DAY 59: Cherishing Silence
A Guest Post from Florence Da Silva
Cherishing Silence
with Florence Da Silva
What if, today, and this weekend, we invited silence?
Like a quiet but precious friend, it can bring unexpected depth to our conversations.
After an open question or a complex reflection, silence gives the person space to absorb, to feel, to formulate. It’s not an awkward void, but a fertile pause. A space for evocation, where the client can hear their own voice, where something can slowly emerge.
Sometimes, the response takes time—not out of opposition or inability, but because it’s being searched for deeply. And sometimes, a thought is shared… and it deserves to linger. Offering silence after a response is a way to honor what’s just been said, without rushing to move on.
Showing through silence: “What you just said matters.”
For us, too, as practitioners, silence is a resource. It allows us to feel, to reflect, to carefully choose the next intervention. It supports the quality of our presence.
In Motivational Interviewing, silence isn’t absence. It’s a skill. A subtle form of expertise that serves both the relationship and the process of change.
Today, what if you gave it a little space?
Florence DA SILVA
Mail : dasilva.formation.etp@gmail.com
Lin : www.linkedin.com/in/da-silva-florence-2962a8a6
Web : www.temposenso.fr
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Thanks so much Florence!
Sky
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Sky Kershner, LPC, ALPS, LCSW, DMin
Assistant Professor, WVU School of Medicine
MINT Certified Trainer of Motivational Interviewing
AAMFT Approved Supervisor / Member IEDTA / PACT L2
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I appreciate you, Florence, and your offer of pause! It was a critical part of my learning to be an NBC-HWC coach and it was instilled from day one of my intensive coaching course. Even while taking the multi-hour exam, I practiced pausing. This tool is so useful in coaching and everyday living. I placed a hand-made painted piece of canvas that says “Pause” on my fridge and then into my 2024 vision board. To me, Pause is essential and an allowance for me, you, us, and everyone. Thank you for this beautiful reminder to bring Pause into the weekend; time for breathing in and exhaling.
I’m grateful to you, Florence, for today’s beautiful offering—Day 59: Cherishing Silence. What a powerful reminder that silence is not an absence, but a presence all its own.
The Poetic Pause
In college, I fell in love with the poetic pause.
That quiet break in the line—not empty, but charged with meaning. It could emphasize the words I’d just written, or make room for words to come. Either way, it gave me a moment to absorb, to feel, to reflect.
In Motivational Interviewing, we invite that same kind of pause—not on the page, but in the space between spoken words.
After offering an open question or a complex reflection, we don’t rush in.
We pause.
Not to create discomfort, but to create depth.
In that fertile silence, a client might hear their own voice more clearly.
An idea might surface.
A decision might start to take shape.
Silence becomes our punctuation.
A slow comma.
A quiet ellipsis.
A calming period.
It’s how we say, without saying:
“What you just shared matters.”
“I’m with you.”
“Take your time.”
And like the poet reading her own lines for the first time, we too—those who hold space for others—can use silence to reflect, to feel, to find our next move with care.
Silence, it turns out, is a form of presence.
Today, and this weekend, I’ll allow for a poetic pause.
Not as absence, but as artistry.
A quiet companion that deepens the conversation—for both of us.