Making Space for Healing

Healing is often less about the action we take + more about the space we create.

There’s a place for action, of course -- but in my experience, doing (+ the idea that doing is the only way I fix things + make progress) can often get in the way, blocking the energy that needs to move through me in weird, wild, and unpredictable ways.

Earlier this week, I talked to my therapist about the insurrection, and the session was mostly my incoherent rambling.

I acknowledged at one point in our conversation that my all-over-the-place ranting reflected the jumbled + not-at-all-put-together state of my psyche at the moment.

And he simply responded by saying that my jumbled psyche was exactly what we were there to explore + make room for.

So I kept talking + shaking + feeling + ranting -- and it helped. It created flow + cleared space.

And space + flow were what I needed.

In my experience, an action plan -- especially in situations like these -- is often my attempt to control + repress my primal energies + embodied instincts that actually need to move + unfold in ways that aren’t at all linear or rational.

Because what’s alive inside of us carries deep, healing power -- especially when we let it do its work + magic in us.

How might you trust + make space for what’s real + alive within you? How might you welcome the healing powers of your deepest, truest energies?

The Power in Nothing

Sometimes, the most powerful and productive thing we can do is nothing.

Sometimes it’s better to let a question sit in empty space, open and unanswered, rather than rushing to an answer.

Sometimes it’s more useful to allow the energy inside of us - in forms of emotion, discomfort, desire, or knowing - to just be as they are for right now.

Sometimes, it’s the right thing to let uncertainty change us rather than pushing forward to change uncertainty.

I’m someone who loves being a free agent and an active, powerful participant in my own life, and I also see the magic of waiting, sitting, and holding space for what’s present, real, unsettled, unknowable, overwhelming, and/or uncertain.

Space, emptiness, stillness, allowing, and quiet are powerful forces, and sometimes, the best medicine and most powerful catalyst for what we need in the moment.

What sort of medicine and power is your soul most yearning for right now? And what might it mean to give that to yourself?

Restoring Balance and Flow in Burnout

I want to talk about burnout – those times when we burn through our attention, energy, physical capacity, and emotional labor faster than our systems can replenish these finite resources.  One of my clients calls this “feeling crispy,” which illustrates perfectly how burnout can leave us feeling like withered, ashen shells of our formerly energetic and vibrant selves.

When I feel burned out, I feel a sort of dead, numb flatness, as though my body has shut down its normal operations to in order to deal with crisis mode.  My rhythms feel out of whack, the things that normally give me energy feel lifeless and inaccessible, and my creativity, art, and spiritual practice lose their vibrancy (actually, they probably don’t, but in my state of burnout, I just can’t access it in the same way).

Burnout can show up in all sorts of ways and for all sorts of reasons, but in the end, it all comes down to giving, spending, and burning past the point of regenerative flow, balanced wellness, and baseline okayness.

And this is hard. Because often, we simply do not have enough energy to do all the things we want or need to do (or that others around us want or expect us to do). We have finite resources, and there are all sorts of factors that determine what we’re starting with in terms of energy and fuel.

And because we have limits and because life sometimes feels more like a flash-fire of frenetic fury than a peaceful stroll in the park, it can be useful to have a safety-wellness plan at the ready to address the hazards and realities of being an active, busy, engaged human in the world with limited stores of energy.

So here are some practices - through the lens of the four elements - that have been helpful for me in managing burnout and restoring my energy, groundedness, and vitality in active and fiery times.

1) Welcome watery flow (both literally and figuratively).  Water has a calming, soothing quality. Drinking water, relaxing in or near water, watching the waves, rapids, and rain, or sharing space with the vastness of the ocean can all bring this energy into our lives and alleviate some of the rigid, arid, crispy feelings that come with burnout. Allowing the watery flow of our emotions is also a supportive practice. How might you welcome whatever is flowing through you? How might you make space for feelings of frustration, annoyance, grief, and confusion? How might you invite fluidity and flow into your being? In a space of burnout, it can be super helpful to keep our life force moving and flowing however we can.  Sometimes this means resting, crying, free writing, taking a walk, or talking it out with a friend - anything to stay connected with the aliveness happening inside us through our emotions, movements, and energies.

2) Get earthy. Part of what burnout does is disconnect us from the slower rhythms of our earthy, embodied selves.  Engaging and tending to our bodies through movement, meditation, stillness, or nourishment are all ways to bring the earth element back into balance.  Other practices might include walking or sitting in nature, planting a garden, doing yoga, talking to the trees, or spending some time with your dog, cat, or houseplants.  

3) Embrace empty space.  One way to invite the air element is to create spaces of openness and emptiness where things are allowed to be unformed, unstructured, and unsettled.  Open, empty space in our schedules, our homes, our minds, and our lives allows us to rest, restore ourselves, and welcome a new possibility. Here are some ideas: look up at the sky, feel your presence in the vastness of the Universe, schedule times to do nothing.  How might you give yourself space, clear out the clutter, and let yourself rest in the open, empty mystery?

4. Engage fire in a sustainable way.  If you’re struggling with burnout, you may feel ready to be done with fire (and all things hot and burning) altogether, but fire is an elemental quality that offers essential energies for a balanced life.  So how might you burn the fires of your passion, creativity, effort, and movement in safe and supportive ways? (also being mindful of the fuel you need to support it.) What sparks of interest, adventure, and curiosity want to become more and are worthy investments of your energy?  

So I would encourage you to check-in with yourself.  Which of these elemental frequencies would be most supportive for restoring balance and flow in the midst of burnout?  How might you make space for what you need in times when you feel depleted?

To support this process, I created a meditative visualization to guide you through welcoming each of the 4 elements (with a bonus element too) as a way to discern what would be most supportive to you right now, which you can find here.

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?

Take up Space!

There’s a great scene in “Knock Down the House” – a Netflix documentary that follows 4 women running for Congress in 2018 – where Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is preparing for a debate against her opponent, Joe Crowley, the district’s incumbent of 20 years. 

She sets down her notes and says, “I need to take up space,” as she reaches out and waves her arms.  She takes a deep breath and says, “I am experienced enough to do this; I am prepared enough, mature enough, and brave enough to do this.  And this whole time, he’s going to tell me I can’t do this – that I’m small, little, young, inexperienced,” and then she extends her arms with a sharp exhale, as though she’s pushing all of that away from her.

I love this scene because moments later in the debate, you feel only the strength of her energy and presence.  You would never guess that she felt anything other than confident and ready for the moment.

I love that we see her fear, uncertainty, and vulnerability but then also see her step through all of it to claim her place on the world stage.

Watching her process reminded me that it takes copious amounts of inner work, energy management, self-talk, and intentional practice to build a capacity to command energy and take up space like that.  It takes staring down your terror, building belief, and staying devoted to your deep reasons.

For Alex, the world benefited enormously from her willingness to take up space, but it didn’t give her that permission.  Even as others encouraged her, she had to be the one to believe she deserved to be there and then step up and forward to claim it.

All of this was a reminder, inspiration, and challenge for me.  And that’s the beautiful thing about taking up space and claiming your bigness: it inspires other people to do the same.  And that is a gift for the world. 

Setting Boundaries and Investing in Possibility

I think about boundaries a lot.  It’s a topic that often comes up in my workplace and with coaching clients.  And it’s something I track closely in my own life and experience: am I protecting my space and energy?  Do I have what I most need?  Am I starting to feel overwhelmed or resentful and need to readjust?

Saying no not only helps me eliminate what I do not want in life; it also fortifies the energy, experiences, and relationships I do want.  In other words, boundaries are not only a no; they are also a yes.

Boundaries not only build walls of protection around our safety and wellbeing; they can also push us into spaces of unknown, open possibility in which we’re asked to imagine, create, and seek out what we want.

In this sense, boundaries are a leap of faith.  Saying no to what is familiar and just good-enough so that we have the space to say yes to what truly dazzles and enlivens can feel like a risk.  It often is a risk.

But boundaries are investments in possibility.

And in cases like these, I try to remember that it’s okay, and actually essential, to use boundaries as tools to create empty spaces of uncertainty because those are also fertile spaces in which our dreams and desires get nourished, take root, and find ways to grow and expand into our lives.

Containers for Rightness

In matters of discerning and deciding, I’ve often been obsessed with getting to the “right” answer or choosing the “right” thing.

But I’ve found this approach to decision-making often devolves into chaotic flurries of mania, pressure, and obsession that, even if it all ends well enough, leaves me in a state of exhaustion and disarray.

So now rather than asking: is this right? - I ask myself this instead: is this a useful container for rightness?

Because I’m learning that most of the time rightness isn’t really found in external circumstances. Instead, rightness lives within me, within all of us - it is a frequency that inhabits the core of our realest selves and truest desires. Our task then is to find those spaces, containers, and portals that will hold that rightness, hum along with it, and reflect it back to us in ways that expand and enliven us.

Seeing it this way has lifted so much of the pressure I used to feel around “getting it right” - because actually, what I need to do first is connect with what already lives within me (and always will) and then explore and play to find those resonant matches and dynamic complements that will expand and deepen that rightness.

There are so many roads to destiny, connection, freedom, and truth - so many ways to love well, wander bravely, and live truly.

So rather than obsessing over which decision is the right one, I remember to live a big life, explore my edges, dive deep, seek out the sacred, set myself free, and create beauty - to focus there first and then ask myself which avenues will best support these projects and aspirations second.

In other words I ask: which directions, containers, and pathways will open up space for what I truly want to do and be in this lifetime? And more often than not, next steps seem to materialize and new roads tend to open from there.

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.

Our Inherent Unwastability

One of the fears I’ve had to work through in my life is the anxiety-producing story that I am always in danger of “wasting” something finite and precious, like time, money, or most worrisome of all: life itself.

This is an anxiety born of a particular worldview - that the whole of reality is bound by laws of linear time and finite space and that meaning is only ever created by how much we can get done within those parameters. Put together with capitalism - a system that places us in constant and ruthless competition, mandates productivity as way of being, and asks us to get from here to there in straight, efficient lines - it’s no surprise that scarcity fears run so rampant through the collective.

In one sense, there is truth to all of this. I do have a limited amount of time and resources that are mine to manage carefully and steward wisely.

But as I’ve come to see it, this is not the whole truth, and when scarcity becomes the entire story, we are allowed no margin for error and no space to breathe.

When I get caught up in these fears, I often stay small out of terror that any mistake will propel me out of my prescribed orbit and into uncharted mystery where I might - god forbid - have to spend extra time and energy navigating the unknown and excavating the unexpected.

So what I’ve been working through for myself and with clients is finding and connecting with what is unquantifiable. What I’ve found is that there is a truth, power, and life-force within each of us that is ultimately uncontainable, and therefore, unwastable.

We are whole and vast. And from this vantage point, all the detours, question marks, and empty spaces we dismissed as losses and wasted opportunities might actually be the keys to our becoming, deepening, soul’s alchemy.