Remedial Mauna, week 2

Last week's experiment in applying mauna, or silence, at work, was not a huge success. Part of that obviously is the fact that I'm at work where communication seems to be almost all that's happening. Also, what I realized is that it's hard to keep a commitment to silence except situationally, as in, oh, when this stressful thing starts happening, I'll be quiet then. Or I'll experiment with being quiet in this meeting (not effective in one-on-one meetings, naturally!). And I suspect that the kind of being quiet that's called for is the kind where words are not leaving my mouth because my mind is not generating them, and wow, that's a whole different kind of silence than I was able to muster last week.

So this week, I'm staying with the mauna discipline, watching to see how I can quiet my mind and watch the words, decide on them, as they form and well before they leave my mouth. The words seem like they're the end of the thought, the extremities that I need to pull in for stability. I could use more stability for sure, especially at work, where I do feel unsafe most of the time, on guard, out on a limb.

Pulling in, that's how I'm thinking about the mauna this week. Keeping my words to a minimum, using only the ones I need.