Surrendering to silence…

“This silence, this moment, every moment, if it’s genuinely inside you, brings what you need. There’s nothing to believe. Only when I stopped believing in myself did I come into this beauty. Sit quietly, and listen for a voice that will say, ‘Be more silent.’ Die and be quiet. Quietness is the surest sign that you’ve died. Your old life was a frantic running from silence. Move outside the tangle of fear-thinking. Live in silence.”

~Rumi

For the last four days, I’ve had a bout of laryngitis.  On the first day, I sounded like Peppermint Patty from the Charlie Brown cartoons, and my kids found it slightly amusing.  On the second, I was down to a whisper and my kids found it slightly pathetic, and frankly, so did I.  By the time the third day rolled around, I could squeak a little bit, but that was about it.    I sat in a cloud of frustration around the timing of it all…  with a 5k coming up in just a few days, restless kids home from school for two snowdays in a row, and the phone ringing off the hook with inquiries about my women’s circle, I found myself having to just let it all go.  To trust.  To simply rest and heal and do some journaling and decluttering and staring into space.

Today, my voice is back a bit more.  In fact, Noah has told me he wishes I were still only whispering.  Tee hee.  But I’m realizing that I’m still feeling rather quiet.  It’s a surrendering of sorts that is required of me right now, as I approach a new year already swollen with possibilities, and hunker down into my deeper wisdom for a breath of fresh insight.  Rest. Strengthening.  Celebrating.  I think in many ways, laryngitis happened in order for me to get to a place where I could sit within the pool of my own longing without any expectation, without any opinion or assumption, without ridiculing where I’ve been.  Almost like a rite of passage.   As Rumi so eloquently put it, to simply stop believing and just be…

To say goodbye to the pieces of myself that I am setting free, to allow them to die away as I wear a shroud of forgiveness.

To allow the curious dance of knowing and not knowing, and bow to the gray areas.

To stop tip-toeing amongst the shards of broken dreams, and sweep away the remnants of all of the efforts that I have let define me.

Embrace that I won’t always do the right thing at the right time, that I’ll never be perfect, that I’ll fall flat on my face, that I’ll piss people off, that despite my best efforts, I’ll still have piles of unfiled paperwork on my desk, and that there will still be some days when I’ll want to hide beneath the covers and declare that I’m a failure.

And to know, somehow, that I can keep going.  That I can begin again.  That each moment is yet another birth.

To allow my words for a time to shift into burnt designs on a piece of wood, or paint on a canvas, or a scribble on the back of the phonebook, trusting that my voice is still singing from within.

To move outside the tangle of my own fears, my own inhibitions, my own resistance, letting all of that go, letting all of that float around me like snowflakes caught on a breeze, to eventually fall to the ground and melt away.

Categories: family, gratitude, Health, imperfection, inside out, inspiration, Living Mindfully, silence, stillness, strength, surrender, Uncategorized   |   Tags: Lisa Rough, Rumi, silence, surrender  |  5 Comments »

5 comments

Trackbacks / Pingbacks