To me, there are two types of noise. There's the physical noise around us: the sounds with tangible origins. Then there is the noise we create within ourselves. Blocking out the former is simply a task of relocating yourself or covering that sound with something more pleasant. To quiet the latter, though, is a much more difficult task. When that cacophony of negative self-talk, ruminations, and insecurities gets riled up, it's very difficult to quell the aural assault. It's enough to make you deaf to any other sounds. But there are ways. Deep breathing. Journaling. Talking about it. Meditation. The list is nearly exhaustive. But to me, there has to be some subconscious reason that people DON'T want to quiet those noises. Maybe, deep down, some part of them knows that when you strip all the noise down. When you get rid of all this unnecessary mental baggage, you're just left with yourself: bare, naked, ugly, as mundane as you've always feared yourself of being. And for most of us, the truth of what and who we are is much more terrible than the noise we create for ourselves. So we pile it on. Work, family, relationships, school, religion, emotions. We focus our attention on these noises so that we don't have to listen to that solemn truth deep inside of us, reminding us of our true selves. And the obvious irony there is that if we could just learn to exploit that painful veracity buried deep within us, all of these other noises in our personal lives would (and please forgive the pun) become harmonious. We often focus on the external, thinking we can somehow affect change without focusing on ourselves. The irony there is that if we diverted as much energy on ourselves that we did on everything else, we'd see that our relationship with ourselves directly effects our relationship with all of these other noises. If you learn to have a deep, truthful, meaningful relationship with yourself, you'll learn to have a deep, truthful, meaningful relationship with others. Work, family, relatioships, school, religion, emotions. Rather than look for the answers, just close your eyes and listen to the answers your mind keeps telling you every minute of every day.
