Speechless
Speechlessness either chooses you, or you choose it
Children did not have as much say in the late 70s/early 80s as they do now, and I vowed to avenge that! Admittedly, I regularly fight against my maternal Grandma's adage, "silence is golden." I love silence, I spend much of the day with it. But when others' behaviors leave me speechless, silence sometimes evades me, especially when my sacredness is being encroached upon or when justice feels breached.
As we advance toward holiday season, when someone’s words or actions leave us speechless, intentionally prolong that speechlessness. Rather than having it snatch you and turn you inside out in the midst of the triggering words and actions of another, practice prioritizing your peace. It will be a practice. You will feel the friction deep in your personality.
The Yogic nuance between choosing to remain silent vs being left temporarily speechless, then reactive, requires a level of acceptance of and familiarity with our emotional roller coasters. And knowing that if we give them some time and do pratipaksa bhavana, in the form of taking space from an incident, we’ll have more clarity, hence be equipped to make better decisions. Informed emotional consent prevails when we enter conversations this season, striking a balance between manufactured joy on the outside and true, chosen, cultivated benevolence within.
How to take space in the midst of a heated incident? Remove yourself when possible. Sir, TKV Desikachar, recommended going for a walk or seeing a film, listening to some music. We can’t readily see what’s on the other side when we are emotionally flooded or triggered, and hence, we must go, in order to prevent future suffering for ourselves. Progress in Yoga actually looks like this, as it is the way we advance with Yoga’s foremost tools, Yama and Niyama.
Interacting deeply with our own samskara-s, we gain the ability to know how to meet others, realizing they will only meet us from their own level. Our job is never to change them, but to work on how we meet them, prioritizing our psycho-emotional health and how we show up when challenged. Most of our battles are fought and won internally, and always there, first.