How to Be Quiet

Being quiet inside. Today, many say this is not very important. This seems like another way of saying it's too difficult, so give up on it.

Mindlessness- not mindfulness

I still worked on being quiet inside. When I could maintain silence for brief periods, the result was always good. Relaxation, relief from stress, clarity and impartiality always resulted from inner silence for me. But it also had a feeling like I was trying the impossible. Until recently.

How to Drop Your Bags?

I read lots of things about emotional baggage from many different sources. While the concept seemed valid, I could not find a reliable and practical way to get rid of this 'invisible baggage'. Until recently.

Breathing and Your Memories

I tried an experiment. I had read about revisiting your memories, a practice that was done with a sweeping breath. Recollecting as many memories and the accompanying feelings and reclaiming or releasing them (as the case may be) with a sweeping breath seemed practical to me. I could 'put my hands on it' in a figurative sense.

Why? Who Cares?

I would love to enter into speculation about how or why it works, but at the end of the day, it seems that this would remain just that: speculation. Putting aside the speculation, let's just say I have been pleasantly surprised at how effective this practice is for me.

In the short term, it was a pain in the neck. You need to find a quiet place where you can be undisturbed for some time. I started with 5 minutes because that was all I could muster in terms of both time and attention. After a typical practice session, I found myself tired, often with a vague nausea. This lasted for 30 minutes to an hour. After that, I felt more relaxed, at ease and often I had higher levels of energy, lasting through the day.

Remarkable

More recently, I find 15 minutes easy, and often extend my practice to 30 per session. I almost always get the higher level of energy beginning a few hours after a session, and I have a deeper sense of quiet confidence in all that I do. I find myself thinking remarkably less about unpleasant people or situations in my life. And recently, I have tried the 'old traditional' meditation technique of trying to focus my attention on some particular aspect that I choose (breathing, counting, or even the feeling of silence). The difference is remarkable. It is now very easy to enter into a state of quiet concentration, and sustain it for 10 minutes without any particular effort.

This is without a doubt one of the most profoundly effective techniques I have worked with although the results are slow coming and it appears that they are cumulative. I've been doing this practice for about a year and a half now. There's simply no looking back!