How do you describe emptiness? How do I wrap words around the peaceful space I have been opening to since being diagnosed with breast cancer last August? Language seems inadequate to translate something so vast and limitless. My experience has been one of emptying out, sometimes called “dying unto yourself” in spiritual traditions. The dissolving of past identities, opinions, questions, expectations, fears, hopes, disappointments. All the parts of our selves that we accumulate over a lifetime and don’t even realize we carry around with us. Gradually, day by day, week by week, pieces fell away. No grief was involved; it was a lifting off, a lightening. Space opened up within me. I felt increasingly empty, but with no sense of loss or regret. In many ways, it was like opening the door to my soul, which was a room without walls filled with nothing but light. I observed all this without any particular emotional response. It was just happening, peacefully.

Have you ever come home from a long day only to feel more exhausted when you step inside your messy house? Science can explain why you find clutter so frazzling.

I've Been Thinking...

“Busy is back,” the news blared. “Mask mandates are over. Airports are jammed.

Planes are packed. Billionaires are going to space. People are partying like it’s the ‘20s.”

Wow. As I heard all that this week, I could feel my anxiety rise.

Then the next story blared, “Vaccination rates are plummeting. People are stressed about returning to work. Some are refusing to even return at all.”

“We are,” the anchor said, “in uncharted territory.”

A coaching client recently shared her concern of holding space for everyone in a yoga class. She was preparing to lead a series of classes abroad. My initial response; she was not solely responsible for the energy in a collective space. This mental picture has stuck in my mind.

Most of us can relate to the desire of holding space for others. We want to help our tribe feel safe and loved. Similar to a yoga teacher, maybe the greatest gift we can offer, is showing our branch of humanity, how to create and maintain their own sacred space. We can do this for our families, friends and even strangers.

Before I hold group meditations, I fill the space with love and gratitude. I welcome in our guides and all forms of love and inspiration into the space we will collectively be sharing. My intention is that everyone will experience the presence of peace, love and gratitude during the meditation. I imagine many yoga teachers do something similar. We are really just creating a place for people to slow down, and open up to the unseen. Once the connection is made, it is always available. Peace and love can be pulled into any situation, no yoga mat required.

I seem to be living on the edge in my life. By that, I don’t mean hanging precariously in a danger zone. I mean delicately balanced between one paradigm and another, old and new, memory and present, personality and soul. Actually, the truer description is that my soul is fully present in the new paradigm, and “I” am increasingly aligned with that pure being-ness, observing remnants of old memories floating by me. I have a sense that this is where many of us are now, as the world “turns upside-down” all around us, and we step over the edge of certainty into mystery, and beyond. We are learning to live from an awareness and a soul presence that is continuously evolving.

 

Spiritual and self-help programs have counseled people for years to “let go and let God.” Wise advice. When you let go of everything (literally, everything), that very letting go creates an empty space in which you are inviting God to come in. The letting go is actually a welcoming, an open door for divine presence. At times of uncertainty or stress, it can be hard to remember this, but that wisdom, if relaxed into, can cut the cord that holds you to fear-based trying and replace it with the gentleness of allowing. On the level of egoic effort, nothing happens but straining and frustration. On the level of soulful surrender, all is flowing and perfectly unfolding.

I said goodbye to a noisy friend yesterday. I had to finally let go because being around them made it too hard for me to think. They filled my head with so many stories of the past it’s been next to impossible to allow anything new to form in my head.