Reconnecting with Quiet: A Story of Digital Overwhelm and Natural Peace

“Silence is not the absence of something but the presence of everything… it is the presence of time, undisturbed. It can be felt within the chest. Silence nurtures our human nature, and lets us know who we are. Left with a more receptive mind and a more attuned ear, we become better listeners not only to nature but to each other.” - Gordon Hempton

Each time I re-enter cell phone service after a backpacking trip, I feel it in my chest. My phone pings, the news alerts begin, and my chest rises with my heart rate.

The ride home becomes an hours-long re-entry into the experience of overwhelm Laura van Dernoot Lipsky typifies in “The Age of Overwhelm.” In it, she writes, “No matter the cause, the sensation of overwhelm and the impact that it has on your ability to focus and make your way through the world can be disorienting or even debilitating.”

As we are pulled in many directions, the noise outside of us (and notably, within) gets louder. As I reconnect to cell coverage after being outside, I scan my alerts (did I receive as many texts as I hoped?), I peek at the news, I delete hundreds of marketing emails…

The people sitting next to me disappear. The landscape disappears. Did someone just ask me something? Are we driving by an alpine lake? It’s hard to tell. I’m disoriented. It’s so noisy again.

I spent a spacious weekend at the end of this summer in the Olympic National Park. It is both such a privilege and a fundamental right to be outside, in silence for a weekend -- where it’s not particularly silent at all. As I walked along the beach, the seals barked incessantly, the wind whipped through the trees, the eagles whistled their high-pitched screech, the waves crashed on rocky expanses, and the kelp squelched.

We were visited by a family of bears that huffed and munched their way through decaying animals on the edge of the rocks. It was really, really loud. And yet, as I sat within the towering trees, it was silent in my chest. As Hempton suggested, I was in the presence of everything. It left me more receptive, more attuned, and more open.

We all have stressors, insecurities, and griefs — small or encompassing — in our lives. Many of us also have an unidentifiable sense of overwhelm - a feeling of heaviness and noisiness in our chests. You may feel it as buzzing, anxiety, busyness, or something not quite name-able. Work, school, families, and friends vie for our attention against a backdrop of politics, systemic injustice, and climate change that demand it in a seemingly never-ending cycle.

How do we cultivate a “more receptive mind and a more attuned ear”? Not just for ourselves, but for each other?

Quiet Parks International is a non-profit that seeks to save quiet spaces like the one I experienced in the Olympic National Park*. They offer virtual quiet experiences and a map of quiet spaces. They emphatically assert that “everybody needs quiet right now.” It is a resource to understand and locate quiet spaces near you -- or find virtual resources from home. Reality does not disappear when we find silence in nature, but we are slightly more capable of facing it. We can be more resilient and kind. Silence makes us better listeners.

What do you notice as you scan your life, month, week, or day? Have you given yourself the presence to see how the noise is impacting you? Is it noisy in your chest? Most urgently, do you need some quiet? Not the artificial quiet absence can bring, but the true quiet that contains the presence of everything.

* not yet a verified “Quiet Space”