The Kindness of Silence

“I couldn’t say anything when she snapped at me because her mother was in the room. I had to let it go. And by the time we were alone it had just sort of passed….” . Confined to close quarters, living as long-term house guests, or even back again in childhood homes — life under quarantine conditions pushes us to be a bit more polite than we might otherwise find necessary or even advisable. I’ve noticed that for some couples, a certain restraint is settling into their interactions. Partners are taking care with their words, sensing that even a small squabble could become a lit match over a bucket of gasoline. Keeping things to ourselves is suddenly the better way to go.

In many ways this sort of restraint flies in the face of what I learned in training as a couples therapist. Getting partners to talk to each other is the essential goal and task. Couples therapists don’t usually say to clients “hey, why don’t you guys keep more stuff to yourselves”. Perhaps we are correcting a legacy of suffering in silence, disengagement and dissatisfaction, or more importantly, the power inequities that drew rigid lines around who had a voice in the home. So now we place a premium on getting things out in the open. We are encouraged to tell our partners how we feel, what we want more or less of, how they hurt us or let us down.

In my experience, though, the rule of “more is more” does not always apply when it comes to talking with our partners. I’ve made plenty of my own messes in love when I’ve acted under an urgent impulse to tell my partner something really important right now. I learned (the hard way) that things go much better when I try to follow the rules of wise speech, which is basically the Buddhist version of “look both ways before you cross the street” applied to communication. One of my dharma teachers whittled it down to three questions I should ask myself before I go rushing to share what’s on my mind: does it need to be said, does it need to be said by me, and does it need to be said by me at that moment. (For anyone interested in Buddhist advice on relationships, I highly recommend Susan Piver’s book The Four Noble Truths of Love).

I’ve noticed that couples who manage to stay together for decades with love and good humor seem to master some version of this compassionate restraint —the fine art of holding our audience in mind when deciding when and how much to say. These partners learned over time to be their own emotional witness instead of reflexively turning to the other to do it for them. They can leave things out or let things pass by as an act of maturity, generosity, love. We could all use a bit more of that right now.

Deep Dive Into The River

I am watching moods change like wild and unpredictable weather. In myself, my loved ones, my clients. I might be near elation in the morning with the rediscovery of some simple pleasure, and by afternoon my chest is tightening with waves of vague dread. How strange it is to be buffeted by this sort of turbulence and not know exactly what is authoring it. Of course there is no mystery as to the source of intense emotion - pandemics have a way to stirring things. But within that, many of us are wading through, day by day, hour by hour, with little idea whether we will be meeting despair or serenity.

These strange days, where what happens next is impossible to know, I feel like I am suspended in a liminal space that offers no markers or sign posts that might give me a hint of where I am. Even the “I” in that sentence loses any particular meaning. My external and internal life seem to resist all of my efforts to know. It’s deeply uncomfortable, all of this not-knowing-ness. It’s the state Adam Phillips describes in his book Missing Out as “not getting it”, which can taunt us with the implication that we are missing some vital information or that we don’t quite get the joke. But in growing up, not getting it comes before getting it — it is a precondition to learning. Adams also points out that getting it presupposes a me to get it. So accepting the state of being in the dark is in some ways the willing dissolution of self/ego. This takes a sort of radical courage. Getting it is often just a matter of signing on with the consensual. Collusion, at the expense of individualization. And as Phillips says, it might be an act of avoidance all together, reflecting the will to not know ourselves.

In the middle of these flashes of panic or grief that rise up at any moment, I am looking for the courage to both know (myself) and not know (based on some false exegesis). I am finding comfort in allowing myself to dissolve back into the river of mystery. The old ways of ordering, knowing, tracing an outline of myself cause more harm than good. They leave me grasping and afraid. But when I let go and just float in dark waters, trusting forces at work that remain obscure to me, I am catching glimpses of peace that is utterly new.