Recent world events have brought to mind the idea of mindful talking. As some of you who read this blog know, I’m a regular at silent mindfulness retreats, where the aim is to stay in your practice as much as possible. Talking and hearing others talk can be distracting and disruptive to your practice. That said, the world is full of talking, and if we are going to try to practice mindfulness as a way of living in daily life, we’re going to have to be able to practice in noisy and silent conditions.
Most of us could probably stand to benefit from practicing mindfulness not just in silence but also when we speak or listen. Through many years of retreats, having the urge to speak and resisting it repeatedly, I think I’ve learned a thing or two about mindful talking. I don’t always practice what I’ve learned, but I usually know when I’m veering off course into completely useless, nonproductive talking. I’m also noticing more when others are doing this, and that’s not always a good thing, such as when I’m sitting in meetings wishing everyone would stop talking so much. Come to think of it, I’d be okay if most of the people around me talked about 75% less than they do. And now as I write this, I’m starting to think those retreats are making me weird.
In any case, sometimes less really is more when it comes to talking. When others say things that upset us or that we disagree with, we don’t always have to defend ourselves, argue our point, or say anything at all. This is a lesson I’ve learned through the trials and tribulations of parenting. Sometimes, with kids, less is way, way more! As soon as we open our mouths, we open ourselves up to arguing, talking back, and so forth. As the quote goes, “Sometimes muddy water is best cleared by leaving it alone.”
This brings me to the recent events that sparked my thoughts about mindful talking: President Trump’s tweets about Canada. Despite my belief in the importance of being nonjudgmental, I do believe repeatedly blasting short thought bursts on Twitter (let alone using this medium to criticize other world leaders) is juvenile and unbecoming of a world leader. I would expect a reasonable world leader to consider anything she or he says publicly to represent the government’s position on key issues; thus, I would be careful and avoid casually broadcasting my stream of thoughts to the world. I would try to be incredibly mindful rather than careless and haphazard with my speech. That said, there may be method to the mindlessness. All of this tweeting has the trappings of a simian dominance-display and brainwashing, suggesting that it might be more strategic than it sometimes appears. Perhaps even more problematic, however, is all of the media attention these tweets garner. Far from clearing the muddy water, the tweets become like huge stones that sink to the bottom of a lake, with plumes of silt erupting to make it hard to see anything. News articles, talk shows, social and other media platforms all devote an unbelievable amount of time and attention to those few short sentences that appear day after day. People discuss, dissect, and analyze these tweets and try to use them to predict the president’s next move. The mindless tweeting has turned into a major distraction, and I suspect that many of us would be disturbed if we were to compare media attention to tweets to media attention to actual, official political policies and positions. But, I digress (sort of).
I normally try to avoid political commentary in these blogs, so to bring this back to where we started, I think that speaking (and listening) mindfully can clear the waters. Words are a communication tool, and I think it can be important to avoid overusing this tool, and to use the right words for the job. Sometimes, the right words are no words. ~ Alexander L. Chapman, Ph.D., R.Psych.