Sh-h-h-h-h<\/p>\n
The music is not in the notes but
in the silence between.<\/p>\n
– – – Wolfgang Amadeus Motzard<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
I take a four mile walk with a\u00a0friend three times a week. We chat, we catch each other up on what we\u2019re doing,\u00a0we listen, we commiserate, we laugh hysterically. Talking and laughing are
great forms of therapy but there\u2019s something else we do that\u2019s just as\u00a0important. We go silent.<\/p>\n
He and I consider our walking non-negotiable\u00a0so we can stay spry and strong. We also consider the silences to be\u00a0non-negotiable as we become aware of our breathing and our strong connection. We
have plenty of quiet in our lives since we each live alone, but there\u2019s
something about being silent together that is comforting and informative. It feels like the conversation hasn\u2019t stopped. We\u2019re considering the things we just discussed, we\u2019re weighing them and we\u2019re going deeper. Sometimes it seems like\u00a0we\u2019re reading each other\u2019s minds although we\u2019re not doing it deliberately. We\u2019re\u00a0just getting to know one another in a far more profound way than filling up the\u00a0space with words.<\/p>\n
Turning our focus inward helps to stop\u00a0the loud and persistent mind chatter. It softens the chaos all around us. I love\u00a0this quote by Ram Dass: \u201cThe quieter you become, the more you can hear.\u201d<\/p>\n
That may be true but it can be\u00a0uncomfortable to hear what we\u2019re really thinking. Maybe we think our thoughts\u00a0are not politically correct. Maybe we\u2019re critical of ourselves or someone else.\u00a0Maybe we think that anger or negative thoughts aren\u2019t spiritual. For me,
everything that is true is spiritual. I don\u2019t measure spirituality in content\u00a0or elegance. I measure it in the willingness to go into the center of things,\u00a0the truth, and no matter what we find, no matter how messy it is, to treat\u00a0ourselves with kindness.<\/p>\n
The first time I meet with a prospective\u00a0writing client, I barely talk. Besides a few potent questions, I listen. It\u00a0isn\u2019t my job to show my client who I am. I don\u2019t become competitive and hope\u00a0she\u2019ll like me and think I\u2019m great. I don\u2019t try to be funny or smart and I\u00a0don\u2019t consider breaks in the conversation to be a problem. I don\u2019t try to fill
them up with extraneous thoughts that don\u2019t matter. I see them as a time for us\u00a0both to evaluate what the other person needs and wants, to understand their\u00a0expectations and see if we can fulfill them for each other. And to see if we like\u00a0each other.<\/p>\n
Writing a memoir for another person\u00a0requires a delicate balance of speaking and listening. The client is about to\u00a0spill her guts to a stranger so she needs to observe me and see if she feels safe.\u00a0She needs to know that I\u2019m not judging her. For my part, I need to determine if\u00a0I can get the material that I need from her in order to write an interesting\u00a0and authentic book. I need to hear what she\u2019s saying and what she\u2019s not saying.\u00a0What is true and what is not. When people first meet, it\u2019s natural to hide the\u00a0parts of ourselves that make us feel shame, but my client and I won\u2019t have much
time to process that so I have to evaluate quickly whether or not she\u2019ll\u00a0eventually let go and tell the truth.<\/p>\n
I worked with an award winning singer\/actress\u00a0some years ago, and when I asked her to tell me her impression of various artists\u00a0she had worked with, she said, \u201cHe was lovely. She was lovely. They were
lovely.\u201d That didn\u2019t work. It\u2019s not that I was looking for gossip or negativity.\u00a0I don\u2019t write those kinds of books. But I needed to know who inspired my\u00a0client, whom she liked and who was difficult. I was looking for her honest\u00a0reactions about how people made her feel. She stood firm in her \u201clovely\u201d\u00a0descriptions so I determined that she wasn\u2019t a good candidate for a memoir. She\u00a0didn\u2019t like talking about her life or about anyone else, so I bowed out. If I\u00a0hadn\u2019t been silent and listened to her, I might have taken on a project that I\u00a0couldn\u2019t do and it wouldn\u2019t have ended well.<\/p>\n
In this discussion of silence, however,\u00a0there is another side to it. While choosing to stay silent is a gift, when its imposed\u00a0on someone, it\u2019s a form of cruelty. The idea that children should be seen but\u00a0not heard teaches us not to speak up in our lives when it\u2019s important that we\u00a0do. We want approval so we say \u201cyes\u201d when we mean \u201cno.\u201d We say we like things that\u00a0we don\u2019t. My first serious relationship was with a controlling and abusive man.\u00a0He didn\u2019t allow me to say what I wanted to say, so eventually, I stopped\u00a0voicing my opinions and I lost myself. When I was at a play with a girlfriend,\u00a0during intermission she asked me if I liked it or not. I hesitated. I told her\u00a0I liked it and when she said she didn\u2019t, I told her I didn\u2019t either. \u201cWell do\u00a0you or don\u2019t you?\u201d she asked me. I was embarrassed because I honestly didn\u2019t\u00a0know.<\/p>\n
My dear friend, Olympia Dukakis\u00a0said, \u201cSometimes I feel as if four thousand years of silencing women, of the\u00a0fear of women who were burned in oil or eviscerated in front of their\u00a0daughters. is imprinted deep within and has altered my DNA.\u201d<\/p>\n
Demanding silence can be dangerous\u00a0like the examples above, but in this unpredictable world, it can be a powerful\u00a0tool. It can be a relief, a resting place. A \u201cgetting to know you\u201d place. It\u00a0can be a way to think clearly and allow your brain to process your emotions\u00a0rather than repress them. I had lunch a few times with a friend who talked so\u00a0fast and furiously, she choked herself. I could never get a word in. I waitedfor openings to speak but they didn\u2019t show up so I asked her kindly if she\u00a0could pause at the end of her sentences. \u201cThat would make it easier for me to\u00a0take my turn,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t like pauses,\u201d she told me.\u00a0\u201cIf you want to say something, just interrupt me.\u201d<\/p>\n
I haven\u2019t seen her since.<\/p>\n
I consider silence as part of a\u00a0conversation. It can help us understand who people are and whether we\u2019re a good\u00a0match or not. Incessant talking about yourself and what you think does the
opposite. It\u2019s a way to hide. If silence is a problem, the relationship will\u00a0follow suit.<\/p>\n
I heard a wonderful quote recently:\u00a0\u201cWhatever the question, silence is always the best answer.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sh-h-h-h-h The music is not in the notes butin the silence between. – – – Wolfgang Amadeus Motzard \u00a0 I take a four mile walk with a\u00a0friend three times a week. We chat, we catch each other up on what we\u2019re doing,\u00a0we listen, we commiserate, we laugh hysterically. Talking and laughing aregreat forms of therapy […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":2574,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2575","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2575","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2575"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2575\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2576,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2575\/revisions\/2576"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2574"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2575"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2575"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2575"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}