1 Thessalonians 4:11
This should be your ambition: to live a quiet life,
minding your own business and doing your own work.
By the end of the workday, my brain feels a little fried. My jaws sometimes ache from all the talking I’ve done and tension settles along my shoulder blades. I feel like I’m coming up for air as I walk outside to my car. The door slams behind me and I’m engulfed in silence. If I take time to notice, my ears buzz with the echoes of conversations and therapy chatter.
But most days, I confess, instead of paying attention to my body’s cry for some quiet, I immediately drown the buzz by flipping on the radio or listening to a podcast or making a phone call. My house fills with more talk and radio and television until bedtime when the sound machine is turned on so I can sleep.
And I didn’t even mention all the visual noise absorbed from the minute I roll out of bed. From beginning to end, voices shout and compete for my attention.
Sound familiar?
You know that life is out of balance when silence starts to feel like a luxury instead of a necessity.
We all live with the steady and relentless thrum of noise. Verbal noise. Visual noise. Noise bleeds over into every bit of white space if we aren’t careful. The simple act of being quiet seems like an outdated, old-fashioned practice that went out of style about the same time as rocking chairs on front porches.
It’s no surprise then that we live in a sick, anxious, and unrested society. We seek answers to our problems but the persistent noise of our lives drowns them out.
Maybe a healthy dose of silence is exactly what we need.
Just as overstimulated toddlers, too much input means meltdowns aren’t far away. Anxiety, stress, forgetfulness, poor decision making, and relational conflict are only the tip of the iceberg.
Like me, you may have slowly allowed your environment to crowd out the auditory margin in which to hear yourself think. We no longer discriminate solutions for problems or allow space for God’s voice to be heard, for common sensibilities to lead.
In the quiet is where we make good choices about what we say or don’t say, the place we choose kindness over irritation. A gentle thoughtful answer over a rash one.
We love words and language and communication, but we are wired for quiet margins too.
Quietness gives us valuable time to process and think and remember.
Silence brings healing to an overstimulated mind and body.
Time spent wrapped in quiet allows our thoughts to order themselves into kinder, wiser speech.
Consider this a friendly reminder that pockets of quiet produce the fruit necessary for us to be better SLPs and all around human beings. Adding daily moments of quiet gives cushion to our speech. With just a little peace and quiet we can properly and wisely process all the words floating in and out of our days.
Okay, but how?
I’m a big proponent of the power of one small step at a time. Choosing even five minutes of silence when you’d normally listen or speak or watch can prove beneficial. It can make you more present to what is going on inside and around you. It helps regulate your breathing which in turn leads to improved thinking. And success in just five minutes can breed success for more.
The invitation of silence into the cracks and crevices of your day will obviously vary depending on your schedule, habits, and routines. One day will differ from another. There is certainly no formula that works for everyone.
One of my small steps toward this end is to use my car as a silent retreat. This is a little tricky because I’m a podcast/audiobook junkie. Alas, too much of a good thing can become a bad thing, especially when quality quiet time is sacrificed. We live about 10 miles from town, so I spend a lot of time in the car. Instead of going cold turkey I’ve tried to pick one leg of my car time to drive silently. This 5-15 minutes usually creates enough peacefulness that I end up quietly riding through the next.
It’s not an earth-shattering change but even this one quiet addition to my routine has helped me speak more thoughtfully and calmly. I’ve found that wisdom rarely yells above the roar but waits until I’m ready to listen.
May you choose a few minutes today to hush your eyes and ears. Quiet the air around you and see if it doesn’t improve your speech afterward.
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