10 Important Reasons to Start Making Time for Silence Rest and Solitude by Thai Nguyen l Tips for a Healthy Well Being l How to Live a Healthy Life l Positive Health Vibes

Dissolving Tomorrow's Troubles

Alan Watts argues that our frustration and anxiety is rooted in being disconnected - living in the future, which is but an illusion.

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.

The future falls short of what the present can deliver. Silence and solitude pulls us out and immerses us back in the present.

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?"

Removing that critical mind allows the imagination and positive emotions to build a subconscious intention and add fuel to our goals. McGonigal explains, "When you approach the practice of figuring this stuff out in that way, you start to get images and memories and ideas that are different than if you tried to answer those questions intellectually."