In the discomfort of true spaciousness.
Ah, the scarcity of time. The obligation of outcomes. These are the very things that I am creating new templates of, for my life right now. Experimenting. How does it feel when I do absolutely nothing, instead of something? Can I not fill the space? Can my life sustain nothingness?
Space is simple, powerful medicine.
But before I go there — I had little a pause (space) in my writing over the last week or two. I will extend paid subscriptions, because it feels happy and spacious to do that. I don’t feel an obligation to write every week… that’s not part of any agreement here. I have always shared that I’ll only write when I deeply want to (most of the time) and when I can (much less of the time). Sometimes these moments align. They didn’t last week. I sat in the peace of a dark Winter Week, knowing I would re-emerge in the Spring. Thank you again for sharing this journey with me. It’s an honour to write, and an honour to be read, and it’s an honour to transcend the expectations of the “should”.
Words for words sake, is not the same as art for art’s sake.
Nobody needs their inboxes full of more words that don’t come with truth.
Words that are just there to fill space.
The opposite of spaciousness.
A lost art.
A deeply uncomfortable experience for the materialist lifeblood of modern living.
The mind is always hunting, gripping, defining, searching, seeking.
I witness in the woke world, the emphasis of the alchemy of doing to being. It feels true that the essential nature of this transformation is literally the most important work of our time.
But what I also see, and I see it most clearly when I witness myself, is the discomfort of true space.
The actual art of doing nothing, being nothing.
Which I differentiate from stillness or simply creating space.
Which both feel like more accessible and easier activities to sustain.
When I first started to create more space in my being, the natural path felt to simply create moments of stillness. Deep or gentle breathing. Stillness of the mind through meditation. “Dropping in”. Sensory walks. Silent teas or cacao. Distraction-free peace.
So I did more of these things.
Until I realised an inherent paradox.
Yes - stillness is healing. Ohhh my soul expands and delights in stillness. My Human Design, as a Splenic Projector, actually needs deep stillness to unlock anything True.
But stillness is not necessarily the same as space.
There is often action involved in stillness.
It is the action or act of being still, or creating the space to make it so. There is a doing-ness in creating of the stillness.
The subtlety of Space, I feel, is there is no action in involved.
It is literally just instantaneous nothingness in your state of being, and it doesn’t matter what you are doing. The space is not triggered by the action.
Our modern lives have no idea what to do with true space.
So, we get to the point.
My latest experiment has been to create more space in my life.
My first instinct was to fill the space with the antithesis of whatever I was doing before to fill the space.
Crafting, singing, music, cooking, reading… The healing arts.
Instead of computer work, replying to texts, chores, whatever it was that seemed to take up so much of my time and energy before. Whatever it was that I was fooling myself was so important, I just had to tend to it in whatever moment I had free.
That list feels unrepresentative, but truthfully I can’t even remember what I filled the time with before. I’d say that’s sign enough of it’s true importance.
The filling of space with more nurturing activities for my soul was… nice.
It was also cathartic in it’s various ways.
I am happy to have replaced less beautiful activities in my life with the more beautiful ones. Reconnecting with other lost arts. The importance of this is an entire other post.
And in the process my life become less constricted instantly, and more spacious.
This is true.
But what became obvious to me, is how difficult it was for me to not pick up some knitting needles, or a book, or make a cacao, or bring my attention to my breath or to simply not do something. Even if that thing embodied presence, slowness, stillness, connection.
The kind of space I’m talking about even transcends presence.
Beyond consciousness.
Perhaps our animal foes know it - instinct.
So, I started sitting the couch instead, with the intention to do nothing.
Sitting on the couch, literally doing nothing. Being in complete space.
(Seriously, you should try this…)
I’m talking about actual nothingness.
Nothing spiritual about it. No divinity (except complete divinity).
Just, literally, nothingness.
At first it was pretty great. A novelty.
Then, after a certain threshold, the resistance kicked in.
I noticed the irritation, the buzz, the old stories “I have so much to do, what the heck am I doing just sitting here” thoughts kick in. I sat with the many dragons that reared their head.
I sat in the squirming discomfort of not filling up the space.
Not. filling. up. the. space.
This morning, I awoke after a powerful Lion’s Gate journey last night, a post-journey late-night girl-chat going deep, an even later night cuddle with my husband when I got home, a sleepless baby for the rest of the night… and my automatic response was to wake up and check my phone. I’d been offline since earlier the previous day, and I wanted to check and see all the “things I’d missed”.
I paused.
I couldn’t confirm where my true motivation was coming from.
What was I missing? What a strange feeling to have, I felt.
As a stay at home mum, which in modern culture is largely a very isolating experience, the buzz of my phone to let me know there is another adult in the ether who wants to connect, can feel like a hit.
I’d been having incredible REAL human, spirit and soul connections the last 24 hours, and I didn’t want the party to end. I just wanted more and more. I wanted my space to be full.
Not to go into another day, alone, with my children. Back to the true inwardness and emptiness, of sourcing all my power, joy and connection from within.
Which, just so we’re all clear, brings me immense joy. I have chosen this path consciously and I do not have a desire it to be different. It’s my highest. Bu it can still trigger loneliness sometimes, and that is also largely due to a greater systemic issue, not simply down to my own personal responsibility. I am here to create a new template of this, though. For myself and for humanity. And I am.
So this morning, I paused…
Checking in with my real desires. Realigning.
Reminding and allowing myself that I do not need to fill the space.
I can code-switch.
I can come down from the High gracefully, and I can glide into a new day without the compulsive need to fill space.
I don’t need to make a tea, or do some drumming, or feel my heart space expanding in gratitude (although I did later because it feels good).
I don’t need to do anything.
Space is always available to me. I can just sit down, and it’s there.
And everything else slips away. Life undresses. The meaning. The stories. The intentions. The purpose. Permission to become less. To become nothing.
From this emptiness, this true space, I am everything.
***
Post script: In true human spirit, I bring you the biggest irony of all. After the choice not to pick up my phone, and allow the spaciousness of the morning, I naturally had a download about this post (because I had space for it). I had an hour free before my husband went to work. And I filled the space with these musings, instead. Chuckles-to-self.