Differently from those who want to determine your thoughts.
Differently from those whom you have to please.
Differently from those who have taken it on themselves to be your thought and belief police.
Differently too….. from the very thoughts that cloud your vision of who your thoughts say you are.
Differently too from the programming of those thoughts, and their effects.
You….in your youness…. can choose.
You…. in your youness …..have freedom
You ….in your youness are separate from the thoughts
Pause. Between the stimulus and the response (Victor Frankl)
You can put that pause there.
Right now, you can choose to look out of your window and think about what you see…. whether thats a tree, a building or a cloud.
You have that freedom. The gap is yours. The gap….might be you.
Until that point of knowing… the thoughts that you didnt realise are doing it are shaping you…..yet…..when….then….all of a sudden….. theres a you emerging beyond, before and within thought.
Consciousness spilling into the poignant pause, and you can, truly can….listen to the pause.
Could be the constant beating of your heart, that often goes unnoticed…. appreciate it, it’s phenomenal
Could be the feeling of when your fingers touch each other, and then you make a circle with your arms that could be a self hug or a pathway for sparkles around you…play!
Notice in that moment.
You
Could be the feeling now as you smile inside
Thinking of the sparkles going around your arms
Or your heart beat pumping love around
Like dancing unicorns on a bed of rainbows.
For
You are love
And you are powerful
And you can imagine the beauty of yourself
Your body
Your feelings and your imagination
Remember your immensity
Remember that you’re beautiful
Don’t take my word for it.
Take yours
Accept it from yourself.
Slow remembering
And even if you go as fast as you can today, not everything will get done..it just won’t, and that’s not the point. That list isn’t you, any more accurately that the swarms around us all try and keep us from feeling important.
As I stood and looked at this scene just before Christmas, the thing I noticed was the gaps.
Gaps.
Intentional spaces between a barrier, or border, space left open.
A navigation tool, and opening to see from distance to walk towards.
To follow.
To trust.
To know that you are on a path (though might not always be the right one ;-) )
And at the start of the new year, the year starts with the gap of opportunity. The gap of unlived promise, desires to be awakened, space to be filled.
Yet…
What, if I’m honest, do I struggle with most?
Often it’s the gap between expectation and reality, the expectations in my thoughts, and the reality of the experiences, what actually is happening, or going to and being unable to have open acceptance. Too little a gap between them, to much mind going on in the swirl of the every experience.
Or the noise in my mind when I think I’m in trouble, or upset someone , or not done enough, or guilt about any of these things and the filling of the space happens….yet….
Or even deciding to make that gap, because it’s sometimes so much more comfortable to fill it, even when that inner discomfort is saying otherwise. Because, I can decide, I have more power than I realise.
What space might we make for the gap, that space between things and no-things.
To sense and make a space between expectations and realities, and not feel disappointment, but to notice that what is as a gift.
The gap is open, it is air.
It may be time to breathe in the gap.
To make space to dwell in presence, and not productivity.
The Slow time of betweenness where silence calls its disturbing, and also peaceful voice.
Space for Space itself
The invitational promise of the gap
That focussed the mind on consciousness itself
To wonder
To be
To imagine
The gap between thought and feeling
Between longing and belonging
Where we find God, being, freedom or Love
Where we sense that mystical indescribable something, close.
Just there.
Always.
Like the empty pages of this years diary, or the gaps between the notes in a music score.
Notice.
The Gap.
And, let the Gap call you forward.
Take your time this year.
Move slowly.
And decide to go there.
To give that energy inwards
And let it find you.
Because it’s there.
And there may you be embraced by peace.
Time, to be, time to sit,
stay there…as long as you can dwell.
This has been inspired by my current reading which is ‘Living Untethered’ by Michael A Singer, his previous book ‘The Untethered Soul’ is one I highly recommend, on seeing, feeling and noticing the mind, and how to live in personal freedom.
James Ballantyne 