Creating Spaciousness
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(Lose the Net by Rasmus Faber Courtesy of Epidemic Music)
Isn’t it amazing how good questions lead us so naturally to good answers, and how beautiful questions lead to even better answers! When we open ourselves to the things we don’t know, we’ve opened the doors to discovery and wonder and greater understanding.
I’m Scott Lennox and you’re listening to The Beautiful Question, a consideration of things that matter every day.
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In today’s episode, we’ll consider ways of creating greater spaciousness for ourselves, physically, mentally, emotionally, and socially.
Join me as we look at a few real and effective steps we can take to give ourselves the spaciousness we need to live well, regardless of what’s happening around us. Stay with me.
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The day I announced that The Beautiful Question will now be published every two weeks, I received a number of positive responses. One of the most encouraging was from my good friend Rhonda Fabian, editor of Kosmos Quarterly. When she congratulated me for “creating greater spaciousness” in my life, that phrase resonated so strongly with me that it set my mind in motion in beautiful ways.
Isn’t it fascinating what the right words can catalyze?
By the way, if you’re listening to this on The Beautiful Question website, you can see the spectacular accompanying photograph that was taken by my friend Mike Field from the quiet spaciousness of the lakeside dock behind his Texas home. Thank you, Mike, for your permission to use the image and for your unwavering friendship.
Photo: Mike Field
So, for the past week, I’ve been considering different implications of the word “spaciousness,” and I’ve been pondering ways I can be even more intentional about creating openness and space around me and within me. Spaciousness in the place where I work and create. Spaciousness in my consciousness. Spaciousness in my emotions. Spaciousness in my relationships with other people. And without question, spaciousness in the ways I carry myself through the world.
I asked myself what things I can do right here—here where I live and work, beginning with my studio and writing space. A couple of days later, with the help of a friend who has a remarkable eye for balance and beauty and arrangement, we spent the better part of a day reorganizing the studio, stripping away things that weren’t necessary and carefully arranging the things that are useful to my process, mindfully placing them in ways that are both functional and pleasing to the eye.
The resulting freshness gives the room a breathability and a quiet sense of “Ahhh!” Now, each time I walk into the room or sit there writing or in meetings with clients in weekly online sessions, I can feel a palpable difference.
Not surprisingly, creating spaciousness in the studio opened a spaciousness in my mind and heart much like one might experience in a formal meditation space.
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That one remarkably enlivening change has caused me to ask what other spaciousness we might create for ourselves.
For example, what mental clutter do we carry around with us? What repetitive thoughts are always in our way and aren’t serving us at all? What ideas have we mindlessly tucked away or stuffed away or left strewn around, leaving them to whisper in the back of our heads? What clutter of thoughts do we replay over and over that interrupt our ability to think clearly or be fully aware of the present moment?
Some of the common ones are, “I’m not good enough.” “Good things never last for me.” “What’s wrong with me?” Or that old standby, “It’s all my fault!” Others include the things someone else said to us that stung in the moment and keep on stinging every time we replay them.
So, let’s look at effective solutions. Once we’ve noticed what the thoughts are, do we need to put other thoughts in their place? Or might it be much more useful to simply breathe as we release the old thought and put nothing at all in its place. After all, is another thought really needed? Does more thinking help us reach our goals of peace and calm and a more spacious mind? Or are peace and calm and being present in the moment the natural result of the spaciousness that comes when we let go of the mental clutter and gently and intentionally sweep it away?
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And then there’s the matter of creating emotional spaciousness. Naturally, I can’t presume to speak for you. But speaking for myself, I spent years feeling and re-feeling sadness and guilt and shame. I felt angry and afraid and lonely over and over and over. When I stopped to lean into those feelings and was willing to look at what was causing them, I discovered something that surprised me.
The feelings I was repeatedly experiencing had nothing to do with “the now.” They were based on experiences that ended a long, long time ago. Yet, how tenaciously I hung onto them, cluttering my emotions with them the way a hoarder refuses to release old things, stacking them everywhere until there’s no room to move around.
Healthy change came when I quietly and gently told myself, “Stop. I don’t need to feel that right now. Right here, right now, I’m okay.” Then, as I released myself from the habit of re-feeling those emotions, an emotional spaciousness opened quite naturally. And with it came a greater ability to feel the peace that is always available in the present. Creating that shift for ourselves is a choice that only we can make and only we can set into motion.
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And finally, that brings us to a subject many people find to be a touchy one, which is all the more reason to lean into it. Asking the beautiful question briefly and directly, what unnecessary or unhealthy relationships have we been holding onto that hurt us more than they help us to live well? Asking that another way, when you consider the people you’re keeping close to you, how many of those people have the same goals or focus or attitude about life that you do? How many of the are truly healthy for you? How many of them are supportive and encouraging? How many will tell you the truth without judging you? How many of them know how to stop and truly listen?
If they don’t have those qualities, are they just another form of clutter in your life, draining you of energy and time and joy. But as I ask that, I have to admit to a fierce personal bias that grew out of making far too many ineffective social choices in the past. The bias is a simple and self-protective one. “If I want drama, I’ll go to a play or watch a movie.” If we’re going to be in truly healthy relationships, drama won’t serve either one of us. Having people around us that act like emotional vampires certainly won’t serve us!
But hey… the choice has to be yours. If having unhealthy people around you is working well for you, my all means have at it. But if that isn’t working, what changes might serve you better? And whose life are you living and just exactly who are you living it for?
It’s exactly that kind of thinking that brings us to this week’s three Beautiful Questions. I hope you’ll take your time as you consider them. You’re worth living the best life you can.
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Question One: What unnecessary “clutter” do you find when you take the time to look at your life without judging it?
Question Two: What parts of that clutter can you let go of right now, regardless of what it is?
Question Three: What positive changes will naturally happen when you bring more spaciousness to your life?
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I hope this week’s questions serve to inspire you to create all the space you need to live in extraordinary ways. You deserve that.
As I say each week,
My Light with Your Light!
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I’m happy we can engage this way as we consider things that matter and what to do about them. If nothing else, I hope you feel inspired to look more deeply at ways of caring for yourself.
You can be further inspired by visiting my friends at Kosmos Journal. That’s K O S M O S Journal. Their mission is to inform, inspire, and engage global transformation in harmony with all life. You can easily find them online at Kosmos Journal dot O R G.
And at thebeautifulquestion.com, you can read the illustrated transcript of each podcast as you listen. We’ve also included an archive of all previous podcasts, including guided relaxation audios that can help you practice letting go on a daily basis.
If you find these podcasts useful, I encourage you to share them and tell others about them. That’s a great way of helping me get a voice of calm and collaboration and balance and encouragement out into the world.
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I’m Scott Lennox, and this has been The Beautiful Question.
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The Beautiful Question is a One Light production, written, produced, and engineered by Scott Lennox at HeartRock Studios in Fort Worth, Texas, as a way of paying forward to life, being fully present, becoming better engaged with things that truly matter in a complex world, and committing to a healthier future for all of us.