per day of no extra noise is an amazing place to start.

I often try to practice skills before offering them to others because that feels most genuine to me. So I’ve been trying to add some silence to my days. On work days, I start my drive home with silence. Other ways I’ve tried silence are during a quick walk after dinner (see Gabrielle’s blog about mindful walking if you need some guidance on being in nature without extra noise), brief walks in the hallway at work between clients, a walk on my lunch break, and sitting on the patio in the evening.

I truly think it’s working, especially the bit of quiet on my drive home from the office. I find myself more excited to get home because I’ve had a few minutes to recenter myself. If the night is chaotic, I don’t get stressed as quickly. That right there is a reason for me to continue the practice because if you recall a previous blog post of mine, I am working really hard on “slow to anger, quick to smile” and this practice of daily silence is helping me with slowing to anger.

So, what’s your takeaway and next step? Remember to be gracious with yourself as you try something new.