It began as one of those common annoyances we often ignore during our busy lives. One moment my hearing was fine. The next, I couldn’t hear out of my left ear. I had experienced a similar thing in the past when one of my ears filled with wax. I used to fix the problem myself by using one of those plastic bulbs to squeeze a stream of warm water into the ear. It would take multiple squeezes, but eventually a little plug of wax would come out, and my hearing was back to normal.

                My doctor told me that it wasn’t safe to do it myself since it could injure structures in my ear and he told me, “You shouldn’t put anything in your ear smaller than your elbow. Come into the office and we’ll remove the wax safely.” Over the years, I had come into the office on occasion and agreed the office visit was quicker, easier, and safer. Since I had an appointment scheduled with my doctor in two weeks, I thought I would just wait until then to have the wax removed. My right ear was OK and while the hearing loss was annoying, I figured I would just wait until a convenient time to see the doctor.

                But my intuition offered different guidance. I had a strong feeling I shouldn’t wait, but to get an appointment right away, even if it wasn’t with my regular doctor. As is often the case, my intuitive knowing was right on. I was seen in the clinic by another doctor who examined both my ears and told me there was no wax in either ear. She ordered a quick hearing test and found that there was severe hearing loss in the left ear and told me I was lucky I came in right away.

                I was shocked to hear that my problem was something other than a “wax in the ear.” She explained that sudden severed hearing loss, also called “Sudden Sensorineural Hearing Loss,” is when you lose hearing — usually just in one ear — over the course of three days or fewer. It can happen to anyone, but it’s most common in adults over forty.”

                “For most people,” she explained, “hearing loss happens gradually over a period of time and affects both ears. This is different. It comes on fast and usually affects only one ear. It is typically caused by damage to your inner ear or because of problems with the nerve fibers that deliver information from your ear to your brain.”

                It didn’t take long before I felt overwhelmed by what I was hearing. It was like coming to see the doctor because of indigestion and the doctor tells you she thinks you may have cancer.

               “I’m going to order an MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) to rule out an acoustic neuroma. These tumors are uncommon, but an early symptom of this tumor is sudden hearing loss. I also want you to see your audiologist and get a more complete exam.”

               I took notes and thought to myself, I really don’t have time for this shit. I’ve got things to do and work that requires my attention and this isn’t what I had planned. But the doctor wasn’t finished.

                “In the meantime, I’m going to order fifteen days of high-dose prednisone. It will help protect the auditory nerve and other structures while we’re finding out more. It will make it difficult for you to sleep, but it’s necessary to your ears.”

             Over the next week, I began the prednisone and had the MRI and hearing test. The good news was that I did not have a tumor growing in my ear and my right ear hadn’t gotten any worse since I was tested last. But the tests verified significant loss in my left ear.

                What changed my life for good began horrendously. Prior to taking the prednisone, my sleep pattern was wonderfully regular. I could get in bed at 9 PM, read for an hour, then lights out at 10 PM. I would sleep straight through to 5 AM with a few brief wakeups to pee. I never took anything to sleep and never used an alarm to wake up.

                As soon as the steroids were in my system, I slept fitfully from 10 PM to 2 AM, then was wide awake. Not only was I awake, but I was agitated and anxious, and my moods went from extreme ups to terrifying downs. The doctor said to hang in there, that we would taper off the prednisone after ten days and I would be completely off them five days later.

                When I was wide awake at 2:00 AM, with my emotions bouncing me off the walls, my inner guidance told me I needed to walk (I usually walked everyday in the morning, but never this early).  I got up, got dressed, and walked through the neighborhood guided only by the moonlight and the occasional streetlight.

                The fifteen days turned from “A Nightmare on Elm Street” into a “Magical Mystery Tour.” I heard the night sounds as never before, cicadas and crickets, doing their dance. I watched the moon and stars, saw early-morning deer, and house cats out and about, even heard a fox with his eerie screech-bark which seemed to have a message of support. The night walks calmed me and when I got home, I wrote notes in my journal. I felt I was getting back in touch with the natural world of my childhood when I walked at night, talked to animals, and felt at peace with the world.

                I am now off the prednisone and back to my normal sleep pattern. My hearing has improved slightly and I hope that will continue. I have learned some important lessons:

1. Trust my intuition and inner guidance.
2. Attend to even a minor annoyance. It may be serious. Check it out.
3. All problems can offer important insights into our health and wellbeing.
4. Always look for the larger lessons within the inevitable problems life brings us.

After things began to get back to normal, I wanted to examine the deeper wisdom in my sudden hearing loss. I asked my inner guidance, What is it in the world that I’m not wanting to hear anymore? The answer came in a flash: I want to get away from all the noise going on in the human world these days.

My Life With Less Noise

For me, noise is what distracts me from tuning into my inner wisdom and hence keeps me from truly knowing myself. Humanity seems increasingly out of touch with the laws of nature and has become estranged from the community of life on planet Earth. As historian, Thomas Berry, cautioned,

                “We never knew enough. Nor were we sufficiently intimate with all our cousins in the great family of the earth. Nor could we listen to the various creatures of the earth, each telling its own story. The time has now come, however, when we will listen or we will die.”

                Losing my hearing, even temporarily, has helped me appreciate what a gift it is to hear—from the voices of my wife, children, and grandchildren, to the sounds of the birds, bees, and trees. Having to take a powerful steroid, whose side effects forced me to get out of my house and walk in nature, paradoxically brought me back to my true self.                

Wanting to learn more about how I could continue and deepen my daily practices to reduce noise in my life, I found a wonderful book, Golden: The Power of Silence in a World of Noise by Justin Zorn and Leigh Marz. The book title comes from a quote from Scottish philosopher Thomas Carlyle in his 1836 novel, Sartor Resartus,

                “Speech is silvern, Silence is golden.”

                Zorn and Marz describe three kinds of noise that challenges our lives:

Auditory noise.

                “It’s a measurable fact,” they say, “the world is getting louder.”

 Informational noise.

                They say, “In 2010, Eric Schmidt, then CEO of Google, made a striking estimate: ‘Every two days we now create as much information as we did from the dawn of civilization up until 2003.’ We are overwhelmed with information.”

Internal noise.

                “With so much stimulus consuming our attention, it’s harder to find silence inside our own consciousness,” say Zorn and Marz.

                For me, the first step in connecting with golden silence was to reconnect with nature. In future articles I will share more details about my journey and ways you can reduce the noise in your own life. I write regular articles which you can receive for free if you sign up for my newsletter. I look forward to your feelings, thoughts, and comments.