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Week 16! Kind of a cloudy, dreary day, but the standout feature to today’s hike was the eerie silence.   Usually I’m surrounded by a cacophony of bird calls – this time of year, that means crows, blue jays, black-capped chickadees, tufted titmice, sparrows, kingfishers, woodpeckers, hawks and the occasional bald eagle.  Today, for most of the hike, these sounds were absent.  It’s like what happens right before a massive thunderstorm.

For some reason, this kind of silence…the absence of what I normally hear…makes me more aware of God’s presence.  It’s like He hit the “pause” button on the soundtrack of my life and it always gets my attention in an awesome, massive, slightly disturbing kind of way.  It causes me to listen…and go deeper with my personal reflections.  As in, let’s stop and take a look around my life at the moment.Week 16 Mossy log over water

In addition to some of the things I’ve been talking about the last few weeks…placing intentional reminders around you to encourage you through your journey to change your thoughts, as well as using journaling or another method to create a frame of reference for where you are on that journey…scheduling some regular purposeful silence for yourself can be invaluable. While it can be a little (or a lot!) uncomfortable, I guarantee it will give your brain and your thoughts room to breathe like nothing else does.

Even better than me hiking in the silence is to just find a tree and sit. For hours.  Kirby is not a fan, so I do this solo.  My view doesn’t change, the sounds around me don’t change…there is no new stimulus to distract my brain from looking inward…it’s like being naked with yourself.  I got the idea from a book called Field Guide To Nature Observation and Tracking by Tom Brown. AWESOME book if you love the woods and as it turns out, a really good guide to cultivating inner silence.

This week, I thought a lot about the different ways I could look back on my 2015 and how I had the power to choose how I felt about it. One statement I can make at the moment is that another year has gone by and I am still single.  I can make this mean something bad about myself.  I can make it mean that God doesn’t want to bless me for some reason.  I can make it mean that I will never find anyone.

Or.

I can make the statement that this year I went after something I’ve dreamed about doing for years – getting my life coach certification. A year ago today I didn’t have a website or a blog or a plan to help other single people feel better about their singleness.  I hadn’t met all the amazing people I met this year or learned that I can control how I feel by choosing my thoughts. Week 16 Up a Tree

I am a year closer to living dead center in the purpose God has for me on this planet. Which feels a lot better to think about than that there is something wrong with me because I am still single.

This train of thought transformed the eerie silence on today’s hike from feeling sad and lonely to feeling full and joyful. It made God’s presence more real to me.  It felt wonderful.

I encourage you to construct your own “cone of silence” for yourself. It might mean turning off all the electronics and just sitting in your livingroom by yourself.  It might mean road-tripping to a retreat center that offers programs for people wanting to get away and live in silence.  Or it might just mean finding a nice tree in the woods to sit under.

Whatever it looks like for you, try exploring what silence can do for your brain this week and let me know what you think in the comments section below! In the meantime, have a great week!

(Oh, and if you decide to try the tree thing, just keep in mind that animals get curious about humans who sit under a tree for hours at a time without moving.)

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