How did you choose to do today’s practice? What was it like for you to spend time in silence today, or to practice wise speech? These are both challenging practices, so remember to give yourself grace.
If you’d like to go deeper with this practice, listen to davidji’s guided meditation, “Cultivating Conscious Communication” (20min).
I mindfully put my phone on do not disturb and set it aside so I wouldn’t accidentally scroll, stepped away from my computer, and ate lunch, went outside, read a book — just under an hour. (Reading a book felt like cheating.) The house was quiet because kids were at school or asleep and my husband was running errands. I can imagine this would be challenging on a weekend when more people are around!
For the practice of wise speech, today I did two things. First, I unplugged for my morning walk and tried to really notice everything around me. Second, when I video chatted with my parents, I tried to practice mindful listening (not thinking about what was going to say next). I’ve noticed sometimes, especially when hearing the same stories again ;), my mind wanders. I want to be more aware of this at work too. I’m good at closing my laptop and really looking at the person with my body language, but I don’t work enough at silencing my internal dialogue and really listening mindfully.