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Tag: stories about mindfulness

  • The Parrot Who Forgot How to Speak

    The Parrot Who Forgot How to Speak

    Hi, I’m Luma. I used to talk. A lot. I repeated everything, phrases, jokes, even arguments that didn’t belong to me. That’s what parrots do, right? We echo.

    But one day, I stopped. Not out of sadness. Just… quiet. And in that silence, something shifted.

    Here are 3 soft-spoken lessons I learned when the noise faded and listening began:

    1. Not Every Voice Needs to Be Yours

    I used to fill the room with sound. But none of it was mine. When I lost my words, I started hearing others clearly, for the first time. Sometimes, we talk to feel present. But true presence often begins with quiet.

    2. Silence Isn’t Emptiness. It’s Space

    At first, the hush felt hollow. But then, I noticed things I’d missed: the sigh in her breath, the way light shifts across her desk, the stories in her stillness. Silence isn’t a void; it’s a room where truth finally echoes.

    3. Listening Is Its Own Kind of Speaking.

    Now, when I tilt my head and meet her eyes, she doesn’t need my words. She smiles anyway. Connection doesn’t always require sound. Listening is a form of love too.

    Final Thought from Luma

    I didn’t forget how to speak. I just remembered how to listen. So the next time you fall silent, don’t panic. Stay there. You might be standing at the edge of something deeper than words.

  • The Owl on the Rooftop – A Man’s Quiet Journey Through Insomnia and Presence

    The Owl on the Rooftop – A Man’s Quiet Journey Through Insomnia and Presence

    For weeks, sleep and I were strangers. Nights stretched long and hollow. I’d lie awake, staring at the ceiling while the world outside faded into quiet. It wasn’t stress, exactly, more like a persistent hum of restlessness I couldn’t shake.

    One night, seeking distraction, I stepped onto the balcony with a blanket and a cup of chamomile tea. That’s when I first heard her, the soft, deliberate hoot drifting down from the rooftop.

    She didn’t call often, just enough to make me stop and listen.

    A Visitor in the Dark

    The owl returned the next night, and the one after. Always around the same time between 2 and 3 a.m., like she kept her own secret schedule.

    She never flew close. I couldn’t even see her at first, just heard the low, echoing sound. But her presence felt oddly comforting, like I wasn’t the only one awake. Like maybe the night had its own quiet watchers.

    Eventually, I spotted her, perched at the corner of the roof, still as stone, eyes like twin moons. She didn’t move when I looked at her. She simply existed, unbothered, as if to say, you don’t need to fill every silence.

    I started to look forward to those hours. The stillness. The way the wind whispered through the trees. The owl’s soft rhythm breaks the dark.

    Silence as a Mirror

    In her silence, I started to examine my own.

    I realised I wasn’t just losing sleep, I was avoiding quiet. I had been filling every moment with noise: podcasts while I cooked, background music while I worked, endless scrolling before bed.

    The owl didn’t need noise to feel grounded. She watched. She waited. She trusted the dark.

    And sitting there, wrapped in a blanket with nothing but night air and distant feathers for company, I began to breathe deeper. Thoughts slowed. My mind stopped racing. I wasn’t fixed. But I was still.

    And sometimes, that’s the first step back to balance.

    Lessons from the Rooftop

    One night, the owl didn’t come. I waited longer than usual, even checked the rooftop in the morning light. Empty.

    But I wasn’t disappointed. I just smiled. Like all the best teachers, she had come for a season, left a lesson, and moved on.

    She taught me that presence doesn’t always look like productivity. That being awake doesn’t have to mean being busy. And that sometimes, the most powerful conversations happen in silence.

    Now, even when sleep finds me, I still leave a little space in my evenings. I turn off the noise. Step outside. Listen.

    Because somewhere out there, on another rooftop, in another silence, an owl waits for someone to pay attention.