The 25 most important things I have learned on my Courage & Renewal journey.
That seems a contradiction of terms, doesn’t it?
I agree.
Or maybe it’s a paradox.
Anyway…
Number two on the list?
Silence.
Thomas Merton wrote a poem about silence.
In Silence
I have quoted from it before.
I find it kinda haunting.
But I guess that’s what silence does.
It disarms you.
No more space-filling.
No more finishing or adding to people’s sentences for them.
No more charging in with “that happened to me once” or “have you thought about doing this?”
No more covering up what you just said aloud in the hope that no one heard what you said – most of all, YOU?
You see,
When you say something out loud,
Something you might never have said out loud or even to yourself,
Something that is either deeply important to you,
Or carries a bit of weight to the subject,
And you do it in a group of people,
So that you’re being held,
And witnessed,
And loved,
And the group,
They don’t come along and save you
By filling the silence and covering over your words
That you finally managed to say, out loud. No, they just let the words hang there,
Right in front of your eyes,
But it’s ok, because you’re being held and witnessed and loved.
That’s when you hear what it is that is going on in your work or life.
That’s when transformation starts to happen.
That’s when you start “To Let Your Life Speak” (1).
When, in the words of Thomas Merton, you can start to become,
“The unthinkable one
You do not know”
And that is why,
In a Circle of Trust,
Silence
Is surely
The most important thing.
#transformation
#mindset
#courage
#renewal
#silence
(1) https://couragerenewal.org/library/let-your-life-speak-listening-for-the-voice-of-vocation/
