Most people don’t hate silence, they’re just not used to it. The first few minutes can feel awkward, like you’re waiting for someone to arrive but they’re running late. You sit there and your mind starts scanning the air for something to grab onto. A sound. A distraction. A reason to move.

We’re wired for noise now. From the moment we wake up, there’s a soundtrack: phones buzzing, TV murmuring in the background, traffic, music, podcasts, conversations and a thousand little beeps reminding us that something somewhere needs our attention. It’s no wonder that when all of that stops, it can feel uncomfortable.

But here’s the thing: silence isn’t empty. It’s spacious. It’s the mental room you didn’t know you needed; the place where your shoulders finally drop, your breath finds its rhythm and your thoughts stop competing for the microphone.

The awkwardness in those first five minutes is just the withdrawal. Your mind is detoxing from overstimulation. It’s scanning for noise because that’s what it’s been trained to expect. But if you stay still just a little longer, something shifts. The urgency fades. You start to notice small things: the sound of your own breath, the way your spine feels against the chair, the soft hum of the refrigerator, or a bird calling outside.

Silence teaches you to hear again, not just the world around you, but yourself.

In those moments, you might realize you’ve been carrying tension in your jaw all day. Or that you’re sad about something you hadn’t named yet. Or maybe, for the first time in hours, your mind simply rests without trying to fix or solve anything.

And here’s the part that surprises people: making peace with silence doesn’t require hours of meditation or a special retreat. It starts with giving yourself permission to pause for a few minutes each day. Even two minutes of intentional stillness can change how you move through the rest of your afternoon.

The first five minutes might be awkward. They might even feel pointless at first. But keep showing up for them. Over time, you’ll start craving them. Silence will stop feeling like an empty room and start feeling like home.

The world will always be loud. But you don’t have to live with the volume turned all the way up.

By Cheryl the Tech Tiller