This experiment comes from the master of Neroscience Dr. Mark Waldman.
Its purpose: help you hear how busy your mind can be as it thinks up the words it wants you to say.
- Say a single sentence out loud.
- Say another sentence, but this time leave 2 seconds between each word.
- With each additional sentence, pause for an additional second
- Notice how your inner speech begins to react. Did it become quite noisy and agitated?
Typically the speaker usually feels increased anxiety, but the listener tends to feel increasing calm. To geta brief sense of this experience right now, read the following sentence aloud, pausing for 4 or 5 seconds between each word.
AS YOU SPEAK THIS SLOWLY, NOTICE WHAT YOU EXPERIENCE BETWEEN EACH OF THESE WORDS.
Stretch out each word and pay attention to the sounds of the consonants and vowels. Instead of worrying about what the message is expressing, just take some time to notice the experience of speaking slowly.
Most people will hear all kinds of inner commentaries in the silence between the words. Did you hear yourself thinking?
“This is silly”
“This is weird”
Did your inner speech speed up or slow down?
When I first met my meditation teacher. I had a interesting reaction to his style of teaching and speaking. During our retreats, we organized Q&A sessions. Participants would ask various questions about Buddhism, meditation, or 100s of other questions. When he received a question, he would sit there in silence, waiting. I was concerned that he had not understood the person’s question or he was stuck, either translating the answer into English. Eventually I realized it was me who was uncomfortable with the silence. He was processing the question, and waiting for the appropriate answer. Silence did not concern him.
In our everyday interactions, we are always talking fast. Preparing the answer before we even had heard the end of the person’s question. Slowing down our communication can improve that communication by leaps and bounds.
People often speak rapidly and for long periods of time for fear that if they don’t describe everything in full detail, the other person is only going to remember a very small portion of what you say.
When you speak super slowly, you’ll begin to use the silence to carefully select the next word. You can actually think about what you want to say while you’re saying it. This mindfulness technique can bring amazing results into your life and work.
Try it and let me know what happens
