“Hello Darkness My Old Friend.  I’ve Come To Talk With You Again”

These are the first two lines in a Simon and Garfunkel song from the mid sixties entitled “The Sound of Silence”. I resonate with this song each year as the days grow shorter and the nights longer. I find myself retreating inside during the winter months …and by this I mean not only retreating indoors but also retreating into the inner recesses of my mind.  Winter is a time of contemplation for me. I’m looking at the year behind me and thinking about the year ahead. I’m taking time off from the business of daily living as I do this. Interestingly, this time of quiet contemplation is interspersed with the time I spend with friends and family in celebration…but my quiet time is essential.

Simon and Garfunkel’s song   entitled “The Sound Of Silence” seems paradoxical on the face of it. For me though, darkness and silence go together. When my vision goes dark and is not bombarded by all the sights I encounter on a daily basis, I begin to see possibilities within my own mind.  My imagination is allowed free reign to go wild.  Similarly, when there is no sound, I hear the sound of my own voice as it percolates up from my sub-conscious.  What is my deeper self-trying to tell me?  I need to listen more deeply and this is easier when the noises around me quiet down. 

Winter is an essential part of Life’s journey I believe.  Everything around us is happening at lightening speed, so we need times of quietude and darkness to digest it all and figure out who we are evolving to be. For me this means looking back over the past year as well as decades before that. I notice that I find myself immersed in looking over pictures of fiends and family in earlier times.  In these moments I’m reliving experiences with these folks…knowing that I will be seeing many of them again. 

As I attend “family and friends” events this year, I will be remembering who these people are…not just now but also over the lifetime of my relationship with all of them.  I hope I can express appreciation for their continued presence in my life.  

Its winter…. go slow…go inward. And listen to the “Sound of Silence”

Many of us look back on our childhood and recall painful memories of feeling “left out” in terms of belonging to a friend group.  For me this happened in a major way when my family lived in England for a year.  I was nine years old and the feeling of not “fitting in” was intense. I did not speak English the same way as everyone else, and did not understand the local customs of dressing and behaving correctly in general.  Even to this day, I remember distinctly the feeling of just wanting to “disappear” into the surroundings. I did not want to “stand out” like a sore thumb. I wanted to be just like everyone else, or else not “be” at all. It got a little better when I mastered the British accent because then I could “pass” for brief periods of time…but in the end I was always going to be different and this did not feel good.

Thinking back on this experience from an adult perspective, I wish someone had noticed my unhappy plight and tried to help me feel confident and even proud of who I was. At the very least, I might have benefited from someone noticing that I was “hiding” in plain sight. If I’m honest though, it would have been a big “ask” in a situation where I was rapidly building walls around myself so as not to be “seen”. I never spoke up.  I never raised my hand in class. In truth, what started happening to me internally was that I disappeared from myself in a way that I now think of as dissociation.  I began to live in a fantasy world inside my head which was fed literally by the fairy tales I read incessantly in order to escape the real world.  I also started gaining a lot of weight unconsciously. When I had a doctor checkup I was stunned by how much I weighed.  I simply was disconnected from my own body and had no awareness beyond knowing that food tasted good and provided temporary comfort.

 This story is meant to be illustrative of what can happen to any of us, even as adults, when we don’t feel a part of our social surroundings.  I think we begin to “lose” ourselves in a very profound way when we isolate from others…. whether this be by choice or by circumstance.  During the pandemic, the isolation caused lots of emotional distress for kids.  Many are still recovering.

As for me, I have learned to find my way back to myself when I begin to feel “dissociated” by following these steps:

First I reconnect with my physical body through a guided “body scan” meditation wherein I am led to focus on one body part at a time and “feel into” its current condition. (i.e.: does it ache, hurt, feel good?)

Next I take a deep dive into how I feel about my life in general.  Am I happy with my life…my relationships…my self-care…and my commitments to myself for personal growth? If I’m not “measuring up” to my own expectations I make plans to change.

The two exercises mentioned above are enough to bring me back into contact with myself.  I feel solid and real again. I belong to myself now no matter where I am or whom I am with. From this place I am not afraid to reach out to others.  I know I will not lose myself.

Simply put…I am home…regardless of where I actually am.