SILENCE
Silence does not mean
that I have nothing to say.

Sometimes I try not to drown myself out
with constant movement, sound, action,
and searching for answers outside of myself.

I don’t always succeed.

How often I am afraid of silence.
How often I try to fill it with something,
because when everything becomes quiet,
I may hear
what I have been running from until now.

Silence can bring anxiety,
sadness, loneliness,
or questions to which I have no answers.

But sometimes, only sometimes,
something quiet and true
also emerges from it —
something that has been waiting for a long time
for me to finally stop.

In those moments,
I begin to hear my own breathing,
feel the tension in my body,
and notice my emotions and thoughts —
so fast that sometimes they disappear
before I have a chance to truly hear them.

I cannot always remain
in that silence long enough.

Sometimes I run away again
into movement, sound, or action.

And yet there are brief moments,
sometimes just fleeting instants,
when silence appears within me.

It comes for a moment
and may disappear just as quickly.

It is then that it helps me
not to drown out another person
with my own knowledge, advice,
or need to fix their life.

Instead, I try to simply remain beside them.

To listen to their words,
but also to listen to myself
and notice the strength I can draw upon.

Not in order to lead someone
in a direction I have chosen for them,
but to help them hear
their own voice.

In those moments,
I do not have to be an expert.

I do not have to run away from myself either.

I can simply be —
real, attentive, and present.

Because sometimes the greatest help
is not finding the answer,
but creating a space
in which another person
can find it within themselves.

And I, even if only for a moment,
can meet
what is alive within me.

–Krzysztof Burzacki