The challenge many people will experience when they allow silence in their environment is that it may not be met with internal silence.

Silence is the absence of stimulation. Stimulation, which, in some cases, is also a distraction.

We need stimulation; however, we are not always prepared to respond. Distraction serves us by restraining ourselves from reactions. It is well known to us and thus, to some extent, safe.

The nature of responses, however, is that while they might be thought through, they allow for the unknown. It’s stepping out of one’s experience to create new ones.

Reducing the volume on the external stimulation we are used to often results in raising the volume on the internal dialogue. An experience we’ve been avoiding through external stimulation. Noticing this internal stimulation can be disturbing. If it is, there is a high probability of finding ourselves becoming critical and judgmental of ourselves.

It takes time and patience to let go of such evaluations. Once it becomes possible, internal silence appears. Not complete silence. But one that lacks the aggressiveness of one’s own judgment.

This shifts the quality of silence and our relationship with it. It makes the silence’s content audible while allowing compassion for whatever appears through it.