I spent most of my adult life hating silence—and didn’t know it.
It was a major blind spot. I always dismissed my desire to be with people and avoid being alone as due to me being an extrovert and loving people. I excused my talkative nature as a sign of heightened relational instincts. These qualities also seemed to help my interactions with people as a pastor, so I thought nothing more of it. It wasn’t until I began my own counseling journey out of a crisis that I was confronted with this long-held deception.
My counselor observed some behavior in my life that went unnoticed by most but became flags of concern for him. He saw that I ran from being alone. He realized I was uncomfortable in silence and didn’t know how to face it. He experienced the way I often dominated conversations with my words. This also exposed my terrible listening skills.
As a result, he began to press me in this area—and it was difficult. Silence exposes the soul. Ugly things surfaced that I was not ready to face. At one stage it felt as though I had imploded. But
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