Week 22 The Sounds of Silence

This week we were to find hours if not days to be totally silent...  I was so excited to go for it because my life is filled with noise.  for years we have called our home the "house of noise".   I have have 7 children, four still in the home - two in grade school, one a High School senior, one in college all of which bring their friends over as well as my aging mother who lives with us so I can care for her, four grandchildren who visit OFTEN, a wife finishing her degree and two dogs all in a 1200 sq. foot home.  The thought of just being still sounds great!  It's just not easily accomplished and being a man who always keeps his promises and having already scheduled my week before the webcast (Fri OATS) - I was only able to spend several hours at a time on a couple of days in total solitude...  I am working out my calendar to give me more opportunities to be quiet in longer periods of time this coming week.  However I did stop all radio, music, t.v. and any unnecessary talking or noise all week long and it was great.  I have been studying meditation and so this has been a double wammy for me.

I learned through the silence to be a better listener!  The sound of the wind, the rain hitting the windows, the breathing of the dog was always there, but I had never really listened to it.  I realized that I had never really listened to other things as well like - my daughter singing in her bedroom playing with dolls;  I always heard her but never listened to the words she was singing.... very insightful!  I learned to not be in a hurry to answer questions of solve everyone's problems...  I fell asleep.  I learned to follow impressions of thought from threads to tapestries.  I fell asleep.  I learned to be more gentle with others and myself.  I became more even tempered.  I fell asleep.  I lost track of time.  Some times my thoughts were focused and others I let my thoughts wonder where they would.  It was fun and invigorating and I'm excited to plan more time in the future to be alone with my thoughts.  What will I learn tomorrow!

I was also deeply interested in what Mark said about picking the ONE THING and focusing on it!  So while in my quiet time I redid the assessment where I took the five or so things in my DMP and numbered them and ranked them with each other and re-committed myself to the #1 item.  I'm waking up and going to make some real noise!