Listen to silence. It has so much to say. ~Rumi
Stanford professor Susan Dunn contends silence is the most meaningful experience around sound. It’s important when we listen in our relationships that we listen to what is said, and also to what is not said. It’s important that we especially listen to the silences punctuating our conversations. Here are ten perspectives on silence that a Fierce Listener would be wise to be mindful of.
- Silence is not the same as soundlessness, or the absence of sound. Silence is to sound as sleep is to life. Silence very often is full of meaning. With some silences you want to say, Let’s talk about what we’re not talking about, or Let’s be silent about something else. Some silences are so full of the thing neither person is able to deal with verbally at the moment that you can almost reach out and touch it.
- There’s a sullen, hostile silence that literally pulses with struggle. That’s when someone is afraid to express their anger or disappointment, or is determined to make the other person take control and do something.
- There’s a silence of just quietly being with someone else. Sometimes we’re with someone and each gets intent on their own project. We’re so comfortable with each other that we don’t need to fill the air with words. That’s a very comfortable feeling. Between two people silence can be a place where they can simply be, can simply live along, without making any effort to communicate or focus. There is a mutual sense of the space, a natural space of being.
- There’s the long, heavy silence of embarrassment or shame. Our emotions tell us things we need to know about what’s going on. Sometimes we realize we’ve done something we wish we hadn’t and feel embarrassment or shame. This feeling tells us we need to change something so we can feel good about ourselves again.
- Silence can be a receptive position in which our whole being is open to the unspoken messages from the other. When we’re really open to listening to the other person, they know it.
- Silence allows a space for contemplation. Sometimes someone says something to us that really hits home. We need to take a moment, or longer, to let it sink in, to think about what’s been said, and to process the feelings.
- There is the silence of awe; when an experience is too wonderful or too awful to be commented upon. When we listen to a tragic story, or hear of a synchronous wonderful event, the appropriate response is often silence. When we listen to a mother describing her baby, or someone describe a lover, or an old person talking about dreams and memories, or a father talking of his son who has died we sometimes don’t know what to say and our emotional response is a profound silence full of emotion.
- Silence can express our most alert attending. There’s an alert, crackling kind of silence, such as when we’re taking in some intellectual piece of information and are struggling to hear and to understand every part of it. We’re excited and paying close attention and all ears.
- Under all speech that is good for anything, there lies a silence that is better. Silence is deep as Eternity; speech is shallow as Time. There are times that are so profound we simply don’t have words, but the position of our silence can allow a meeting place with the other that’s very meaningful. Words fail us at times, because they just aren’t adequate to express what we’re feeling.
- Silence is a dynamic no-man’s land shared equally by speaker and listener, belonging to neither and yet to both. Silence can be a very special place between two. We can begin to skillfully listen to ourselves as we listen more skillfully to others.
Practice: Determine to spend recurring and increasing amounts of time paying attention to the silence within which speech unfolds. How does the focus on the “negative space” of speech change both the content, context, and meaning of what you actually hear?
Excerpt from Fierce Listening
