Take Your Soul With You Wherever You Go
Rediscovering the power of silence
“Silence reminds me to take my soul with me wherever I go.” — written by a 5th-grade student. Excerpt from Amazing Grace by Kathleen Norris.
Making time for silence and solitude is a spiritual discipline. Neglecting silence, one runs the risk of leaving one’s soul behind.
Let’s not take that risk.
It’s not easy to find silence in today’s society
Everything — and I do mean everything — is stacked against us in an effort to eliminate silence and seduce your thought life.
Advertisers don’t want you to have time to think. If you did you’d realize you don’t need their product or you’d have time to think through the flaws in their amazing life-changing device or service.
24-hour news doesn’t want you to have time to digest the information they spew out that’s why it’s 24 hours. If you had time to reflect, analyze their stories, or do a little research on the facts, you might see that they are biased or not being entirely truthful in their reporting.
Social media is designed to steal your silence. Words, images, music, video, and needless notifications all invade the mind, pushing out space needed to contemplate or hear yourself think. Don’t worry about thinking, social media tells us, we’ll do your thinking for you. Just sit back and relax.
One could move through an entire day and night and never experience a moment of silence unless you are intentional about it
We wake up to alarms, turn on the radio or television to catch the news, traffic reports, and weather. Family members start chatting and we start checking smartphones for messages and emails, being sucked down the rabbit hole of diversion on social media.
We've got to learn to tame our social media appetites if we want to find places for solitude, reflection, and inner peace. I have some suggestions for this in my article on Balancing Social Media and Solitude.
We’re at great risk in our society of destroying our souls. Without tending, our souls can experience disease and decay just like our bodies. What does this look like manifested in our lives?
I believe it looks like moodiness, unhealthy competition or comparisons, anxiety, disappointment, jealousy, anger, frustration with life, ingratitude, resentment, feelings of isolation, and hopelessness.
From that list, it appears we are all vulnerable to the consequences of leaving our souls behind.
What can we do to combat this inundation of noise and invasion of our privacy? I’ve never been one to advocate for boycotting or completely eliminating technology — after all, I use it every day to do what I’m doing here, so I’m grateful for technology and the connectedness that it had brought to my life.
However, I am intentional about what I allow to invade my soul, especially as a writer and a contemplative person. I easily feel my soul retreating when I don’t give it the silence it needs.
Some suggestions for making space for silence in your day
- Wake up to silence and try to keep it going as long as possible during the morning. This is precious soul time where your mind is fresh and can think through problems or reflect. This is also the sweet time when God can get our attention because we’ve not filled our minds yet.
- Drive in the car without the radio or talking on the phone. Even ten minutes to the store can be restorative and contemplative if you have silence.
- Turn off all the alarms, beeps, dings, and vibrations on your tablets and smartphone. Every little sound is an invasion of your privacy and interrupts your thoughts or peace.
- Keep the television off as much as possible. Don’t let it be a habit of background noise.
- Don’t play music all the time when you are working. I know some love to have background music on, but consider some moments of pure silence.
- Consider working out without the headphones. Listen to your thoughts or the rhythm of your soul instead of someone else’s.
- Don’t sleep with the television on.
- Build breaks into your day to get a few minutes alone — even if you work in a busy office or with others around. Go outside for lunch and walk, sit under the shady tree, or retreat to your car and lie back for ten minutes.
- Get up before others in the house rise, or if you prefer, stay up later to snatch some time with just you and the wind whistling through the trees outside or the fire snapping in the fireplace.
- Consider not always having to contribute to a conversation. Not to be rude, but think about if your voice is just more chatter in the room or if it will bring something to the listener. Just hearing my own voice sometimes exhausts me!
It would be remiss for me to not acknowledge that finding silence is easier for some than others. As a mom with littles, it was a challenge so simple things like keeping the radio off in the car after I dropped them at school, or lingering in the shower felt like places of respite. I even used the large walk-in closet in my bedroom as an escape when I needed it!
To pursue a lifestyle infused with solitude and silence means going against the grain of society, but its power and impact on our souls are too important to ignore. Stand out, we must!
In a world slammed with noise, we can be an oasis of calm.
The consequence is too great
The consequences of leaving your soul behind can have an impact on the world too. We need soulful people, thoughtful people, kind people, well-read people, people who know themselves and how they contribute to the world.
People who understand the need for silence are the people that will heal the world, so please remember to take your soul with you wherever you go.
Thanks for reading. I’m Mary — a lover of silence, the slow life and being able to hear myself think. I’m on a mission, with words, to remind the world that it’s okay to slow down and maybe even live a little more simply.
