We have an increasing number of ways to share information with each other when we aren't in the same room together — telephone, fax, email, pager, cellphone, text, social media. The options can be dizzying and at times paralyzing. Yet, when we're near each other physically we may feel compelled to fill the space with conversation and storytelling or other sounds — or even movement, dance, hand gestures, facial expressions. Ultimately, we may sense deep down that we were designed to share information with each other, about ourselves and about the world, and we may believe that it is our main job to keep working at this purpose incessantly. And all of our different ways and purposes for communication can multiply our drive and passion for communicating with each other. Yet, communication itself can be really hard, confusing, inadequate for our purposes, and even painful. Finding a balance in how we communicate is not easy and the ways that finding this balance is not easy IS very common. You're not alone in struggling with when to send text messages, what to post to Facebook comment threads, or how to give your opinion. What is one way that you've learned to regulate your impulses to communicate?
[image description: A heart with a quizzical facial expression stands at the top of a sloping field and looks downward toward a monal pheasant with its brightly colored back showing and with the anthropomorphic thought, "You must learn to rest in your drive to communicate." Text reads: "Monal Meditation."]