Silence as Sabotage?!?

I stole away to a distant beaver pond and stood alone, in silence, as a soft snow squall swirled around me. I take solace in such silence.

Last year however, I experienced a different kind of silence — one that I’m still coming to terms with. In the midst of working on a project with a team of two who I respected deeply, communication with them suddenly ended. At first it didn’t bother me — I told myself stories to make it ok: we all need to take space sometimes, they are so busy with other things, I am so busy with other things, it’s important to take breaks, I’m sure I’ll hear back soon…

What I didn’t realize until weeks and months later is that I was receiving ‘the silent treatment’. What I did realize right away is that I felt very uncomfortable, confused, disoriented, hurt, and before too long: triggered and angry. In my 62 years, I had never experienced this — not even when I left the cultic group I was in for 18 years. The level of distress I experienced by suddenly being cut off from a fount of creativity and meaning was deeply unsettling to me. I had so much enthusiasm for our project and suddenly there was nowhere for it to go. Anxiety and self blame crept in. Eventually, we had two conversations about six weeks apart and not surprisingly, neither of them went well.