2500 years ago, Lao Tzu, the philosophical founder of Taoism, uttered the words: “Silence is a source of great strength.”
25 centuries later, they ring true. Spending time simply sitting in silence can have a great deal of impact on your life.
1. Silence teaches appreciation.
In silent contemplation, we learn the value of appreciating who and what we have in our lives. It enables us to listen deeply to our friends and family.
2. Silence imparts focus.
In today’s world, our attention is firmly divided by our electronics, our jobs, and the things we do for fun. Silence teaches us to make our focus whole again and to notice things we may otherwise miss.
3. Silence makes us appreciate nature.
Especially when done in nature, silent contemplation makes us listen more to the Earth and appreciate all it does to make our lives whole. Trees will never look the same again.
4. Silence lets you reconstruct your thoughts.
Silent contemplation helps take scrambled thoughts and make them whole, concise thoughts. This is especially useful if you have big ideas that you need to make firm before a presentation or goals you want to set for yourself.
5. Silence combats overstimulation.
Like I mentioned earlier, our lives cause our thoughts to become divided. Couple that with a fast paced, highly caffeinated existence and we can easily become overstimulated. It’s infrequent that we sit by a fire and read a book anymore. Silence teaches us to slow down.
6. Silence teaches humanity.
In spending time contemplating silently all of humanity, we realize that we and everyone else have imperfections. We are often hypocritical and we have sometimes radically different beliefs.
7. Silence fills us with love.
Even though we realize we’re imperfect and sometimes radically different, silent contemplation causes you to realize that every human is like you, a unique entity experiencing a unique life. They feel the pain as you do. Silence shows us love.
8. Silence makes us bold.
You may think courage means you can face down danger, but more often, courage is facing yourself. Silent contemplation in itself takes courage. It forces you to sit with yourself and your own thoughts. No distraction. You just sit there and be a person with yourself.
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