Whose Silence Are You?

“Whose silence are you?” ~ Thomas Merton

I read this quote at the beginning of last week and have been contemplating it since.  I don’t get it.  It takes me right to the place where my brain turns inside out and goes to nothing because there is no way for this brain to understand this one by thinking about it.    I finally had to ask for help from spirit to understand and I think I might have synchronistically experienced the answer.

Here’s how my week went down in a nutshell.  Almost every single person I had conversation with simply talked and talked and talked.  I got to hear all about their lives, their problems, and mostly their problems.  I am a practiced listener.  It’s not like I don’t enjoy it.  I do.  I really do.  I also love to solve problems, so mostly I’m okay with this set-up. However, this week it was intense.  I mean it was to the point that the basics weren’t even asked of me, “how are your kids?  are you feeling better cause I actually remember that you’ve been sick? did you have a nice holiday?  blah blah….”

When given the chance to speak, which wasn’t often, the people I engaged with were distracted.  Checking cell phones, rummaging through bags, and interrupting me.  It was even explained to me by one person that they were a great multi-tasker and could listen and check their text messages at the same time.  Really?

Finally I got to have lunch with another Kundalini yoga teacher who is a dear friend of mine.  She talked, I listened.  And then a miracle happened.  I talked, she listened.  It was amazing.  Not only did she listen, but she looked me in my eyes and really took in what I was saying.  It was yoga perfected.  She was my silence.  She was the mirror of compassion, understanding, and love that we are all supposed to be when we engage with another.

Since returning from Kundalini teacher training, I have been suffering a bit from the inability of people to hold space for me as I do for them.  I guess it’s hurting my feelings on some level and I don’t think its ego.  I think it hurts on that soul level of connection.  You see, if you practice Kundalini, even just once each week, you will begin to understand that yoga is relationship.  It’ your relationship to every single person you encounter. In Matthew there is a verse  “where two or three gather in my name, I am there with them.”  I really understand this now where I didn’t before.  It takes two to make a relationship and in that relationship is the union with God.

If you can’t listen and hold space for others, it means you are not listening to or holding space for yourself.  Find a friend to be your silence and then be their silence too.

btw…a yogini came in for class today and caught me up on her life and then she asked me, “how are your kids?”  I just smiled at God.  Om, Pamela