Silence – Protecting shield or Suicide Bomb?

Is it not true that many a time we distanced ourselves from people thinking that our silence would make them realize their wrongs?

How many times in our life have we chosen silence over speaking, thinking that it is the best way to punish others?

In reality, whether silencing ourselves for things that hurt us is bad for others or not, it is highly detrimental for our mental and physical health. We will see how.

Silence – The controlled alertness of mind

Silence leads to success when it is the language you speak as a symbol of wisdom. We come across many successful people in life who either smile or maintain silence when instigating questions are asked. This is either due to the maturity levels that their status and experiences in life bestowed on them or a gesture to hide something that is not shareable. Irrespective of the reason, their control over their reactions during instigating situations is what is to be noticed. Silence acts as a protecting shield here.

Silence – Pointer to a unhealthy Mind

During many occasions in our day to day life, we go into a silent mode when things do not happen in the way we expected them to happen. We maintain silence when we are unable to cope up with what is happening around us.

When we become silent, the unpleasant thoughts that pass through our mind gets stored deep in the subconscious. This means, by becoming silent, we just push the unwanted thoughts temporarily away thinking that we can handle the same later some time. Sometimes, we push such unpleasant thoughts away assuming that these will fade away with the passing of time. This is termed as Repression medically.

When people hide memories intentionally, it is termed as motivated forgetting. When memories get buried deep inside the subconscious mind due to incidents that are traumatic in nature it is termed as Amnesia. All the above means, Silence maintained by repressing emotions kills mental health. Silence acts as a suicide bomb here.

Repression devastates physical health too 

Repression does not end up with affecting our mental health. It takes a toll on our physical health affecting our immune system to a great extent. We fall ill frequently than ever suffering from headaches and cold. We feel stressed and left out. We feel so exhausted that we start yearning for a helping hand. Medicines seem to be having less impact on us and we continue to feel weak. The best thing is, we start attributing it to seasonal changes and food allergies.

Retaliation of an unhealthy mind

When we choose to be silent suppressing our feelings, our mind tends to get overloaded. Lack of venting out feelings leads to insertion of the same in future fights with people unconcerned with the hurt. The overloaded mind makes us retaliate with the concerned in a miserable manner every time we meet them after such repression. It makes us indulge in behaviors that are self destructive in nature. We avoid eating on time or punish ourselves in various other ways that would disallow us to lead a normal life.

It is during such times that we tend to attribute everything to the genes of those who caused the hurt in us. Our loaded mind manipulates our emotions making us exhibit undue control over the concerned relationships. By numbing all our emotions, we allow our self esteem to lower down to extents, which we would not do if we were the original ‘us’.

Don’t repress. Express

 Make silence the basic source of your strength instead of allowing it to make you weak on all aspects. Use silence to think about moving forward in life and not for fretting and fuming about people whom you despise. Make silence your strength and avoid using it for wreaking revenge. The purpose of your silence must not be to wreak vengeance on people who made you feel sorry but to gift yourself peace of mind.

Divert your hurt mind in avenues that interest you. Listen to good music. Watch your favorite TV program. Read motivating books. Invoke the child in you and focus in fostering the same. Do everything that would help you maintain your mind in a relaxed state. Avoid thinking about incidents and people that hurt you.

Remember, nothing haunts your mind like the things you don't say

Choose that one person and express yourself honestly to them. If you do not have anyone to confide in, become your best friend and calm yourself down. Instruct your mind not to think about people and incidents that you do not relish thinking about. Pull your mind out of such thoughts in a conscious manner every time it indulges in the same. 

Unless you change something in you nothing changes. If you can’t change yourself, how can you expect others to change?  

Change all that is changeable. Accept all that is unchangeable and unavoidable. Pull yourself away from the unacceptable. This is the secret of living a gratifying life.