C.S. Lewis, in his book series The Cosmic Trilogy, refers to Earth as The Silent Planet. We who live here know otherwise.

This is a world of noise. Even when we think that we are in a place of silence and quiet, we deceive ourselves. We spend our lives being dictated to by outside stimuli: a TV left on in an adjoining room, a cell-phone demanding attention as the ‘ping’ announces another incoming message, music coming from a storefront you’ve just passed by. You don’t even realise that you can hear that 50-cycle hum in your walls – you only notice it when the power goes out and your house takes on a new kind of silence. Distant dogs barking, the squeal of tyres and a far-off police siren…we block most of this out because our brains wouldn’t handle the strain if we didn’t. Even the constant bombardment by other peoples’ problems are noise.

It was in the midst of all this that I recently took part in a Vipassana Meditation Course. I absolutely cannot tell you about this course, as it is something that you need to experience for yourself. What I can tell you is that we had to observe noble silence for a total of ten days. No external stimuli, in the form of electronics, is present. Those ten days are about silence, silence from the outside world and, in that silence, I learnt some things.

I realised that we so often talk for the sake of talking. I learnt that being silent meant that I was able to listen to myself, to ME, and I learnt to clearly hear what was okay for me and what was not. I learned about the importance of not following the pack, but that I could lead my own pack from within myself.

I know, and you know, that there is very little that we can do about the noise around us. But we can do something about how we respond to it and how we let it influence us. As Dr. Bruce Lipton said:

“Your perception of any given thing, at any given moment, can influence the brain chemistry which, in turn, affects the environment where your cells reside and controls their fate.”

The thoughts and beliefs that we carry around in our minds are so powerful in the construction of our lives – but often we simply cannot hear them, amidst the noise and the chaos. That alone is reason enough to mould those thoughts and beliefs into positive, ecological thoughts.

If you have tried to do this and realised what a long, ongoing battle it is – then call me for a session. Together, we can chat about a technique that really works to re-wire the neurons, so that the ones that fire together are the very ones that are positive.

We shall talk a little bit more about this process, and about how to find silence amongst the noise, in Part Two of this series, next month.

Maybe a truly Silent Planet is a matter of choice.

Kindest regards,

Marléne

“You are either moving forwards or you’re going backwards – you don’t stay the same. We are not human “beings”, we are human “becomings”. We are becoming something.”

So opens a video I saw the other day, while gathering my thoughts for this coming year. The video was posted on YouTube, by Be Inspired and, with 1.4 million subscribers and 725 806 views at the time I watched it, it is obvious that I am not the only one contemplating where I am and where I am going this year.

It is best to let the video speak for itself and, to do so, here are just some of the many thoughts that pepper its 11:11 duration. You will quickly understand why it stood out for me.

“There is only one you and you’ve only got one today. One now. Tomorrow it’s gone. Tomorrow it’s a different day. People spend their whole lives planning on living their dreams. But you see, you gotta take action…you gotta attack the day…

…what’s something that you’ve done recently, in the name of growth, where you are comfortable being uncomfortable? If your answer is “I don’t know”, that is a sign that you should be working on something. You’ve always got to be growing or else you’re going backwards. You’ve got to move towards your goals today. You’ve got to get up every day and say to yourself – every morning – I will do today what others don’t, so I will have tomorrow what others won’t…

…failure is a part of the learning process. What’s the risk of failure? What, that you would be embarrassed, shamed or ridiculed? How do you distinguish failure from learning? In your whole life, failure implies that you stopped, that the game stops…that learning is part of the ‘moving forward’, that is what the process is like: fail, learn, move forward and constantly do that because you’re cutting-edge, you’re going where people haven’t been before… that’s a different approach to life, a different way of being…”

And, finally:

“…doing something, making it real, so right now give up on those weird mental mechanisms that make you actually want to fight for the things that are impossible, to get people to believe in it, to get people to understand why you’ve chosen to stand still.

Instead of that, convince yourself that you should be moving: go, do what you know you are destined to do.”

Again, the question I ask, just as it was asked in the video: what’s something that you’ve done recently, in the name of growth, where you are comfortable being uncomfortable?

Think on that, and then watch the whole video, here.

Kindest regards,

Marléne