Today’s tech­nol­ogy has “gifted” us with the abil­ity to talk while we drive, Skype while we type, and chat with any­one almost any­where on phones that fit in our pockets.

Have these mod­ern con­ve­niences dis­tanced us from our true inner voice? What does he or she have to say about this? Have you stopped to listen?

I remem­ber the first time I spent 24 hours in silence about 7 years ago. I set out with the inten­tion to “unplug” from the out­side world, includ­ing my lap­top, cell­phone, tele­vi­sion, music, and most of all, speak­ing. At first, I resisted this prac­tice, and at the same time, there was a sub­tle voice inside of me that was beg­ging for it.

For the first few hours of my day, I felt anx­ious, scat­tered, and all I wanted to do was com­plete my morn­ing rit­ual of check­ing my email, mak­ing a phone call, or ban­ter­ing with my house­mate. Still, I had a feel­ing there was some­thing to be learned in this unfa­mil­iar silence.

Even­tu­ally, the men­tal chat­ter began to quell, and my thoughts became more clear and focused. A sense of calm washed over me, and I sud­denly felt like I had more room to breath. As I lis­tened in the silence, I heard clear insights about what I needed to do to be health­ier and more ful­filled in my life. I wrote, lis­tened, and wrote some more, and was sur­prised by how much infor­ma­tion was right there inside of me all along, just wait­ing to be heard.

I’ve taken many “Silent Days” since then, and occa­sion­ally “Silent Weeks”. I still resist at times, or find myself caught up in what I think I “have to do”. But I now real­ize that it’s usu­ally those times when I need to go inward more than ever. Each time I do this, I feel refreshed, inspired, and brim­ming with new ideas. I some­times say that I feel like a “new” woman, but I’m actu­ally just more con­nected to the woman I am.

So whether you have a full day, an after­noon, or even an hour, I encour­age you to “unplug” from daily dis­trac­tions, and open up to your own inner wis­dom. You are the only one who truly knows what you need to do to be happy and healthy.

Are you listening?

*Photo above: My sleepy home­town of Rock­wood, Maine (taken by my tal­ented Mum).

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