Are you living in a noisy environment? Do you work in a noisy environment?
Does the noise disturb your focus and attention and bring stress into your life?
In today’s world, there are many distractions, and noise is one of them.
Living in a Noisy Environment
One of my readers asked me the following question:
“I understand it is important to own your mind, but what if you live next door to really noisy people who drive you crazy and make you lose your sleep?”
“I cannot help thinking that the people who write these books have big detached houses, so they already have a peaceful environment.”
Here is my answer:
Living in a noisy environment can be exhausting and stressful. We cannot always control our environment, and living in a peaceful environment is not always possible. However, there are a few things we can do.
You can teach yourself to ignore noise and distractions. I know this from personal experience.
On the plus side, learning to calm down your mind in an environment that is not quiet and striving to ignore the noise and distractions can help you develop inner strength and endurance.
In this process, you gain inner power, willpower, self-discipline, and a sense of satisfaction.
What to Do if You Are Living in a Noisy Environment
There are several things you can do to handle the problem of noise. Based on this reader’s issue, here are a few suggestions. You can adapt these suggestions to other situations you might face.
1. You can go and speak with your neighbors and ask them to be a little quiet.
If you think they will not listen to you, visualize yourself speaking with them politely but with confidence and authority, asking them to be quiet. See them being polite and friendly, telling you they will be less noisy.
Repeat this visualization for a few days, and then speak with them. This visualization will make you more confident, and your neighbors will be more willing to accept what you ask.
2. You can also visualize yourself living in a quiet and happy environment. Do so with the belief that this can happen. Sooner or later, something will change; either your neighbors get less noisy, they will move, you will move, or the noise will stop bothering you.
3. There must be quieter times during the day or night. Take advantage of these times, and use them for the things that require more quietness, such as reading, studying, or meditating.
4. If you can do nothing, try to develop some patience and endurance and stay positive in mind, no matter how difficult or impossible this might be. If you continue to do so, gradually, you will discover that the noise is less annoying and distracting.
5. If possible, consider moving to quieter surroundings.
6. While it is true that a quiet environment is important for attaining inner peace, one can attain inner peace even in a noisy environment.
Not everyone can afford to own a big detached house or leave everything behind and go and live in an ashram or a monastery.
Changing Your Mental Attitude
With the proper mental attitude, training, dedication, and self-discipline , one can attain inner peace, poise, and inner tranquility.
When this happens, external noises, disturbances, and distractions lose most of their power over you. In this mental state, you can stay calm wherever you happen to be, in a quiet or noisy environment.
A certain spiritual teacher has said that a beginner in meditation is easily distracted even by the noise of a needle falling on the floor. However, when well trained, one can meditate in the middle of a noisy market without being distracted.
You can choose to let the noise distract and annoy you, train yourself to stay patient and calm or learn to ignore noises when you are not able to remove them.
Image source – DepositPhotos
