The Undeniable Power of Silence

It's 2.17am and I am wide awake, I haven't had bouts of restless sleep in a long time.  

I have had plasma today and in an effort to try and stabilise my very low blood pressure during the exchanges which is making me very poorly, I have relooked at the way I approach my treatment and I have gone caffeine free 24hrs prior and will remain so throughout the treatment days.  I have also ensured I eat something, proper food instead of crap prior to my exchange and that for up to three hours after I avoid hot food and of course hot drinks.   Today this worked for me.  

Life has felt good of late and complete.  I have two gorgeous little nephews, I have a close relationship with my sister and would hope to this year work on my relationship with my brother, even though he has a wife, at times I think he still needs his sister's.  

Last few days life has thrown down some roadblocks in my extended family on my wife's side.  My wife's Nan is 99 and has dementia and this is an extremely emotional subject for all concerned.  

Roadblocks appear in my life in the form of unplanned and stressful situations, actually even crowded places trigger emotions of resentment and annoyance to me, I would rather remain in the car than go through a busy supermarket at the moment.  

Sometimes, the pressure of constant automatic speaking, my voice echoing in my head rethinking what I said and dwelling on what didn’t sound the way I wanted it to, often keeps me restless and agitated.  I am currently in probation in my new job and I constantly worry about how to approach things and how to word something.   I am often also highly sensitive to negativity and judgment from others, and that  completely influences how I deal with a particular moment and stays with me for a while churning away in my head.  

Sitting here at 02:26am, it has hit me like a train, even after all my progress on working on myself emotionally and mentally, just when I thought that I had finally started living the way I wanted, I know that I am often anxious and easily irritated by 'things' in my daily life.  

I believe that I am currently Odette V3, Volume 1 being life before my condition erupted in mid 2010, Volume 2 was me prior to the line and Volume 3 is me since my permanent line was inserted.

I know that I still have a lot to learn about myself, I have yet to learn where the frustrations come from and what causes me to feel anxious sometimes.  

In my head, I feel that I want to become or actually J am becoming introverted recently.  I am happy to spend hours writing and reading in my secret hideout in complete solitude. Its in my nature, who I truly am beneath the bravado.  The noise of everyday life, I feel is becoming too loud, and I need to find a way to create calm in my daily environment.

Having and finding peace is something people spend a lot of money on when infact it is free.  

I believe it is true for so many of us. Instead of understanding and accepting ourselves the way we are, we go through life thinking that something is wrong with us because we don’t fit into the society’s norm of what is “socially acceptable", all because we just want a little peace away from the world.  

I know around 75% of my uneasiness is actually caused by how I filter information from media and friends and even work and what I allow to come through to me and has nothing to do with external influences.  Anyone who has been bored or crazy enough to follow this blog knows that I am a worrier and that I worry about what people think and self sabotage myself.  All of this makes me worse! 

Writing this blog helps me quiet down my thoughts and feelings of irritation. I have learned that staying away from the noise that was exhausting, both physically and mentally, has helped me hear myself better, trying to concentrate and learn ways of not letting the noise get through to me.  

Silence to me is invigorating, I have always been ok with my own company.  Silence through writing this blog or colouring or just going to bed earlier and reading or listening to music has helped me to understand who I am, regardless of the current volume I am.  Silence has helped me free myself of meaningless people, meaningless thoughts, meaningless opinions and beliefs.  

Learning how to be ok and have silent time hasade me realise that I’d often spoken out of fear, because I constantly felt the need to explain myself, although I’ve always been protective of my time, I never knew how to guard it fully, so I would let others steal away the moments I needed for me.  In turn, this would make me feel anxious because I found it hard to say no to the things I didn’t want to do, and I’d then inevitably feel resentment towards myself.

Silence isn’t uncomfortable.

Silence has helped me realise that people only understand from their level of perception, so I stopped justifying my personal actions and choices. I stopped telling people more than they needed to know and kept my privacy sacred. I realized then that when I stopped talking I was able to hear what my heart was telling me.  This helped me silence my judgement which in turn helped me surrender my ego.  

I am working hard on how I interact with my parents and siblings over matters of stress and importance which is helping me to develop patience and understanding for their reactions and situations I encounter. I have learned to control the way in which I responded to challenges and negativity.

Life is previous and I think we all waste so much time on nonsense we don’t need to hear. We talk when we don’t have to because we are afraid of being misunderstood.  This year peace and quiet is my priority.

I know I can switch off the blithering noise of my car radio, put my phone on silent, and turn off the notifications.  I can stop reading the news and limit the time I spend on social media. I can stop listening to what I don’t want to hear.  This is control.  

“Silence isn’t empty, it’s full of answers.”