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?

The Comforts of Uncertainty

In recent years, uncertainty has become one of my greatest comforts. I find so much relief in reminding myself of all I do not know.

Mystery has become a pathway to peace.

My mind (like yours perhaps) loves projecting, predicting, and catastrophizing. It loves looking at a frustating situation, hard moment, or painful truth and spinning and extending it into distrous visions of cataclysmic ruin.

Left to its own devices, my mind usually opts away from the reasonable, low-drama approach. We’ve had to work hard together to get to any measure of calm composure and grounded equanimity.

And while its talents for creating patterns, making judgments, and crafting predictions have been immeasurably helpful in all sorts of ways, my mind often needs to be reminded that it is not the omnipotent power it presumes to be.

So this is what I do to help it along: I remind myself that every thought I think and every idea I believe is less than the absolute truth (because my mind does not have access to absolute truth). I remind myself that there are gaps – often significant ones – in my stories, beliefs, and predictions. I remember that interpretations of reality and actual reality are two very different things. I remind myself that I can never know for sure what will be real in 5 years, 5 weeks, or 5 minutes.

An important note: uncertainty is not denial. In other words, uncertainty does not refute what’s real or bypass what’s hard. It doesn’t say: I can never know anything, so I’m just going to opt out and ignore reality. It simply says: I do not and cannot know the whole story. I cannot know the future of what is now. And I cannot grasp the whole of reality in all its complexity, possibility, and dimensionality.

Which brings my energy and attention back to what is here for me now: in this moment of time and location in space.

Since I cannot know how the story ends, I am left with presence, mystery, and an open space where the only real and necessary thing is how I choose to live these questions: what will I do, and who will I be in this moment before me now?