11/21/2014

S O L I T U D E


1. Bypassing Burnout
Too often, our culture assigns self-worth with productivity. Whether it's asking what your country can do for you, or what you can do for your country, the question remains -- what can be done? It's a one-way ticket to burnout.

2. Heightened Sensitivity 
For many, attempting ten days of silence would be akin to walking on water. Vipassana silent retreats are exactly that; participants are instructed to refrain from reading, writing, or eye contact.

3. Dissolving Tomorrow's Troubles 
Silence brings our awareness back to the present -- where concrete happiness is experienced. Watts makes the distinction between our basic and ingenious consciousness; the latter makes predictions based on our memories, which seem so real to the mind that we're caught in a hypothetical abstraction. It plans out our lives with an abstract happiness, but an abstract happiness is a very real disappointment.

4. Improves Memory
Combining solitude with a walk in nature causes brain growth in the hippocampus region, resulting in better memory.

5. Strengthens Intention and Action
Psychologist Kelly McGonigal says during silence, the mind is best able to cultivate a form of mindful intention that later motivates us to take action.
Intentional silence puts us in a state of mental reflection and disengages our intellectual mind. At that point McGonigal says to ask yourself three questions:
  • "If anything were possible, what would I welcome or create in my life?"
  • "When I'm feeling most courageous and inspired, what do I want to offer the world?"
  • "When I'm honest about how I suffer, what do I want to make peace with?"

6. Increases Self-Awareness
In silence, we make room for the self-awareness to be in control of our actions, rather than under their control. The break from external voices puts us in tune to our inner voices -- and it's those inner voices that drive our actions. Awareness leads to control.  
Practice becoming an observer of your thoughts. The human will is strengthened whenever we choose not to respond to every actionable thought.

7. Grow Your Brain
The brain is the most complex and powerful organ, and like muscles, benefits from rest. UCLA research showed that regular times set aside to disengage, sit in silence, and mentally rest, improves the the "folding" of the cortex and boosts our ability to process information.

8. "A-Ha" Moments
The creative process includes a crucial stage called incubation, where all the ideas we've been exposed to get to meet, mingle, marinate -- then produce a eureka or "A-ha" moment. The secret to incubation? Nothing. Literally; disengage from the work at hand, and take a rest. It's also the elixir for mental blocks.

9. Mastering Discomfort
Just when you've found a quiet place to sit alone and reflect, an itch will beckon to be scratched. But many meditation teachers will encourage you to refrain, and breath into the experience until it passes. Along with bringing your mind back from distracting thoughts and to your breathing, these practices during silence and solitude work to build greater self-discipline.


10. Emotional Cleansing
Our fight/flight mechanism causes us to flee not only from physical difficulties, but also emotional difficulties. Ignoring and burying negative emotions however, only causes them to manifest in stress, anxiety, anger, and insomnia.

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