SILENCE IS A LANGUAGE, TOO
what I am learning in my work of becoming a therapist is that the information we choose to share with others is as significant as the information we choose to withhold. Silence is a language, too. What we choose to omit from the stories we share can create a vacuum in which other people exist isolated from understanding the complexity of the realities we inhabit, leaving them without agency and the ability to choose freely; leaving them on the outside of a story that is being told. Often when we withhold information from other people, it’s because we want to avoid the consequences of the impact that information has.
We justify this by telling ourselves that we are entitled to privacy and don’t owe other people anything…our lives are solely our own and our choices, too.
But what if we lived in a world in which we acknowledged that our lives are interwoven in complex patterns of belonging? That words and actions of integrity construct spaces of trust, comfort and acceptance for those we love to inhabit. And that when we choose to do something other than share the fullest truth possible, we create holes in the story of trust we have woven; holes through which our own relationships can fall.
The act of omission, of choosing to not speak the fullness of what is available to be told, comes in many forms that ultimately relegate other people to standing on the outside of knowing. When sharing information, it can mean leaving out who we are spending time with, how we have spent our money, if we are sexually active and with who, activities we are doing that others may disapprove of, or addressing shifts in relationship roles that feel difficult to talk about. So much hiding comes from the fear that we will not get what we want…or lose what we have, whether that be autonomy, privacy or power, and our bodies signal to us that this withholding from others is happening when we experience discomfort, defensiveness, entitlement, secrecy and a commitment to silence.
The concept of debt, of being indebted, often comes up as a source of resistance when sharing a deeper truth with others. Certainly, no one likes to feel as if we owe our time, energy or explanations to anyone. But, I have begun to think of debt as a sacred state of being, as if to say, my belonging here depends on you, just as yours depends on me. If no one is willing to be a witness, then we all become invisible. If no one is wiling to be seen, then the joy and responsibility of calling our loved ones into being is denied to the community. We are indebted to each other.
when we are willing to tell the whole truth to others, it can become an offering to that debt; a gift placed at the the altar of another person’s life so that their path may be made more clear, their choices more abundant, their story more vivid, by our willingness to share what we know.
Bringing silence into voice may not be a simple journey; it requires us acknowledging first that our choices impact others, though we sometimes like to believe that they are independent. Cultivating practices of transparency exchanges the illusion of autonomy and separation for a deeper truth that illuminates how the truth we tell or withhold resonates in the lives of strangers and loved ones. Transparency can retrieve us from the isolation that secrecy creates and strengthen our sense of connectivity to the people we love and the communities we belong to; welcoming us all back into the circle of knowing from which we can choose our lives more authentically.
Though sharing the story of who we are, what we desire, and the paths we are choosing risks rejection, the willingness to be seen in the full spectrum of our desire and needs gives our relations an invitation to join us on the path of becoming. I believe that words held in the grasp of our tongue, never surrendered to air, may one day fill our mouths with ghosts. And a dance that is held in the bones, but never released by skin, will fill the body with dreams. And Love that remains unshared is a stone that settles in the water of our bellies, hoping to be retrieved, dried and returned to the earth of its own belonging.