Sharing the Silence

Image credit: Art by zedzap on Flickr Licensed under Creative Commons

Like many people, I walked into my first 12 Step meeting never expecting to wind up there, with no clue what to expect other than what Hollywood had taught me (which I soon learned was nothing accurate). The meetings I first started attending were for friends and family members of sex addicts, and they were tiny, just four or five women sitting in a circle in a church meeting room. After lengthy, scripted readings (those fifteen to twenty minutes certainly never make it into the movies), there would be time for "sharing."

Because our group was small, sharing was less structured than in larger groups. Anyone who wanted to speak would simply pipe up, "Hi, my name is..." followed by her name, and would talk, uninterrupted, until she was done or a timer beeped to signal her few minutes were up, whichever came first. Then there would generally be a long silence. I don't know what everyone else was doing during that time, whether they were thinking about what to say or taking in what had been said, but I know what I was doing: feeling breathless under the oppressive weight of the silence and struggling to figure out how I could break it. The silence was like an invisible telephone call from some 12 Step collection agency; the imaginary phone would ring and ring for an hour while I tried to ignore it, "Come on, pick me up! Come on, talk! If you don't, this is just going to go on forever." Wasn't someone going to pick that dang thing up? Did it have to be me?

And then there were the rules against crosstalk (which are rarely obeyed in dramatized 12 Step meetings because they make things so, well, undramatic) making the whole situation even more challenging. I couldn't open a conversation with the person who just spoke. I couldn't ask questions or give advice. I had to come up with something to say about emme/em (of all things). And to this whole room of strangers, sitting there without a word, thinking who knows what about me.

I gradually became more comfortable speaking up, and I even grew to like and appreciate the rules against crosstalk, but the silence, for a much longer time, continued to feel awkward and tense, something it was someone's job to fix. It's only recently that I've noticed how little I hear that invisible phone ringing for me now and how I've started to see those silences differently: as spaces that just are, like natural pauses between breaths. And while I'll still check in with myself to see whether or not there's anything I want to say, it will usually be just that: a quick check in, not a desperate scramble for words. If I find I don't have anything to share, I'll try to use my time wisely and join in the silence.

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This post was originally published at The Second Road.