How to Find Inner Silence in a Loud World

Inner silence is an ancient concept that has now regained attention. To understand what it’s about, let’s think about the noise in the world. It’s not just the loud sounds we hear every day in the city. It’s also the many elements that affect our peace.

There’s both inner and outer silence. The latter is the absence of sounds, the magnificent state where external noise disappears. Inner silence, on the other hand, is the  subjective state where there are no elements that disturb our tranquility. 

Inner silence and outer silence are beneficial to the brain. The absence of sounds and stressing stimuli encourage a unique way of relaxation. This absence of sounds revitalizes, clears the mind, and moderates our emotions. There’s nothing like silence to help us renew ourselves.

Inner silence and getting in touch with ourselves

Humans must face the infinite stimuli they’re exposed to every day. The most worrying thing is that a good part of those stimuli have a sense of urgency and pressure us. Before we wake up in the morning, we already have a thousand things to worry about.

Plus, technology steals a great part of our time, maybe due to our job or because we’ve developed  a social media addiction. Social media platforms are spaces to socialize and communicate and we constantly feel the urge to check them out.

In those situations, it’s practically impossible to establish a healthy contact with ourselves. In order to do this, we need to make room for inner silence, meaning that we have to lower the volume of the stimuli as much as we can and leave some time for ourselves to get back to our own thoughts and emotions and deal with them.

Living in a loud world

Inner and outer silence are closely related. Nowadays, we’re exposed to more auditory stimuli than we were decades ago. External noises are constantly calling for our attention. A loud siren, a noisy engine, or the sound of a new notification on our phones. It all happens too frequently.

Sometimes we feel like we want to run away to a place where there are no sounds. These places are peaceful. However, it’s not always possible to set aside some time for ourselves due to our responsibilities.

You don’t need to start practicing yoga or meditation. You must only do one thing: reduce the stimuli you’re exposed to. Stop feeling like you have the obligation to do absolutely everything you set yourself to do and just do the essential.

Listening and getting in touch with yourself

When we don’t have moments of inner silence, we tend to be tenser. And, with time, that tension turns into suffering. We live with pain, and that’s no way to live.

In order to get out of that state, we must learn to set boundaries and control both the stimuli around us and the unnecessary obligations we force ourselves to do.

The first boundary we must set in this world we live in is, of course, technology. We spend so much time on social media and checking our emails. We think that those things are important in our lives, but they’re not. They steal precious moments and don’t allow us to hear ourselves.

Something that could help with this is having two phones: one for work and one for personal things. Once you finish working, you can turn off your work phone and turn it back on the next day.

And remember: it’s always good to think about what the actual contribution of social media is in your life. You may find there’s little to no contribution, so you’d probably be motivated to stop checking them out so often.

Your inner silence will help you listen to what your body is telling you: its complaints, its pain, its pleasure. You need that silence to rediscover yourself and identify your thoughts and feelings toward life. Inner silence is a gift you shouldn’t keep yourself from receiving.