No Explanation Necessary

Posted on August 16, 2013. Filed under: Spiritual Practice | Tags: awareness, choices, creating, energy, practice, subtle messages |

“Never explain yourself. Your friends don’t need it and your enemies won’t believe it.” ~ Unknown

We use words all of the time – to share information, to promote ideas and products, to educate and to entertain. Our days are filled with written and spoken words, but how much of that is just the noise with which we fill our minds?

Obviously, words are not our only means of communicating with others. Our actions speak. Pictures are said to be worth a thousand words. And our energy speaks volumes. In my opinion, it is actually our energy that people respond to more powerfully than our words, because as we all know, words can lie, manipulate and deceive. Energy does not. Ever.

This past week I encountered a few comments on my Facebook page that needled me until I wrote a commentary about it all. I was overwhelmed by the many supportive responses that I received, and many pointed out the obvious: I needn’t have provided any explanation at all. This brought home a point I’ve encountered before and that is alluded to by the quote at the beginning of this blog: any explanations that I offer are really an attempt to convince myself.

That, in and of itself, is not necessarily a bad thing, but it’s certainly a good thing to be clear about. I use words in this way quite frequently. Journaling, blogging, writing are all ways in which I process my thoughts to become clearer about what I think and feel.

So are explanations ever useful? Oh certainly – as a means of providing information, they’re helpful. Do they ever convince someone who is opposed in the first place to see your viewpoint? Probably not, and the reason for this, I believe, lies in the energy that is projected. By virtue of needing to explain and consequently justify one’s actions by way of the explanation itself, the “explainer” is projecting an air of uncertainty about their actions. That energy is never going to convince anyone who doesn’t already agree with you to change their perspective.

All that being said, providing the explanation that I did definitely solidified my comfort level in advertising my services on my FB page. I get to do whatever I want on my page – and everyone else gets to stay or leave according to their needs. No explanation necessary.