Life is amazingly noisy.
You are surrounded by sound pretty much everywhere you go.
Some of it’s awesome.
Your favorite tunes spinning on the iPod.
The voice of someone you really dig.
Giggling like a gooney bird at something funny.
Some of it sucks.
Horns honking in rush hour traffic.
Roofers bang-bang-banging away right next door.
Someone screaming at their kid in the checkout line.
And some of it you don’t even really notice.
The constant-and-kind-of-creepy hum of fluorescent lights.
The electronic-ey buzz of the computer monitor.
The steady stream of cars whooshing by outside your window.
Constant. Frakking. Stimulation.
Kooky pook be gone!
So, yeah, good luck getting away from sound.
It’s always there. Like one aural poke after another. No matter where you are.
And it’s enough to drive you bat shit crazy.
But you don’t go crazy.
You find ways to cope. And by cope I mean shut down.
You kind of have to in order not to turn into a stark raving kooky pook.
Because it’s not natural or healthy or even a little bit awesome to be constantly pelted with sound from every direction.
So you shut down and tune out so you can function. And you do it without even knowing you’re doing it.
It’s all about survival
We’re talkin’ survival mechanisms here people.
And yay for survival mechanisms.
I mean, they’re seriously useful.
But they can also suck. Because what might be ton of help in one super specific situation can create a hot mess everywhere else.
And that’s totally what happens when you tune out the ohmygod-they’re-everywhere sound-ey bits.
Because tuning out isn’t exactly the most selective survival strategy ever. It’s not like it just tunes out one thing.
Nah.
It eventually tunes out everything.
Woopsie!
So instead of just ignoring the buzz-ey monitor or the I-swear-this-steals-your-soul sound of the fluorescent bulb over your bonce, you end up shutting down in all kinds of ways.
And pretty soon you’re just… kind of… numb.
Switched off. On autopilot.
Sure, you can’t hear the roofers banging away.
But you also can’t hear the rhythm of your own life.
That pulse that keeps things movin’ and groovin’ and makes sure that you’ve always got a Big Gulp of awesomesauce within arm’s reach.
And, yeah, the totally-not-afraid-to-make-a-scene-in-the-store parent thing starts to sound a whole lot like the teacher from Charlie Brown – wahwahwah, wahwahwah.
But so does your own inner voice.
You know, the thing that acts like a GPS for your life. And helps you to steer clear of the clutter. And keeps you totally rooted in your own gorgeousness.
When you tune out the craptastic din of life, the gorgeous bits get fuzzy too. So fuzzy that, sometimes, you totally forget they’re there.
I have good news and bad news
The whole shutting-down-so-you-don’t-go-nuts thing?
Yeah, that’s the bad news.
The good news is that shutting down is totally optional. And totally reversible.
And the alternative doesn’t have to be bat shit crazy.
Most survival mechanisms, including this one, kick in more-or-less unconsciously. So the fix isn’t to fling the doors wide open to every various and sundry sound that’s around.
Oy. That would so suck.
The fix is to develop a more conscious relationship with sound.
This means relearning how to listen.
Because when you’re more conscious about sound, you have way more control over what you hear and when you hear it and how it affects you.
Which means that the survival mechanism doesn’t have to grab the wheel in a fit of panic.
It also means that all of the gorgeousness that got lost during a fit of ah-ooooogah!-aaooooogah!-batten-down-the-hatches starts coming back.
So it becomes way easier to find your groove.
And to pay attention to your gut instinct. Because you can, you know, actually hear it.
And to just generally be more plugged in to yourself and your life in a way that doesn’t suck.
Woohoo!
Like riding a bike
Even if you’ve been tuning out forever, the cool thing about listening is that it’s just like riding a bike.
You never really forget how to listen.
And since you’re working on making your relationship with sound more conscious, it pretty much means that you’ll be doing this stuff on purpose.
Which makes the whole relearning part even easier.
Yay!
And you don’t have to spend an hour meditating. Or high tail it to a retreat in the woods. Or swear off reality TV.
In the morning, before your day blows up with busy, just spend 30 seconds paying attention to the sounds around you.
Close your eyes. And just listen.
What do you hear in the room you’re in?
What about in other rooms of your house?
Can you hear anything outside?
You don’t have to be anywhere special. Or do anything special. Just listen to what’s happening around you.
Do the same thing at night, before you hit the hay.
And if you remember, take a couple of just-checking-out-the-sounds breaks when you’re at work. Or standing in line. Or watching TV.
You can do this anywhere.
All you’re doing is listening to the sounds happening in the place where you’re hanging out.
Consciously interacting with what’s there.
And the more that happens, the more you get hip to what you’re hearing, how it affects you and how to take care of yourself while being plopped in the middle of an always noisy world.
The other ninjarific thing that happens is that by listening more consciously to the sounds around you, you also end up listening more consciously to yourself at so many different levels. Which is a thousand kinds of awesome.