Solitude, Silence, and Stillness: The Disciplines of Internal Quiet
“The noise of the world is a non-stop assault on our soul.” — John Mark Comer
“The real problem of humanity is the following: we have paleolithic emotions; medieval institutions; and god-like technology.” — E.O. Wilson
• • •
If asked: "What is our world characterized by?", how would you answer?
There are quite a few obvious answers and if we were playing Jeopardy there's a good chance we would score 60-70% of the top picks. With that being said, I have a hunch there's one answer everyone would agree upon but few would guess in the moment... noise.
One of the more novel experiences for me this past summer happened when I was snorkeling in the beautiful Caribbean off the Mexican coast. While the beauty of the surroundings were absolutely stunning and the warmth of the water was luxurious and enjoyable, what stood out most to me was the experience of immense quiet. This was a quiet I felt on a deep soul-level, revealing to me the loudness of peace. There was literal shock-value in having no audible inputs, a truly novel experience for us in the 21st Century.
To be honest with you, this experience was so novel for me it was almost addicting! Just ask my wife. For the rest of the trip I was continually (and almost instinctively) drawn to getting another taste, another sliver, of that sweet, sweet silence.
Our World
For most of us, our world is so filled with noise it feels unnatural to be without it. It's risen to the point where we are oblivious or immune to it... that is until we find ourselves in the middle of Montana filling our lungs with the big sky and open country of the northern frontier. Quiet is an experience that's missing in our modern, industrial, noise-laden lives, and it's been that way for quite some time now.
Alongside this phenomenon of external noise, there's been a more visible (and equally more disturbing) through-line of internal noise, the noise that seems to be creating unprecedented levels of anxiety, depression, and even suicide. The voice in our head that never stops processing the pressures and stressors of our hyper-connected, overly-stimulated, technology-saturated lives seems to turn against us at a tipping-point of overuse (or abuse).
While this problem is far too complex for me (or anyone) to try and solve in a single article, I think it's fair to say the overwhelming presence of noise in our environment and our world has only acted as gasoline to the mental-health “fire” blazing throughout our society.
This reality we are now faced with makes the case for a new focus, a new (or renewed) emphasis. A return to the ancient, spiritual practices designed to be medicine for our soul.
Ancient Wisdom
What these practices entail—their hidden genius—is in first eliminating the external noise before the internal noise can begin to dissipate. They ensure we don't put the cart before the horse, that we don't merely treat symptoms without first addressing root causes.
This ancient wisdom follows the principle that it is far easier to subtract from our life than it is to add to it. And in order to remedy the root issue of noise, we must remove ourselves from our beloved stimulants in order to find the peace that is always present and available.
To do so, I want to playfully present you with a classic alliteration I'm coining: the “Trinity of Internal Quiet”... solitude, silence, and stillness.
Before explaining a little more of what each means, I want you to take note of the order in which they are presented. First solitude, then silence, and finally stillness. While each component can be utilized on its own, the progressive nature of them contributes to a compounding effect, with each successive step reaching a deeper level of internal impact.
So let's begin by focusing in on solitude to start.
A Closer Look
Solitude
The easiest way to change something in our life is always by subtraction, and this holds true when it comes to gaining internal quiet. We must begin by subtracting the presence of other humans for a period of time. While solitude has increasingly gained a negative association thanks to a worldwide pandemic of late, it needn't be dismissed. One of the characteristics of Jesus was his propensity to create and curate times of solitude, where he was alone to himself.
Solitude is necessary for us to develop any measure of internal quiet, of inner-calm in the midst of the outer-storm life often entails. We must begin by eliminating the external noise in order to address the internal noise more accurately and directly. This is how we begin.
“Whatever you are not changing, you are choosing.” — Laurie Buchanan
Silence
Beyond separation from other humans, we must seek a silence in which our thoughts begin to rise in volume. By dimming the background noise from the world, the voice in our head takes center stage where we can listen loud and clear. Through better listening comes better understanding. Through better understanding comes better calming. This process of calming our monkey-mind, our talkative inner-voice, requires that we accept reality (aka: what is) and integrate it into the present moment. This is a “closing the loop” of sorts, resolving the unresolved tensions in our mind by accepting our current reality and the present moment we are experiencing.
This begins to open the door to God's peace, a peace that surpasses all understanding (aka—we can't figure it out through a formula).
“Meditation takes us from survival to creation; from separation to connection; from imbalance to balance; from emergency mode to growth-and-repair mode; and from the limiting emotions of fear, anger, and sadness to the expansive emotions of joy, freedom, and love. We go from clinging to the known to embracing the unknown.” — Dr. Joe Dispenza
Stillness
Not only do people and noise need to be removed to begin accessing our inner quiet, we must also pursue stillness. One of my favorite quotes is by Millard Fuller who said: “It's easier to act your way into a new way of thinking than to think your way into a new way of acting.” This speaks to the experience of having our mind follow our body's actions. By pursuing stillness physically, we can begin to pursue stillness mentally.
Like all three elements in this trinity of inner quiet, stillness is a discipline. It's not something we were born to be good at. We seem to be in perpetual motion (even when we're sleeping! REM: Rapid Eye Movement anyone?), and so too is our environment, our world, our planet, and our universe. Not being in motion? Now that's novel. Yet, through the super-power of stillness we open the door for the super-presence of quiet to enter in our souls.
“Focus is the art of knowing what to ignore.” — James Clear
The fruit of these practices, these pieces of ancient wisdom? Another alliteration for you: peace, presence, and perspective.
The Final Word
To sum up all this information in one, simple action statement:
The way we can attain the spiritual discipline of internal quiet in our lives is through elimination: removing people, noise, and movement – periodically – in order to gain peace, presence, and perspective.
“Faith is the ability to hear the music beneath the noise.” — Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks
The action is simple, but simple never means easy. And simple for sure doesn't mean a short road. This is a life-long journey that serves as a much needed life-line for our souls.
Will you have the courage to try?
“Courage doesn't always roar. Sometimes courage is a quiet voice at the end of the day saying, ‘I will try again tomorrow.’” — Mary Anne Radmacher
