I am content to follow to its sourceEvery event in action or in thought;Measure the lot; forgive myself the lot!When such as I cast out remorseSo great a sweetness flows into the breastWe must laugh and we must sing,We are blest by everything,Everything we look upon is blest.From Yeats, A Dialogue of Self and Soul
At first, like last week, I was relieved to have the space in the silence, I could stretch out, cat-like, relieved of my modern working-woman's responsibilities, settle in, cultivate some present-moment awareness. As last week, at first I slipped easily into a contemplative, deliberate, “monk like” mode of being, where each act or step took on a sacred quality. Yummy warmth spread over me, it was wonderful. But this lasted a grand total of 45 minutes.
For some reason this week, as hour 2 loomed, I found myself getting agitated. I began continually checking the clock and drumming up “to do” lists. Thinking of all the things that could be “crammed” into the silent time: writing a paper, cleaning the bathroom, reading an essay, playing with the cat, etc. and beginning to mentally schedule these into the following 4 hours. Although outwardly I appeared calm, inwardly my mind was frenetically dashing from one possible activity to another, I couldn't decide which to do first. I kept opening the pantry to see what I could eat, with the idea if I had one more cup of tea, or a piece of chocolate, or something salty, just that one more thing, then I could concentrate better and get one of those tasks done. It was reminiscent of that classic scene in the movie Adaptation where Nicolas Cage’s character’s insights on the creative process are spot on:“To begin…To begin…How to start? I’m hungry.....Ok So I need to establish the themes.... Maybe Banana Nut. That is a good muffin. ”But then I would eat something or drink something, and then feel the need to go have something else. This kept going until eventually, stuffed and angry at myself, I had to just stop.
According to some creativity coaches, this is a common pattern of avoidance for creating “real” work.
I realized this. So after this mini-manic binge, I sat. Rather than “run” anymore, I decided to meditate to see what came up and avoid those inner voices telling me I should go do something else. It was like I was trying to be anywhere but here. I realized I needed to be here for a while to see what was going on.
I sat for about 17 minutes and watched my thoughts impotently buzz inside my head like a fly trapped between two panes of glass. I was so tempted to get up and do something, but instead I just sat and watched them and tried not to get carried way on any one thought. I imagined my thoughts as being printed on a ticker tape as they were running through my mind, I would label them: there goes a planning thought; oh! a critical though; yep there is an analyzing thought... a reminiscence...an angry thought. Etc. This is a trick I learned in my meditation class and once I begin doing it, the thoughts become still and calm and there becomes space between the thoughts in stillness.When the thoughts slowed down I began to see how I had a bunch of pent-up, inexplicable emotions inside me: anger, frustration, both at myself, and at people from my week.I realized that the agitation and distraction attempts were, for me, an attempt to run from the pain of these.
So I tried to gently accept them. Once I did my whole body relaxed. This is always the way for me: when I recognize and embrace the emotion, the feeling eventually dissipates and the body will “sigh” in relief.
This is a technique of acknowledgment from a wonderful book called What We Say Matters: non Violent Communication (Buddist communication practice) by Judith Hanson Lasater. Once I realize what the feeling is, I can then connect it to an unexpressed need-for wellness, connection or expression. This process is so amazingly transformative! So when I am angry at a fellow driver, I can recognize my anger and acknowlege its validity, then I can ask what it is inside myself that I needed that was not met, in this case perhaps respect. Then, I can really be powerful because I can ask myself-do I really need to be respected by every driver on the road to be calm? Does the world need to be a certain way for me to be a certain way, or do I have the capacity to be who I want regardless?
This is hugely transformative. This is the essence of NVC-that you learn to be able to live connectedly, to yourself and others, and more harmoniously in the world.Sometimes I have to do this process several times. Once I hit on the right feeling and need, my body immediately tells me so. I often get a sensation of a big “sigh” and tension melts away when I do this process.
So on this day, I acknowledged my frustration and realized it because I wasn’t meeting my need for control and calmness. I was not able to “be” present and this frustrated me.Once acknowledged, other feelings emerged: loneliness, sadness, and even ennui. I began to wonder if this whole experiment was pointless and I was ultimately and sadly alone and unappreciated in this quest, in this world in general.
In A Book of Silence, Maitland talks about a condition common in hermitage known as “accidie”: a state of mind that so deeply associated with silence that ....(it is known as) ...the mental prostration of recluses” (108). She quotes Cassian:Accidie, which we may describe as tedium or perturbation of heart...is akin to dejection, and especially felt by solitaries....we become listless and inert...it produces such lassitude of body and craving for food as one might feel after the exhaustion of a long journey and hard toil” (109-110).I was feeling exactly this- increasingly dejected, listless. The items I had created in a mania on my to do list before my meditation, such as writing this piece and reading my book, suddenly seemed completely pointless and far away. I was overcome with sullenness and accidie.Historically, accidie was the seed for what became the fourth deadly sin, sloth, but originally the word had a very specific meaning that as more directly related to silence. Maitland describes it as a bored, restless sense of dissatisfaction, a blankness, and an inability to get things done. This emptiness is what we are avoiding with our busy-ness and shopping mall trips. We are afraid of it as a culture. But, determined to live in opposition to that, I want to know myself, to feel misery, to face it head on and, possibly with a little luck, slay those monsters in myself, or learn to love them if need be. According to Brown's Ted talk (on vulnerability), we can’t avoid negative emotions without also shutting down the good ones. I don’t want to shut down the good ones. I want to live as Townes Van Sant said, To Live is to Fly, low and high.
Maitland makes a strong case that accidie is not abnormality, or personal in origin. She argues that it is a natural quality that arises from the asociality in silence. Everyone who experiences silence experiences accidie. Thus it is similar but not the same as depression because the cure is the completely opposite: depression requires gentleness, support, eating well, avoiding stress, being kind to one’s self. Accidie, however, requires the opposite approach: hard work, penance, and strict rules of self discipline.
For some reason this idea buoyed me: that these feelings are entirely normal, that there is a cure and it lay in the simple, cleansing act of hard work. So after reading this I set to work. This darkness, I realized, was my quest. Not to avoid it or question it, but to work through it. I set to work. I began reading a series of intellectually challenging articles for a class I am taking. Although at first I had trouble concentrating, I took notes and did an analysis and critique and by the end, when I looked up, the time had passed quickly and my 5 hours of solitude and silence were almost over.I noticed immediately that this work had taken me to an entirely different head space. The accidie was gone.
Once I stopped working and paid attention to how I felt, I found was buoyant, beyond happy. Ebullient! I had gone, in less that five hours, from deadened agitation, to full immersion, I was cracked open emotionally and feeling vulnerable and beautiful.
From my own journal at this time:“Everything feels crystalized and precious, so lovely, so brilliant! Life is beautifulness beyond words. I am vessel of expansiveness. My chest will burst with the joy of it. My sight, smell, hearing- senses are a wondrous gift. I am so grateful”
The sunlight was filtering through my window, reflecting cleanly off the trees in a shining as I hadn’t noticed before. My cat’s thrumming purr was symphonically gorgeous. My husband suddenly seemed very dear, affection welled inside of me. I hypersensual, the beauty around me was so overwhelming.
What was this complete change when only 4 hours earlier I had felt nothing? It was so strange!Again, looking at Maitland’s book she had a similar response to silence that she describes and she found examples of this over and over in the silence and explorer literature.“...I saw a whale or porpoise,-no a sea monster-turning in the water, rolling. A silkie perhaps, a seal woman, lovely and perilous. It was, in fact, a rock with the water rolling over it-but the water seemed to be still while the black shape rolled through it. I leaned against the car and rejoiced. It was not an anguish of loveliness, but a complete, huge, calm, silent joy of loveliness” (76).Maitland called this state “givenness” and she makes an excellent case for the necessity of silence in producing it. She says it is that the act of silence, a conscious act of adding something (not simply removing sound), and this state aids in removing the boundaries between self and environment, that self merges with the universe in a oneness and flow. And what accompanies that is this fullness of feeling and love, wondrous connectedness. I felt that connectedness then.I could not contain the loveliness of my home, my world, the joy of it. I was full of givenness.And this feeling lives in the silent places in the world. This is Yeats' sweetness that flows into the breast when we cast our remorse aside and are willing to just sit.__
Lesson in Silence:
Silence this week gave me the space to feel the changes in the current, moment to moment, of the tides of my mind and emotions, the ebb and flow. This went from resistance of the moment, manifested into frenergy (frenetic energy), and then later, despondent lethargy. But in order to flow into connectivity and happiness, (letting myself sink into the greater masterpiece as Leonard Cohen says), I had to allow for silence. Silence gives us the space for openness to the full range of experience. John Kabat Zinn calls this the openness to the full catastrophe of living. We must be silent in order to be in synergy.Be silent. Face the boredom, the darkness. Use focussed work to transition from frenergy to despondency to synergy. Don't be afraid. The result is so powerful and transformative, it is so worth it.
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Hason Lasater, Judith. What We Say MattersMaitland, Sarah. 2009. The Book of Silence.Melucci, A. 1994. The Symbolic Challenge of contemporary Movements. In S.M Buechler and F.K. Cylke, Jr (eds). Social Movements: Perspectives and Issues. Mountain View, CA: MayfieldTed talk on vulnerability. 2010. Brene Brown
*book links are to one of my favorite local independent bookstore’s website
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