Why be afraid of silence?

You get in the car and turn on the radio. You come home and turn on the TV. You put music on your phone while you shower.

The reality is that every day we show signs of this phenomenon.

You may be facing a fear of silence.

How is this fear characterized?

• Talk fast and a lot

You will therefore tend to do everything to avoid silence setting in. You speak quickly, string together sentences and topics, fill in, or even rush through what you have to say. (See a more complete description on this subject a little further down in the article)

• Brain hyperactivity (you think a lot, you always do several things at the same time)

• Always have the TV or music on, even if you're not really watching/listening (in the background while doing something else). This gives you a reassuring presence

• Prefer writings text messages instead of calls – so no blank spaces to deal with

Why be afraid of silence?

Silence is often frowned upon and stigmatized.  Evoking emptiness, loneliness, fears and past hurts that you prefer to continue to cover with external noises.

Because deep down, you don't know yourself.

It is actually the fear of being alone with a part of yourself that you refuse to see. Silence involves getting in touch with yourself and sometimes that's too hard to confront.

The same is true when you spend time with your colleagues, friends or family. You may prefer to start a small talk rather than remain silent. Often, you have nothing to say, and yet you make the effort to fill those blanks with words.

Take the example of a conversation, and imagine a long silence that sets in. What feelings will you experience? Probably a growing unease. So, when a silence sets in in the middle of a conversation, immediately the alarm bells go off in your head. You would like to intervene, to say something. Fill this gap To reassure yourself, you need to find a subject (even a trivial one) and restart the dialogue.

You are quite talkative when you are comfortable with your interlocutors, but you also know how to listen, so it is not a specific need to speak.

This fear of silence comes above all from this fear that the other might see things in yourself that you don't want to show him.

Speech makes you exist, creates the link. You fill the space with noise, like a shell to hide the dark side you think you have.

And ultimately, it doesn't help anyone because it will make you difficult to understand. And yes, the faster a person speaks, the harder it is to take everything in and make connections between the information.

This fear also comes from the fact that not to be interesting enough, if you are not talkative enough. Or if you don't always have something to say. While the person you are with appreciates you for who you are. And there should not be this kind of blockage with your loved ones. We always come back to this famous question of self-esteem.

While knowing full well that silences are natural in conversations. But it's stronger than you, this anxiety is hard to overcome.

On the contrary, often people facing this dilemma in conversations will act differently when faced with talkative people. Who talk a lot about themselves. So, you can then remain more in a passive phase just listening to them. Because you know that these people "will monopolize" the discussion about them and you will only have this role of simply listening. There is no need to fill the discussion.

Paradox in the use of silence

This is a rather paradoxical observation. Indeed, because as much as you can live alone and be in silence in your daily life, as soon as it comes to an interaction with others, it makes you anxious.

For what ? Because you believe that not saying anything when you're with someone is wrong..

All your life, you can see yourself being criticized for not participating enough. For being too discreet. For being too "in your head" 

And then There may be some pressure being felt in the times we live in.. That of communication, of speech. He who remains silent worries those around him: "Why don't you say anything?" "Are you not happy?" "You don't agree?" "It's not going well." ?

But on the other hand, you like to find yourself facing the silence of nature, to contemplate and listen to the sound of the waves crashing on the rocks, to hear the birds singing.

It soothes, calms your anxieties. Your relationship with silence is not the same depending on the context. As soon as a third person enters the race, the situation changes.

How to tame silence?

• As I said above, find yourself in the middle of nature, at the seaside, go walking, hiking. You will experience this calm, this feeling of deep peace as well as this reduction of stress essential to your daily life.

• Self-knowledge, personal development, meditation… Go on a quest for interiority, develop your personal journey in a more therapeutic way : meditation, breathing exercises, sophrology…

At first it can be hard to confront yourself alone, thoughts flow and you will have difficulty calming your brain. But it is with practice that you will learn to do it in full awareness.

It helps you connect with your fears, wounds and desires. Allowing you to know yourself better, heal yourself and come back to yourself.

So even if it can be unpleasant for the person who has to deal with this type of personality, be kind. We are talking here about behaviors that are sometimes very hard to overcome. Note that this person is fully aware of how they interact with you. And believe me, they take it upon themselves to try to control themselves. There is no selfishness behind this kind of "verbal vomit", to want to bring the cover to oneself. On the contrary, we are here in an attempt to hide one's flaws.

And you, are you one of those people who are afraid of silence?