The healing power of silence

I am very aware today of how deeply I bury and have buried all of my sadness over years.  On Christmas eve when I felt literally like I was being crushed by a heavy, heavy weight I had no alternative but to lie down.  I had been on the phone with a friend who just let me cry and cry without saying much.  He simply said “you seem to be so very sad, why are you so sad?”  I think that is why after the call ended and I tried to put it into words  and I made a light thing to eat I got overcome again.  I should not have had to reach for an explanation for my sadness I should just have felt it.

But feeling it isn’t very easy to do all the time when I am alone.  I have noticed that often my pain will only start to move through me when I make the decision to take a step forward out and away from the aloneness of my house.  Often after I return the sadness or other feelings will go back in.  I get busy and then find it hard to relax and eat due to being bored or alone and then I have an attack.

Luckily this didn’t happen yesterday.  The night before when my family reached out to invite me over I was in resistance, scared of being with those who have not always reacted well to my expressing feeling, but then at other times can be supportive.  I am glad I went as I actually started to feel much better.  On the way home I decided to get my shopping for food done and the next day to get up early, be productive and go walking with Jasper.  I then went out to lunch with my family, was very aware of not overeating.  Had some gentle time relaxing at home, made the effort to call the family who have shown care of and for me, avoiding those wh0 don’t and last night I had not one spin nor attack.

Both nights I watched a movie centred on love and connection where people broke through defences to love.  The first Last Chance Harvey the second Pride and Prejudice.  I have noticed I sleep better when I watch something not full of revenge or backlash or hurting which dominates so much of our screens today. And writing this something has been occurring to me I want the next year and from now to be about remaining centred in love, healing and wholeness, rather than upset, hurting, anger or resentment.    For I truly believe although cynics would find it a cliché that love is really the healing force of life.  And if I want to be well I have to do everything in my power to keep my heart open and loving and remain centred in love, rather than negative ego, that ceaseless judges all the time and tries to split, analyse or divide.

This does not mean that at times I wont feel pain.  But when I feel my pain it will be the pain that I need to feel to heal.  It will be about removing the defences against pain that keep me trapped in pain such as negative voices that feed self pity, self centredness  or anger.

It is a fine line between feeding painful feeling with painful thinking which makes the feelings worse and feeling the pain that need to be released without shifting into the thinking that would keep it trapped and blocked and locked up inside.  There is something to be said in all this about silence.

I was thinking about how in the later stages of Christmas Eve I started to feel a powerful shift into silence.  I was thinking of the beautiful Christmas carol Silent Night.  I think it speaks of the great silences we feel as we face both birth and death.  Have you ever been with someone who died?  I haven’t but when my sister died I left two hours before and entered a deep letting go and silence over the two hours in which she passed.  It was an amazing experience on one level of release and emptiness that I felt before I started to move back into the story of my reaction later the next day.  A peace beyond understanding of some kind of completeness beyond words.

What I guess I am trying to express not very effectively is that the heart has ways that reason could never understand.  Out there in a field beyond words lies a deep and  silent place giving birth to all feeling out of itself.  I understand it as the great birthplace of the soul within which we are ceaseless being and becoming and it is in the silence that I open to it and feel these deeper shifts occur.  It is within the deep silence that I am restored once again to my lost soul.  It seems to me that the soul cant always be heard when we talk goo (that’s a typo but i’ll leave it as it works .. I meant to say too )much nor as long as we get lost in words and reasons and explanations which actually block the arising of a far deeper awareness and wisdom that is birthed from the dark open heart of silence, being, presence and love.