Latest / LIVING WITHOUT FEAR / 154. Living Without Fear - Stop Forcing Connection: Why Choosing Silence Protects Your Energy | With Esther Buerki
Transcript
- 0:00You're not missing anything in your life, you're just not
- 0:05seeing how much of it is already a miracle.
- 0:11Hello, beautiful soul. This is Esther speaking to you
- 0:16from Switzerland. And today, I want to take you
- 0:21into a week that quietly changed something deep inside of me.
- 0:28A week that didn't shout, but whispered truth.
- 0:34A week that didn't teach me with words, but with presents.
- 0:41I spent a week teaching skiing to children with hearing
- 0:47disabilities and I want to share with you what I saw, what I
- 0:53felt, and what it revealed about the way we live our lives.
- 1:01Because what I experienced there goes far beyond skiing.
- 1:09At first, everything felt different.
- 1:14We, the ones who can hear, live in a world that is constantly
- 1:21filled with sound. Voices, instructions, noise,
- 1:27music, conversations all flowing effortlessly around us.
- 1:35But for these children, even with hearing devices, the world
- 1:41is quieter, slower, more intentional.
- 1:46On the ski pist, communication had to be clear, simple,
- 1:52precise. I couldn't shout something after
- 1:57them while they were skiing. If I forgot to say something, I
- 2:04had to let it go, wait, pause. Just that the next moment would
- 2:12come. And in that pause, I realized
- 2:17how much we tried to control everything in our lives.
- 2:23We want to say everything at the right time.
- 2:27We want to fix things immediately.
- 2:31We want to make sure nothing is missed.
- 2:35But sometimes life asks us to wait.
- 2:41What touched me deeply was their sensitivity.
- 2:47These children, they were so present, so respectful, so
- 2:53aware, not distracted by noise, not overwhelmed by constant
- 3:01input. They felt more.
- 3:04And I asked myself, have we in our loud world forgotten how to
- 3:13truly feel? There was a also a young ski
- 3:18teacher, a woman with a cockler implant, just like many of the
- 3:24children. She would join us in the
- 3:28evenings, sitting with us as we talked and gently planned the
- 3:34next day. But later, when the room
- 3:38shifted, when the laughter grew louder, when drinks were poured,
- 3:45when games began, it became too much, too loud for her.
- 3:52And in that moment, she would quietly take off her hearing
- 3:58device. And suddenly she was in silence,
- 4:02not pushed away, not disconnected, just choosing
- 4:08peace. She told me she used to do the
- 4:12same as a child. When her mother spoke to her
- 4:17early in the morning, she simply chose quiet.
- 4:22And I thought, how often do we wish we could turn down the
- 4:28noise of the world? But we don't.
- 4:33We stay in conversations that train us.
- 4:37We scroll endlessly through information, we answer messages,
- 4:44and our heart is tired. What if you allowed yourself to
- 4:51step into silence without guilt? Some of the children red my
- 4:58lips, others communicated in sign language and I sat there
- 5:06not understanding anything for a moment.
- 5:11I was the one outside. And it humbled me because we
- 5:18take our road for granted. We assume understanding.
- 5:24We assume clarity. We assume ease.
- 5:30But not everyone lives in that same reality.
- 5:37We also had two children with visual impairments.
- 5:42They wore bright orange Wests and followed their teacher who
- 5:49wore the same colour. One of them could ski with the
- 5:55other children, the other one needed full guidance.
- 6:00And still they moved, they trusted, they followed.
- 6:07And I stood there realizing how much courage it takes to move
- 6:15through life when you cannot fully see the path.
- 6:20And then I looked at myself. How often do I feel afraid when
- 6:27I don't have control? We organize our lives so
- 6:34carefully. We plan, we prepare, we predict.
- 6:41And yet the moment something is uncertain, we feel stress.
- 6:48We avoid things like having difficult conversations, trying
- 6:56something new where we might fail, saying no when we meant
- 7:03mean it, being alone with our own thoughts.
- 7:08Or maybe for you it's avoiding silence, avoiding stillness,
- 7:16avoiding the feeling that comes when there is nothing to
- 7:21distract us. What are you avoiding?
- 7:26Just to feel safe. And then there's something else.
- 7:33The fear of missing out. The feeling that you didn't hear
- 7:39everything, didn't understand everything, didn't catch all the
- 7:44details. Maybe you know this, you're in a
- 7:49conversation and suddenly you feel behind.
- 7:54Or you listen to a podcast and think I didn't get everything.
- 8:01Or you're in a meeting and your mind whispers, what if I missed
- 8:07something important and tension rises, pressure builds.
- 8:14But what if you didn't need to understand everything?
- 8:20I've started telling myself something very simple.
- 8:26I understand everything I need to know.
- 8:30The rest will come back to me when it's meant for me and
- 8:35something beautiful happens. My body softens, my mind
- 8:42relaxes. I trust because when we are
- 8:46tense, we close. And when we trust, we open.
- 8:53This week with these children showed me something I don't want
- 8:59to forget. My life is already so rich.
- 9:06I can hear the wind, I can hear laughter, I can hear music.
- 9:14And I never really stopped to feel how beautiful that is.
- 9:21So today I want to gently invite you into gratitude.
- 9:28Not the forced kind, not that I should be grateful kind, but the
- 9:36quiet, honest noticing. Maybe today you take a moment to
- 9:43feel the warmth of water on your skin, the sound of someone you
- 9:49love speaking, the ability to walk, to move, to breathe,
- 9:57really. The taste of your food, the
- 10:00safety of your home, The possibility to choose your life
- 10:07step by step or even deeper. Gratitude for the challenges,
- 10:16for the moments that stretched you.
- 10:19For the things that didn't go your way but shaped you.
- 10:25Because sometimes what we call difficult is actually what wakes
- 10:32us up. And maybe just for today, you
- 10:37let go of controlling everything.
- 10:42You let go of needing to understand everything.
- 10:46You trust that life is not something you have to manage
- 10:52perfectly, it is something you're allowed to experience.
- 11:00And here is the thought I want to leave you with.
- 11:05What if nothing is missing and everything you need it's already
- 11:12here? If this episode touched you and
- 11:17you feel there is something in your life you want to shift
- 11:23gently, deeply and in your own way, Ioffer free one-on-one
- 11:29coaching sessions. A space where you can be fully
- 11:35seen, fully hurt, without pressure, without judgement,
- 11:42Just you and the possibility of something new opening inside of
- 11:49you. You can reach out to me and
- 11:52we'll take it from there. I'm sending you so much warmth
- 11:59and maybe today a little more awareness for the quiet miracles
- 12:07in your life. Talk to you next week.