We are not meant to live in isolation. What makes us healthy and whole is the connections we form with one another.  With our families. Our friends. Our colleagues and our community…  The thing we need the most to feel healthy has become harder to get.

After more than 30 years in the field of social work, I know one thing to be true. We do not need to be victims to our situation. We have choices to make, each and every day about how we want to live our lives. How we choose to show up for ourselves and each other.

Practice #6 - Get Quiet

One of my favorite chapters to teach to my Introduction to Psychology students is the one on Consciousness.

“What is consciousness?” I ask them.

“Awareness,” someone will inevitably say.

“Awareness? OK, how many of you are here right now?”

They laugh.

Consciousness is a state of being. The ability to focus, to be present in this moment at this time and it is hard. Have you ever driven to a place and realized you don’t remember getting there? We spend our lives on the computer. We live busy, distracted lives. We are constantly on our cellphones and in our cars. We make hundreds of decisions every day, from the mundane to the consequential. We make lists to remind ourselves to call the doctor or to pick up almond milk at the store. We sit in on a conference call while helping our son with his math homework because now we’re home schooling too. Meanwhile we scroll through instagram and twitter and reddit threads. We are bombarded by bad news. We fall asleep to the television in the background. Or we don’t sleep at all.

All day long we are overwhelmed by the noise of our lives. Noise that permeates our consciousness, whether we realize it or not. it’s like filling a bag with groceries and never unloading it. You keep adding more and more groceries until eventually there is no more room. The bag rips and everything spills out, eggs, milk, cheese and more tumble onto the kitchen floor.

We need to find ways to be quiet, to minimize the noise in our lives. We need to unpack the bag.

Try this: -

Find ways to unplug each day. Shut off your phone. The television. The radio. Sit in the quiet. Go for a walk. Meditate or just take a deep breath. When you take a shower in the morning, ask yourself, am I in the shower or am I thinking about what I’m going to make for dinner? Do I feel the water on my body, the soap in my hand or am I worried about how I‘m going to pay the rent, the mortgage or the student loan? When you’re in the shower, practice being in the shower.

When I walked the Camino de Santiago de Compostela I was stunned by the number of birds I heard singing every day. Did they sing at home the same way? Had there been so much noise that I’d just not heard them?

For a few minutes each day, get quiet. Listen. Notice what you hear.