practice: morning silence
24 Oct 2026when i was a better selves fellow at knoll farm in 2017, one of the practices we engaged in was a morning silence practice. my friend and mentor, peter forbes, was the offerer of the fellowship and this practice and it has been transformative. full stop. i could say so much about how it impacted me during that fateful week almost ten years ago, how i have used it in my life since, how and where i have shared the insights from it in other places, and on and on.
but in this moment, the thing i want to share is that this summer i found a new metaphor (analogy? simile? my middle school english class is failing me) to explain the practice. here’s the core of it:
deep down, i believe that each and every one of us is a gift. and, for many reasons, some good and some less good, most of us give ourselves away to others before we give ourselves to ourselves. practicing morning silence is a way to give the gift of you to you first.
now, i love me a good metaphor so i could really dive off the deep end with the metaphoric extensions here (which i sometimes do when i share this practice during an active facilitation moment). instead of doing that though, i just want to touch on the “good and not so good reasons” for giving ourselves away to others before we give ourselves to ourselves.
some of the good reasons:
- we parent
- we are partnered with folks who we love and want/need us
- culturally, reciprocity is the norm and it’s normal to share yourself with others because others will be doing that with you in a way that feels balanced and restorative
some of the less good reasons:
- we are in family or partner dynamics where other people’s demands/needs are valued higher than our own
- we have to work in such a way that there is no space to be with ourselves
- we have been trained/conditioned to believe that we aren’t valuable outside of our service to others
- cell phones
there are more reasons on both of these lists but i wanted to touch on a few that i see or have known myself to illustrate how many of us these reasons impact. if any of those reasons resonate with you, know that you’re not alone.
in this moment, i don’t have time/space to share more about the practice itself but what i can say at the moment is this: if you want to try it, all you have to do is pick a time (or event, like breakfast) after which you’ll break your silence and then just be silent from the time you wake up until then. if you live in a multi-person context, you might have to let some folks that’s what you’re doing but i bet that more likely than not, if you try it, you’ll see what’s so powerful about it.
ok that’s it for now. thanks for coming to my ted talk, haha.
ps - happy birthday, çaca!
words / writing / post-processing
513w / 17min / 5min