I have nothing more to say, and I couldn’t be happier!

When I was a little boy, I learned how to speak English. Speaking became my primary way of communicating with others. I was taught how to communicate verbally so that I could interact with others and let my needs and wants be known.

As I grew into adolescence, I was taught how to refine my speech to fully express myself. Expressing myself in verbal speech spilled over into the written word. As I progressed through adolescence and entered into the world of higher education, expressing myself verbally and in writing became encouraged, prized, and rewarded. I remember during one particular university semester, several different professors encouraged me time and time again to “Write more, go deeper. I want you to express yourself more fully and deeply.”

After graduating from university, entering both adulthood and the workforce, written and verbal communication took on a life of its own. Writing and publishing articles and books, speaking at conferences around the world, all became the new norm. The expectations grew and so too did the stakes!

All through my youth, adolescence and adulthood I was oriented toward silence and stillness. Secretly I pondered solitude in all its glorious possibilities. As I raced my way through my career, and enjoyed more success in my written and verbal communication, inside I was conflicted. I never understood what all the fuss was about regarding the written or spoken word. And public speaking was losing its luster. All around me was the messaging to ‘speak up!’ Professional endeavors at the time also confronted me with the ever-increasing opportunity to defend my views and enter into dialogue that was nothing more than conflict veiled in the name of professional development and advancement. I was tired of it all!

In 2009 when I left Corporate Canada, I discovered a way through life that allowed me to embrace silence, stillness, and solitude. And yet, even in this new, very different, milieu there remained the ever-present call to verbal and written communication and dialogue that sometimes was, once again, conflict veiled in the name of development and advancement.

The transition from Corporate Canada to ministry since 2009 has allowed me to let go of so much, including my need to engage in the societal norms and expectation regarding verbal and written communication. Yes, I still write. Yes, I still do public speaking. I facilitate many groups each week. But all this communication is offered in service to the Divine, rather than ego-aggrandizement. I am becoming less and less interested in casual conversation and I am completely disinterested in any form of conflictual dialogue and defense.

Many have written about how intimacy and communion thrive in silence and stillness; people like Anthony Storr, Michael Harris, Robert Kull, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, May Sarton, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Ruth Haley Barton, Richard Harvey, et. al. I experienced this first-hand on a ski vacation to a very popular ski resort in Canada, Whistler Mountain. One day I took the chairlift to the top of Whistler Peak, found a secluded spot and just sat there! With stillness all around me, and the wind whistling, I found a profound presence in the stillness. It was as if the wind was speaking to me. There was presence in solitude. There was sound in silence.

This intimacy and communion with life, through silence and stillness, I offer to the Divine in sacred service. The primary means for this offering are the psychotherapy practice and groups I facilitate. I am given the opportunity to listen…to truly listen! True listening embraces a shared experience, a felt experience with the other. Listening to their voice, listening to what their gestures and physical movements are telling me. If I listen carefully enough, a connectedness and synergy arises. A truth emerges.

Today, I am far more interested in listening than speaking or writing. I am more interested in stillness, silence, and solitude. In stillness and silence is everything I need and want. Solitude is not about whisking myself away to a secluded space or place. Solitude is about coming to rest in peace in my true, authentic self. I can easily be in solitude among 100 people as I can in an isolated setting 100s of miles from civilization.

Alas, in truth, I am coming to rest in a very peaceful place of knowing that I have nothing more to say…and I couldn’t be happier!

Robert Meagher has been ordained as an Interfaith Minister and certified as a Sacred Attention Therapy (SAT) Therapist. Robert is the Founder and Spiritual Director for Spiritual Guidance and Co-Founder of the Center for Human Awakening.