"You know how they say that the friendship is good when you can sit up and talk all night but also when you can be totally silent together. The kind of silence similar to being outside. You may be “alone in the woods” or wandering down the beach without encountering another human, but you don’t necessarily feel alone. You have the sky and the birds and the ocean and the trees and the wind to make you feel like you aren’t the only living entity around.

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Silence does not discount or negate communication. Have you ever been half way around the world from someone and yet still known exactly how they felt or what they were thinking? According to many of the yoga scriptures, things like time and distance can be overcome through consistent practice. When you go to a yoga class and you take your shoes off, turn your phones off, and then listen to the teacher for an hour, one of the reasons you feel better afterwards is simply because you shut the fuck up, and didn't talk, and didn't reach for your phone, and practiced being in communication with everyone around you, from a very different angle. You exercised a different sensory organ that has often gone unnoticed or unappreciated, and because of that, you leave feeling more balanced, and more aware of the whole of what is happening in your life at any given moment.

What I encourage you to do this summer, is find a time to be silent, not alone, but with other people. Go somewhere together and purposely, shut the fuck up. Don’t fill the space with chatter. Listen more. Be still. Let the conversation come from somewhere else. Let the things you didn’t hear before be heard. Share a different part of yourself with those you are with. See if it has an effect on the vocal communication you have after the fact. Hey, maybe even consider sitting in silence together for the first 10 minutes of any get together. It’s absolutely free and you only know it’s benefits if you try it."  by HEATHER LILLESTON