It’s a strange question when you first sit with it. We might think of noise as the chatter, reminders, unfinished tasks, and the many obligations that try to grab our attention throughout the day. But soon we notice that noise is not just that. It could be a worry that keeps circling, a thought that repeats itself even when we try to move on, or a low hum of unease we have carried for so long that we no longer notice it as noise at all.
Some noise comes from something unresolved. Some comes from an old wound, an unmade decision, a conversation we avoided, a truth we learned to step around, or a version of ourselves we quietly stopped becoming. Over time, it can become part of the background of our inner life.
We often treat noise as something to suppress, escape, or outthink. We distract ourselves from it, explain it away, intellectualize it, or wait for it to disappear. But what if some of the noise is not just interference? What if it is carrying information?
What if, underneath the noise, there is a quieter signal trying to catch our attention?
The moment we ask that, a stranger question follows. What would a signal even sound like? How would we know it from noise? Is the signal a feeling, a sentence, an image, a direction, a boundary, a person, a regret, or a calling?
I don’t think there is a tidy answer to that, and maybe that is part of the point. Maybe it is a process, for self-care, recovery, discovery, growth.
So I will leave you with the question rather than an answer. Let it sit with you today. Maybe revisit it when things get quieter, in the evening, over the weekend, on a walk, or in a journal. Notice what surfaces when you stop trying to find it.
What is the signal, beneath your noise?
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