#116 - Stop Filling The Silence

Ever caught yourself writing a whole tragic novel because someone didn’t text back? We dive into that gap between message and reply, the story machine in our heads, and the quiet panic that follows. I share a vulnerable moment with a close friend, how my mind spun up five different worst-case plots, and the simple check-in that brought the truth to light. Along the way, we unpack why silence is such fertile ground for fear and how negativity bias, mind reading, and rumination hijack our peace.

We get practical fast. You’ll learn a short script to ask for clarity without pressure, a quick reframe to test your assumptions, and a way to generate neutral or positive alternatives so your brain doesn’t default to doom. We also draw a boundary that protects relationships: it isn’t your job to carry someone else’s unspoken anger. Real friendship allows direct feedback and honest repair. That means we can stop patrolling every pause in the chat for hidden danger while still owning our impact and staying kind.

If you’ve ever felt held hostage by unread messages, this conversation offers tools to breathe, wait well, and act with courage. We talk about cultural patterns of passive aggression, how to set expectations for clear communication, and why a one-line check-in beats hours of spiraling. The payoff is more trust, less anxiety, and friendships that feel safe even when life gets noisy. Press play, try the script, and tell us how you’re practicing the art of asking instead of assuming.

If this helped you rethink silence, subscribe, share it with a friend, and leave a quick review with your biggest takeaway. Your notes help others find the show and keep these conversations going.

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Chapters

• 0:16 Welcome And Setup
• 0:37 The Uneasy Friendship Dynamic
• 1:05 Silence And The Stories We Write
• 2:13 A Friend’s Reframe On Assumptions
• 3:38 Ask, Don’t Assume
• 6:02 Healthy Boundaries In Friendship

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:16

What is up everybody? Hey, welcome to our Reflections Podcast. This is Ryan here. And I want to tell you something happened to me the other day that I think, man, I think we all do this. And so I I heard this incredible advice. Well, I don't know if it was advice, but more like just somebody pulling back the curtain and showing me, hey, here's what we humans tend to do, and like, don't do that. I'm like, oh, that's incredible. Yeah, of course. So now maybe you've been here, but I I was texting um a close friend. This is a while ago. And this close friend and I have had this relationship that's kind of, I don't know, I wouldn't call it tumultuous, but it's like it's it's just sort of like one of those things where I'm like, I'm never quite sure how we are doing. Do you know what I mean? Like I can't tell if we're like, are we close friends? Are you upset with me? Am I am I uh am I did I do did I offend you? I just can never quite tell. And so a couple of weeks ago, I had sent this friend a a voice memo, like a voice text, and just was saying, you know, sharing some thoughts about some things and and kind of pouring out my heart to this person, and I heard nothing back for several days. And I'm like, dang, why won't this person at least say, hey, got it, or thumbs up, or smiley face, or hey, I'll get back to you, you know. That's a pet peeve of mine too, when people just don't get back to you and you're like, what the heck, man? Anyway, that's a side, that's a side note, but and so I was like really upset about it. I'm like, not upset because like they they didn't it was more than just I was peeved by it. It wasn't just that. It was like I started to write this narrative in my head about what could possibly have caused this person to not write me back. Like, oh, they're upset with me. I made them mad. I said I said X, Y, or Z, they must have been been mad at that, or they didn't agree with this thing over here, and that's why they're not, and they're like trying to figure out how to tell me that, or or C, they don't care about me, they don't love me because they didn't write me back. Clearly they don't love me, you know, or man, I've really maybe we aren't as close as I thought we were, and like this whole thing is a sham and I'm just a charlatan, and you know. And I just kept writing in un un unknowingly, or like I wasn't really aware of it, conscious of it. I was like just filling the silence that was there with all these narratives. And sometimes it happens where you know there's this silence where you're talking with somebody, whether it's in person or or over the phone or in a text message like I was, or just in life, and there's like this silence, this gap in communication. And we will tend, I think humans tend to fill that void with our own meaning making. And so I was talking to a friend and he's like, Yeah, dude, he's like, dude, you're totally just filling that space, which is what we humans do. He's like, But here's the thing you have no idea why your friend hasn't written you back yet or sent a voice memo back yet. You don't know if any of the things you're thinking of are actually accurate or wildly inaccurate. He's like, you're just making stuff up, and now you're going down these rabbit holes that are like taking your emotions with them. And dude, none they all can't, first of all, they all can't be correct. So you're wasting a whole bunch of energy ruminating on these ones that are certainly not correct. But maybe none of them are correct. Maybe there's like, you know, and for whatever reason, we don't tend to think about things in the best positive light. Like I wasn't thinking, gosh, this friend of mine didn't write back. Maybe it's because they love me so much I didn't know what to say. You know, like that, it's not usually that way. It's usually like, oh, it's something more, more sinister or dark. But I realized that we do this, like we we tend to fill the silent with our own narratives. And I just want to warn us, myself included, like, be careful doing that. Because at the end of the day, we have no idea. And maybe they maybe this person's not uh does is mad at me, and maybe they're not though. Maybe it's actually something quite positive. And here's the other thing. If they are mad at me, it's not my job to like sort of carry that unless they tell me. It's their job to tell me if they're upset with me. Now, I can, you know, uh, I can try to like figure out a way to kind of ask them, you know, that kind of thing, but gosh, it's not my job to sort of worry about all the folks in my life that could possibly be mad at me. Now, I'm not saying I can walk around being a jerk and just, hey, sorry, deal with it. I don't mean that. I mean if I'm living my life as I'm trying to do it and like my calling and how to be a human and you know, doing my thing, and people get mad at me, it really is incumbent upon them to tell me. And we don't do this. We don't, you know, we especially in Minnesota here, we get so passive aggressive, and we don't really, we won't just tell somebody, hey, that bothered me, that hurt my feelings, that upset me. And for all kinds of obvious reasons. It's it's those are hard conversations. But I'm not it's not my job to walk around. Are you mad at me? Are you mad at me? Are you mad at me? Can you imagine how insane that would be to live like that? But we kind of do that. And it's as though it's my responsibility. Now, it is my responsibility to not hurt people and make them, you know, but I don't mean that. I mean just like wondering in even like a normal, ordinary event, did I make them mad? Well, I hopefully they would tell me if they did, if I did make them mad. That's what true friendship really is, anyway, is them and hey, dude, I listen, I uh I'm that upset me. So I would say be careful to not fill the spaces, the silence with narratives, with your own narratives, because they could be wildly inaccurate. You never know. And if you're curious, you can always ask them. And I did, so I actually sent this person a text back. I go, hey, just curious if you got my text above. I um, you know, it's been a few days, no big deal, but I just wanted to see if you got it and make sure I didn't, you know, because sometimes sometimes things get lost in the mail, you know, like I maybe it didn't go through. And they wrote me one back the following day, and and uh turns out none of the narratives I had written were actually true. There was a whole number of other things that that took this person a while to get back to me, and none of them were as as dark or as sinister as I thought. So there you go. Uh, don't fill the space with your own narratives because you never know. You're probably wrong. You could be wrong. And um, yeah, and you'll thank me for it later, I think. So I love you guys. Peace. Hey, if you enjoy this show, I'd love to have you share it with some friends. And don't forget you are always welcome to join us in person at Central in Elk River at 8 30, which is our liturgical gathering, or at 10 o'clock, our modern gathering. Or you can check us out online at clcelkriver.org. Peace.