When there are no words….

When nothing comes….

That time when you’re sitting, with something as yet unnamed wandering through the mind and the soul, temptingly just out of reach… trying to find words for meanings that are as yet not understood… the meanings themselves not revealing themselves, and the time it might take also remaining unknown…
The time of quiet, of stillness, that extends onwards, forwards, into the minutes, then a quarter hour…. Maybe more…

Sit within this.

Stay within this.

The temptation during these times is to just speak, just say something, anything, to break the silence.

Just stop the quiet.

Fill it with Something tangible, to cover the unknown, to avoid the unfelt?

Yet, if we stay within the quiet, we can allow and give permission for thoughts to wander, eyes to roam, seeking what is just beyond the horizon of the known, and finding perhaps instead that picture there on the wall, that tree outside the door, or your therapists shoes on the floor…

If we stay within this time and hold it, there can be a growing of links to That Within, that Without Form, denied for so many years and so unused to gaining any attention… in quietly allowing it to move towards us, gently, hesitantly, we can help it to come forward into the seen realm, the felt knowing.
And when it is ready, we can know the name it has.

That name might be fear, anguish, terror, self-hatred, self-doubt, banishment, abandonment. Perhaps we could say the darknesses within our human frame and psyche.

But in coming forward, in stepping a bit closer to the light that can be shed onto such hidden darkness, then a more shaded view can be permitted – the dark, the blackness, becoming a little more grey-toned in the light of the acknowledgement of existence.

The Black Dog of depression may in fact have shades and undertones of amber and brown within the black when in the light of day.

The light sometimes needs to be awaited, the light of different perspectives permitted by the quiet of stillness and Being.
Sometimes we can sit in quiet stillness, and the exact opposite of ‘nothing’ could well be busily happening in the silence.

Counselling isn’t always just tea and chatting lots of words; when nothing comes, that is a good place to start.

Rosalyn Young is a qualified mental health nurse with 30 years
Experience in govt and private agencies helping those in crisis
and in recovery. She has studied counselling to degree level,
and specialises in working with survivors of childhood abuse
and neglect, PTSD, DID, and emotional regulation problems.
She lives in Lincolnshire with her husband and a variety of
companion animals, is a brewer of mead, and student of
growing things in the garden.