by Brian Solis
Chapter 9
Silence
A Mental Wonderland Is Yours for the Creating—and Playing
“Silence is a source of great strength.”
– Lao Tzu
A disciple and his master were walking through the woods. The disciple felt disturbed by the fact that his mind was in a constant state of agitation, and he asked his master: “Why are most people's minds restless? What can be done to calm the mind?” The master looked at the disciple, smiled, and said, “I will tell you a story.”
An elephant was standing by a tree eating its leaves. A small fly came and flew up to him, making an unpleasant buzzing sound near his ear, and the elephant flapped his ears to scare it away. But a short time later, the fly came back. The elephant once again shook his ears, but the fly kept returning, over and over again.
After many failed attempts to scare the fly away, the elephant turned to it and asked, “Why are you so agitated and noisy? Why can't you stay in one place for a while?”
The fly responded, “I am attracted to what I see, hear, or smell. My five senses scream at me about everything around me and I cannot help myself. What is your secret, elephant? How can you stay so calm and quiet?”
The elephant stopped eating and said, “My five senses do not direct my attention. I have control of my attention and I can direct it where I wish. This helps me immerse myself in what I am doing and therefore to keep my mind calm and focused. When I am eating, I am totally immersed in eating. In this way, I can enjoy my food and better chew it. I control my attention and not the other way around, and this helps me to be calm.”
In order to chart your path to a more focused and rewarding life, and to stay the course as you develop new life habits, you have to take control of your mind.
Why do we allow the nebulous entity we call society define what will, or should, make us happy?
Don't Let the Present Slip Away
One of the harmful effects of all of our distractions is that we are so rarely living entirely in the moment. Far too much of our time is spent worrying about where we are rather than appreciating where we are. Martin Farquhar Tupper once quipped,1 “I remember the old man who said he had had a great many troubles in his life, but the worst of them never happened.”
Focusing on what was or might be makes us unable to get so much enjoyment that we could be experiencing from where we are while we are there. Anyone we're with knows we're not really with them, unless they're distracted and not in the moment, as well. When you're at work, you may often think of your last vacation or one that's upcoming or an important life event. At the same time, when you're on that vacation or at the event, you may have pervading thoughts of work, deadlines, or projects that await you. How ironic!
The distractions of notifications, texts, emails, and posts are only part of the problem. Our mental chatter is also constantly diverting our attention from the present.
What do I mean by mental chatter? It's the incessant stream of thoughts or the relentless barraging of the voice in your head; the constant internal monologue that ebbs and flows in and out of your consciousness. While some of this jabbering is helpful, maybe by reminding us of a scheduled call we were about to miss, or bringing us a great idea in a flash of insight, most of our mental chatter is negative and unproductive.
Mental chatter is the incessant stream of thoughts or the relentless barraging of the voice in your head; the constant internal monologue that ebbs and flows in and out of your consciousness.
Take a moment right now to check in with your mental chatter. Maybe you're thinking about something you need to do later. Maybe you're contemplating an email you need to send or read, or perhaps you're worrying about an upcoming appointment. Your mind is trying to help you, but it's churning up attention energy that you need for focused productivity. Mental chatter is not only counterproductive; it's literally exhausting as it depletes our brain fuel. What's more, it leads to many unhealthy behaviors, including getting caught up in overanalyzing, holding on to and reliving past occurrences, and fostering damaging emotional states.2 The Mayo Clinic describes the emotional effects this way:
Spending too much time planning, problem-solving, daydreaming, or thinking negative or random thoughts can be draining. It can also make you more likely to experience stress, anxiety and symptoms of depression.
When we're centered in the present moment, we quiet the chatter. It's still there, but we don't notice it. The calming effect is uplifting and restorative; our energy is renewed.
To get a taste of the joy of being in the now, please stop thinking for a moment. I mean right now. Stop the mindless noise. Are you worrying about whether you can do it? That's just more useless chatter. Tell the voice in your head, will you be quiet for a moment, please?
Now, we're going to take a quick mental break; I'm going to do this with you because I love this simple practice. If you find at any point that the voice starts chattering again, just tell it to please be quiet again and start over.
Set your timer for 60 seconds.
Turn off all distractions and ambient noise you're in control of.
Think about absolutely nothing except this exercise.
Hold your breath for five seconds.
Exhale loudly!
Then, breathe deeply, in through your nose and out through your mouth, holding it for a second.
Watch your mind.
Put this book down and continue.
How did you do? Honestly, it took me a few times to get it. The funny thing is, as I tried to calm my mind, I even thought of things to add to the initial set of steps in the exercise above, which broke the spell of calm. But after fine-tuning the list, and with several more attempts, I finally got it. And, the feeling of calm was so wonderful that I've made it part of my daily life, doing it several times a day, and at any moment that I'm feeling particularly distracted or distressed.
One of the benefits of this quick exercise is that you're bringing oxygen to the brain,3 which your brain cells crave. It's like a refreshing drink of cold water when you're dehydrated. Your muscles relax, no longer tensed by stress and anxiety, and you can direct your attention to only what you want to focus on in the present moment. You are more productive and you're happier.
Being in the moment is not just a slogan; it's incredibly powerful. Not only for you, but for those you're spending time and sharing life with. It's like an elixir of connection. Your presence is charismatic. The fact that you're attentive makes people feel heard, understood, and special, and that gift of being truly with them strengthens relationships. That, in turn, boosts success and happiness.
Being in the moment is not just a slogan; it's incredibly powerful. Not only for you, but for those you're spending time and sharing life with.
A study conducted in 2010 found that 47% of people's waking hours were generally spent thinking about something other than what those surveyed were doing in the moment. The researchers, Matthew A. Killingsworth and Daniel T. Gilbert of Harvard University,4 learned that when the participants' minds were aimlessly mind-wandering, they felt largely unhappy. When they were focused on the present moment, they were their happiest. And that was true even if the activity they were engaged in was unpleasant.5
The Art of Now, not Next
Don't let the past and future rob you of the power of being in the present. Let your mind give you time back.
Both the magic and the conundrum of time is that it always passes, and it never comes back. We only have so much of it. We should savor it. But through distraction in all of its forms, we're literally letting time, precious time, slip away from us. We're so busy rushing through life, devoting our time to dispiriting and meaningless pursuits that don't give back to us that we lose our sense of how much time is passing.
Too often, we realize only at the end of our careers how much of our time we've wasted this way. It's often said that at the end of our lives, no one wishes they had worked more. Well ditto that for worrying more, or procras
tinating more, or scrolling through more Instagram photos.
At the end of our lives, no one wishes they had worked more.
We can fix this. We can learn to live in the moment by cultivating mindfulness, a state of active, open, intentional attention on the present6—of being with your thoughts, conscious of your surroundings, and aware of your feelings and bodily sensations. You're also experiencing the present without the obsessive interpretation and judgment of your inner voice. You've turned the volume down on. Instead of letting the present flow past while barely noticing it, you intentionally awaken to the experience of the moment, appreciating it, challenges and all.
Cultivating mindfulness has a wealth of benefits. “Depression lives in the past and anxiety lives in the future,” Dr. Elyssa Barbash describes of mindfulness. “Alternately, calmness and peace of mind live in the present.”6 Mindful people are generally happier, more secure, empathetic, and alert. They're more relaxed, sleep better, experience professional burnout less frequently and are generally more grateful, which research shows is one of the most powerful sources of authentic Happiness. Their self-esteem is higher, leading to less anxiety about how they're performing and what others are thinking of them. Their attention is stronger and they have good defenses against unproductive impulses, like binging and the endless scroll. Mindfulness is also an enabler of creativity because it frees your mind from the energy depletion of chatter and distraction, allowing you to concentrate it on your creative problem-solving.7
With all of the virtues and life advantages of mindfulness, why aren't we better at practicing it? One reason is that many of us believe we are actually in the moment when we're not. After all, we're conscious of what we're doing, and we're most often engaged in at least some of what we should be focusing on. We may occasionally snap out of an episode of deep daydreaming and surprise ourselves with how out of the moment we were, but for the most part, we're aware of where we are and what we're doing in the moment. That awareness, though, is just one train of thought most of the time, and we're constantly toggling from it to our distractions and chatter.
Ellen Langer, a psychologist at Harvard and author of Mindfulness, describes the challenge this way, “Everyone agrees it's important to live in the moment, but the problem is how. When people are not in the moment, they're not there to know that they're not there.”
Fortunately, there are lots of simple—and enjoyable—ways to foster mindfulness.
According to Laurie J. Cameron, author of The Mindful Day, “Mindfulness is the outcome of building skills and strengthening the mind and body in the right place. We strengthen the pre-frontal cortex, the part of the brain associated with attention, planning, and goal setting. We also train in deepening self-awareness, self-management, communication, motivation, and empathy.”8
Mindfulness is the outcome of building skills and strengthening the mind and body in the right place.
That may sound challenging, but I've sorted through the vast literature on mindfulness training to give you a set of fun ways to get started with strengthening your mindfulness muscles.
Embrace a beginner's mindset. Shake up how you go about your most basic autopilot habits. This is a way of making you more aware of what you're doing. For example, reverse the process of how you towel yourself dry when you get out of the shower. Try writing a short, motivational note to yourself with your non-writing hand. Travel to work by a different route and pay close attention to the surroundings: the beauty of the trees by the road, the new restaurant that looks appealing, or the gym you've been hearing about. Before you take a bite of your next meal or take a drink of your beverage of choice, smell it; take a good long breath in and savor the aroma. As you taste it, deconstruct the flavors, and focus for a bit on each of them. Don't worry while doing this that you'll look totally weird. It's likely no one will notice. Most people are too distracted!
Color. Maybe you've heard about the runaway popularity of adult coloring books and thought, what a silly way to spend time! Or maybe you're one of the legion of adults who've fallen in love with them. If so, bravo! Coloring is great for our minds. Art therapist Marygrace Berberian, the director of New York University's Art Therapy in Schools Program, explains that it is restorative because when we engage in a low-demand creative activity of this kind, our mind is calmed and drawn into a meditative state.9 Coloring is also good for our creativity because it helps us tap into our inner child. So, pick up markers or crayons and a coloring book of your choice and go for it!
Practice un-self-consciousness. Self-consciousness holds us back from being in the moment. By worrying about how we're being perceived, or how our work will be received, we take our attention off the ball, so to speak, which leads us to flub the shot. This is the cause of the phenomenon of choking.
I've realized that I've sometimes been so self-conscious that I've sabotaged myself. One painful instance was in preparing for a televised presentation. As I sat down with the producers to go through the session, I panicked. Anxiety seemed to come over me out of nowhere. I unintentionally derailed the session because I didn't want to rehearse my part in front of everyone. I was worried they would have criticisms, which is, of course, exactly why you rehearse—to get better!
Make a commitment to yourself to pay close attention to whether you're being self-conscious, and whenever you hear that voice saying, “you sound stupid,” or “they're going to hate this report,” or “who are you kidding, you're going to make a mess of this,” tell your mind to be quiet. If you're alone, go ahead and say it out loud. Then tell yourself, I've got this, so let's get back to it. Or come up with your own such mantra. You'll get better and better at circumventing your me focus and getting back in the moment.
Pay Attention to Your Breath. We did this earlier, so you know how powerful it is. Make this a regular habit; do it many times a day. Also, practice it whenever you're feeling anxious or stressed, whenever you find yourself reaching for your phone to check notices, and whenever you realize your mind is wandering. It's also another great way to break the grip of self-consciousness. If you do this regularly, even for just a minute, you will learn better how to catch yourself from getting pulled out of the moment and get your mind re-centered in the now.10
Practice Acceptance. One of the most well-supported findings in psychology is that by trying to escape from the difficulties life inevitably presents us with, we cause ourselves more pain. Much of our distraction is due to a willful, though often subconscious, desire to avoid things we fear, whether that's the exertion we'll have to put into a project, or ridicule we think we'll face if our work is deemed subpar, or discovering that we just don't have the talent for something we wish we could do well.
Psychologist Steven Hayes has discovered that we will be happier and healthier if we accept that certain things are simply beyond our control. He advises that we stop trying to either change those difficult realities or escape from them and instead focus on what we can change—our ways of thinking about them and reacting to them. This is the wisdom expressed by the famous Serenity Prayer, which teaches the power of “the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference.”
This isn't easy; I know. But here is a simple practice that can be remarkably helpful.
Write down a list of things in your life you wish you could change. Now go through them and reflect on those you can actually change and those you can't. Make a commitment to yourself to stop getting derailed by your emotions about those you can't change and to focus on things you should be doing about those you can. This is a powerful way to motivate yourself to seize the day of the present moment. You'll get better at it the more you build your mindfulness muscles.
Author Jay Dixit explains,
[Mindfulness] increases the gap between emotional impulse and action, allowing you to do what Buddhists call recognizing the spark before the flame. Focusing on the present reboots your mind so you can respond thoughtfully rather th
an automatically. Instead of lashing out in anger, backing down in fear, or mindlessly indulging a passing craving, you get the opportunity to say to yourself, “This is the emotion I'm feeling. How should I respond?”11
Slow. it. down. Stephen Schueller,12 a psychologist at the University of Pennsylvania, found that slowing down to take time to appreciate things leads to pleasure. “When subjects in a study took a few minutes each day to actively savor something they usually hurried through—eating a meal, drinking a cup of tea, walking to the bus—they began experiencing more joy, happiness, and other positive emotions, and fewer depressive symptoms,” he observed. Think about some things you enjoy doing that you haven't been making much, or any, time for. Make a plan to carve out some time each week to focus only on that activity, bringing all of yourself to it. Deeply engage with all of your senses. Your consciousness of time will fade as you immerse in the moment and you will feel restored.
Go with the flow. The phenomenon of losing our awareness of time is a well-documented component of the experience known as flow. You get into a state of flow when you concentrate on a task so intensely that you become immune to any distractions. Time is not on your mind, and you become entirely one with the moment. You are operating at full power, and the experience is like an adrenaline rush.
In his TED presentation on the subject, “Flow, the Secret to Happiness,”13 the father of the flow concept, psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, recounts the experience of total immersion as a musical composer he interviewed had described it:
He doesn't have enough attention left over to monitor how his body feels or his problems at home. He can't feel even that he's hungry or tired, his body disappears, his identity disappears from his consciousness because he doesn't have enough attention, like none of us do, to really do well something that requires a lot of concentration and at the same time to feel that he exists.