Awkward is that horrible silence that makes your skin crawl. You believe you need to fill with any rubbish that may come out of your mouth, to take away the feeling of awkward! Actors and directors know the power of this moment; they call it 'dramatic pause'. Pause is communication; a lot can be said in a pause, often more than something being spoken.
Have you ever had one of those phone calls when the person say's 'Hi it's ...' and you have not got a clue you're talking to? You have two options; start the conversation on the back foot by saying 'I'm sorry I can't place your name' or carry on the conversation hoping you will guess who it is before it gets embarrassing. I don't know about you but I my job I meet so many people that if I remembered every name I'd fall over with the weight of my own brain! Some people just expect you to remember because they remember you. With the use of the awkward silence a person will explain who they are and why they called without you having to feel like a forgetful fool.
It's a fact we are bombarded by more information than in any other time in our history. Life in this digital age is moving fast and it's easy to find yourself overwhelmed with conflicting feelings when it comes to making choices. Having all that information can be empowering, yet much of it is conflicting and we start to wonder what is right for us personally.
According to newspaper 'USA Today' the average adult makes about 35,000 decisions each day. No wonder so many of us are feeling stressed out from wondering and worrying whether we are making the right ones. In this time of information overload there is simply too much to think about. A growing form of self-protection to fall into is what psychologists call a state of ambivalence. Ambivalence can range from simply stopping caring, to being in a trance-like state of lack of awareness. It's a form of shutdown caused by having to come to terms with a complex world of choice and the belief in right and wrong, good or bad decisions. Surely holding a moment even if we believe the pause is awkward is better than not caring.
We only ever feel awkward in silence when we worry we are upsetting someone else, yet often we make clearer decisions and can keep to our word much better when we take a moment in time to pause.
A moment of frozen time brings us into the present and makes us clear in our interactions with others. It leaves space for intuition to step in and guide us in to heart lead decisions and communication with feeling.