The Possibilities in Emptiness

{Coaching Reflections, Part 1 of 5}

Coaching is a process of opening up space in your mind by clearing away clutter.

It’s a lot like cleaning out your closet.  You look at what’s there, take inventory (probably finding some surprises along the way), clear away what no longer fits, tidy up the space, and then put it back together in a new way.  

When it’s all done, the newfound empty space one of the best parts.  Emptiness is inspiring. Suddenly, the space feels bigger and brighter.  Anything feels possible.

Coaching works in a similar way.  We look at the spaces in our lives and our minds (and sometimes our actual closets) to see what’s stopping up the flow of energy, crowding the space, or getting in the way of what we want.

Where is clutter creating static and chaos?  What are we holding onto that would be better for us to release?  What possibilities would step forward if they had space to move and expand?   

Because in order to create a new thing for ourselves, we need room to move.  We need clear, open spaces for our creativity to flow, for our imagination to roam, and for our intuition to deepen and expand.  

Our dominant culture fears emptiness, so we’re often encouraged to fill our lives, homes, and brains to brim.  But emptiness is a delight. It’s blank canvas for our creativity that invites mystery and possibility.

So where in your life are you craving empty, open space, and how might you create even the tiniest bit of it in your home, your mind, or your life?

Empty Spaces and Organic Progress

One of the things I continue to work through in my own life is my relationship with productivity and action.

I have all sorts of embedded stories around the levels of productive action I “should” be taking to be a successful and okay human - remnants from all those years as a student with perfectionist tendencies and neurotic habits, which took hold easily enough in a constant stream of looming deadlines and amorphous tasks, like research, reading, and studying, that could be extended into perpetuity because they had no clear beginning, middle, or end. Empty time was wasted time because there was never enough of it.

Life is different now, but even though I’m more or less in recovery around my hyperproductive leanings, I sometimes still catch myself believing that the only way to get what I want is by doing stuff, pretty much always, or that the only way to feel okay is to be in energies of movement and activation all the time, even when I know it would be better to let go and relax.

One of the things that has since helped me change and heal is reconnecting with my embodied self and remembering that I am an organic creature, not the disembodied machine that capitalism tries to make of me.

I remember the natural world. I think of a garden. There’s action that needs to happen: planting, tending, harvesting. And in between: a whole lot of empty space for mysterious processes of growth, alchemy, and creation that make happen what is far beyond my power.

A relentless stream of action and force will kill any life form. And it is not the way I want to live.

Nature needs empty spaces of unfoldment, and so do we - often more than feels comfortable and okay, given our cultural inheritance.

Just like the plants and the seasons, we need time and space for the magic to do its work on and in us - to let go and surrender to what we have no say in managing or controlling.

So I try to remember that it is not all up to me. I have my part to play, and my action matters, but so does my rest and my participation in emptiness and stillness. And beyond and within me, there is a whole web of being and existence that carries me along too.