Silence Means Goodbye?

Silence, they say, is the voice of complicity. But silence is impossible. Silence screams. Silence is a message, just as doing nothing is an act.

– Leonard Peltier

I begin this post with a confession. Silence is never my first choice. I am a communicator by nature and by profession and I deeply believe in and am committed to the communication process.

All that said, across the years in my life and practice, I have learned a great deal about silence as a legitimate form of communication, no words required. We can get incredibly hung up on words, and often those of us who are most committed to communication have the hardest time hearing and responding to what is not being said. We may find ourselves waiting on words, which may never come, staying hung up on relationships which are frozen in time through lack of intentional communication.

This doesn’t mean that silent relationships don’t progress, of course they do. However, the progression is generally toward increased distance, deteriorating connection and very often emotional disconnection. If that is where you are wanting to go with a relationship, silence is perfectly viable.

One of the images I chose to use in my collage stated, “If you don’t understand my silence, you do not deserve my words.” I think we should think about that a little bit. There are a couple of things that are questionable about that statement.  For one, communication has very little to do with another person’s worth. Communication is as much something we do for ourselves as it something we do for others. We communicate not because someone is worth communicating to, but because we are worth communicating for.

Silence is not a simple statement. It is a highly complex form of communication, that no one should have to decipher. When we elect to be silent, we are in essence giving up the possibility of being understood. NO ONE knows what is in our minds or hearts and the possibilities of what may lie there, are endless. The notion that someone else should be able to correctly figure out what we mean when we turn off speech is preposterous.

It also follows that expecting ourselves to correctly interpret another person’s silence is equally as preposterous. This is both good news and bad news. The good news is that we can let ourselves off the hook. We don’t have to guess. We don’t have to consider worst case scenarios, beat ourselves up or leave ourselves to wonder. When someone else refuses to respond to our offer to communicate, we can be satisfied that we have done the best that we can, that we have held up our end of communication. We can simply acknowledge that the other person cannot or will not communicate their thoughts, feelings or experiences and move on from there.

The bad news is that if we are inclined toward using silence to communicate, we must acknowledge that we are making the choice to have our thoughts, feelings and intentions potentially misunderstood or ignored as well. We must be prepared to acknowledge that understanding and resolution will be denied to us, the relationship will invariably drift or end and that through silence, it is a choice we are making.

Professor Melissa Harris-Perry, has said:  “I feel like talking always brings us closer to understanding, rather than dividing us. It can be tough, it can be a little nauseating, we don’t always have the right vocabulary to talk across our differences, but the talking is always better than the ignoring.”

Sometimes we don’t want to communicate across difference. Sometimes it’s unsafe to communicate. Sometimes it feels pointless to communicate. Sometimes we want relationships to end. That’s legitimate. It is arguable that silence is a sure fire way to make sure that happens. I am not speaking about a “time out”or a “cooling off” period. I’m also not talking about taking needed space and time to gain clarity about what we want to say. When we need that period of time and silence, it is only responsible that we let others know what we are busy with.

We want to use the correct tool, for the job at hand. If increased connection, understanding and intimacy is what we are after, communication is the best tool for the job. If the erosion of connection, relationship, understanding and caring is what we are seeking, silence may be the better tool.