{"id":91,"date":"2019-09-17T08:18:38","date_gmt":"2019-09-17T07:18:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/chandcounselling.co.uk\/blog\/?p=91"},"modified":"2025-05-15T21:36:51","modified_gmt":"2025-05-15T20:36:51","slug":"silence-is-a-responsibility","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chandcounselling.co.uk\/writings\/silence-is-a-responsibility\/","title":{"rendered":"Silence is a responsibility"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Just a wee reminder to you and me that <em>not<\/em> saying or doing something, <em>not<\/em> making a choice, is indeed doing too. It is an action with attendant responsibility. Silence is a powerful stance; those on the receiving end could be significantly impacted.<!--more--><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I think there is some distortion that occurs when people choose not to speak or &#8216;show&#8217; themselves in interactions; those that do, often end up with more responsibility than is theirs. In groups, this is where the risk of scapegoating lies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As with so many things, knowing <em>when<\/em> to choose to disengage, or to be silent is key. For me, I choose momentary silence with clients when I want to give space to reflect and I can see someone is busy figuring something out. Often though, I&#8217;m reminded of my training, where emphasis was placed on my empathy being <em>perceived<\/em>. As a helper, there is little value in me feeling empathic if I cannot convey it. And relying on non-verbals to convey my empathy may be a risky business. Of course, I cannot control how my responses land even with words &#8211; but they certainly help. Some say that attempting to understand another&#8217;s world can only ever be that; an attempt. It&#8217;s an awesome task, let alone without using all facets of my being, verbals included.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>At other times, usually in personal relationships, I need to prioritise empathising with myself. I need to choose silence as a stance to preserve energy; when showing more of myself feels unproductive; or after a prolonged experience of not being heard. I realise that my choice to engage less has sometimes landed heavily on others. It is also a necessary boundary I&#8217;m communicating. And, as long as I&#8217;m doing this in awareness &#8211; of the potential impacts and the responsibility of this as a choice &#8211; I&#8217;m good with it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Just a wee reminder to you and me that not saying or doing something, not making a choice, is indeed doing too. It is an action with attendant responsibility. Silence is a powerful stance; those on the receiving end could be significantly impacted.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-91","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorised"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chandcounselling.co.uk\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chandcounselling.co.uk\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chandcounselling.co.uk\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chandcounselling.co.uk\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chandcounselling.co.uk\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=91"}],"version-history":[{"count":22,"href":"https:\/\/chandcounselling.co.uk\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":594,"href":"https:\/\/chandcounselling.co.uk\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91\/revisions\/594"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chandcounselling.co.uk\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=91"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chandcounselling.co.uk\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=91"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chandcounselling.co.uk\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=91"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}