What is a vase? The container or the space within?

Silence is like empty space, it doesn’t seem to be anything. But in actual fact, without the silence, the void, or the margins, the space around things is needed to make sense of the thing.

Imagine for a moment walking up to your home, putting the key in the lock and opening the door only to find another door. Then unlocking that to find another, and another all the way. Imagine if the outside of your house looked fine but was a solid block of “house”, without any space inside it. Would you even call this a house? No!

A house is the external shape, the internal walls and fittings – but also the void between each of these items. It’s in the space that you actually live your life and just as important as the box that holds that space.

Silence is like the space within you house, or inside the vase, or the white space on a written page. Silence is what parentheses the spoken words and silence can do two things.

* Create a void

* Parentheses emphasise before and after content.

The Void

Silence is where you consider and ponder your thoughts and reflect for a time before starting some new part of your Life Story. This isn’t a time to be rushed but a time where a process is happening and in time something will come of the void.

If you’re telling your own story, just let it be. In a moment something will come to mind and you’ll be on your way again or if you’re recording someone else give them the space to allow whatever, to develop for them. By creating this void sometimes amazing things happen.

Other times a conversation will come to a natural end where there is no more to be said. This is where silence signals that it’s the time for you to reach for your list of prompting topics  and choose a new line of conversation.

The Parenthesis Pause

There are times where something is said, maybe long convoluted stories going into detail and building to a conclusion, then it ends and there is silence. There is often no need to hurry to the next points but simply take time to let the echos of the story ring into the silence as you contemplate what was said and the significance of it within the whole Life Story.

Or there will be silence first to set the scene, creating the tension for what is about to come. Maybe looking at photos, some tears welling up in your eyes or just a moment of contemplation that builds until the story starts. Allowing the tension to build will create what is needed to bring about the significance of the story and to interrupt it too early, will remove the power from the moment.

Much more detail of all the different pauses was covered in Episode 44 where we talk about the power and strategies of different pauses.

Silence in Interview

Your roll in recording a conversation with someone is to simply provoke responses, through comments and questions, then to remain silent but never inactive! The audio recording needs to be their story, as spoken by them, clearly understood but your roll is to help them continue with the flow of the topic, using all the silent, non verbals cues at your disposal.

* Eye contact

* Facial expressions – smile, smirk, frown, quizzical

* Body language – lean forward, open position, hand movements

* Nodding

* Prompting – to items around you

All of these techniques will still fully engage with them while you remain silent for the audio rec...