why we need silence

I wrote this this morning because I was feeling lost. It’s not long and it’s not much, but it helped me. If you feel lost, maybe need to hear it too.

I used to be someone who can’t deal with silence. When all you do is doomscroll and consume other people’s opinions, thoughts and feelings, it’s really hard to sit in silence, because you have to listen to your own. I have to sleep with rain sounds and my fan on because I’m incapable of falling asleep without them, and it took me years to realize why. I cannot sleep listening to my own thoughts. For some reason, at night time I turn into a different person, I’m negative and sad and broken. Yet, when I wake up the next morning I am myself again. I sleep with noise because when silence is present my thoughts get loud. Really loud, and my “night time” self simply can’t handle this. When I have nature sounds or music they don’t necessarily disappear, they just become muffled, softer.

During the day however, I think silence is important. When you consume so many things like music, television, podcasts and social media, you never get a chance to listen to yourself. You never get a chance to sit with yourself, and in silence, lies the answers you are looking for. You’re not going to find who you are by listening to other people, you just have to listen to yourself. I’m not saying its easy, but you have to force yourself to do it, because it legitimately will save you. When you sit with yourself, in silence, your thoughts have room to breathe. And when you listen to them, in time, they’ll tell you what it is you’ve been searching for.

The answer wasn’t in the TED Talk or the video essay, it was in you the whole time, you just have to let yourself listen.

Thank you soso much for reading!!!! I hope you have an awesome day and I hope this piece meant something to you. Feel free to comment, message or like, I appreciate feedback!

xo,

a girl with thoughts.