{"id":280,"date":"2009-04-02T14:00:04","date_gmt":"2009-04-02T14:00:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/freshliving\/2009\/04\/enjoy-the-silence.html"},"modified":"2009-04-02T14:00:04","modified_gmt":"2009-04-02T14:00:04","slug":"enjoy-the-silence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/2009\/04\/enjoy-the-silence.html","title":{"rendered":"Enjoy the Silence"},"content":{"rendered":"

So here’s my story: I’m sick again.  A sinus infection in January.  A 2+ week cold in March. And now, starting on April Fool’s Day, a new virus that comes with laryngitis, a cough, and a fever.  I went to the doctor yesterday, and was told that resting my voice was imperative to getting better.  Whispering is even worse than talking because it strains the throat muscles. So in other words, shhhhh.<\/p>\n

I immediately started spiraling into negative, feeling-sorry-for-myself territory.  But then I stopped and asked myself, “How are you making today more positive?”<\/a>  I decided that somewhere in this prescribed silence is a gift.<\/p>\n

This video from the fabulous Elizabeth Gilbert really speaks to the spiritual power of silence. She calls shutting outside voices down “the fundamental beginnings of divinity,” and while I can’t claim to aspire to such heights in between doses of antihistamine, cough medicine, and Tylenol, it is a beautiful possibility and a meaningful thing to search for.<\/p>\n

What’s your relationship with silence?<\/b>  Do you dread it, wrestle with it, embrace it, look forward to it?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So here’s my story: I’m sick again.  A sinus infection in January.  A 2+ week cold in March. And now, starting on April Fool’s Day, a new virus that comes with laryngitis, a cough, and a fever.  I went to the doctor yesterday, and was told that resting my voice was imperative to getting better. …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,28],"tags":[375,277,41,317,356,374],"class_list":["post-280","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-by-holly-lebowitz-rossi","category-health","tag-cold-and-flu","tag-elizabeth-gilbert","tag-health-2","tag-meditation","tag-physical-health","tag-silence"],"yoast_head":"\nEnjoy the Silence - Fresh Living<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/2009\/04\/enjoy-the-silence.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Enjoy the Silence - Fresh Living\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"So here’s my story: I’m sick again.  A sinus infection in January.  A 2+ week cold in March. 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A graduate of Cornell University and Harvard Divinity School, she has more than a decade of experience writing about religion and spirituality for Newsweek, The Washington Post, Spa Finder, Sojourners, Search, and many other publications. Her commentaries have also been heard on NPR\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s \u00e2\u20ac\u0153All Things Considered.\" When not at her desk, you can find her baking, in her garden, or rockin' out in water aerobics class. She lives in Arlington, Mass. Visit http:\/\/www.hollyrossi.com for more.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/author\/hrossi"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=280"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=280"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=280"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=280"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}