Spaciousness.
I remember at the beginning of the year, when I was thinking about what I wanted to experience more of, the word that popped into my head was spaciousness. At the time, everything felt busy, like there wasn’t much of a buffer zone from one activity to the next.
To be honest, not much has changed; life is still busy and that zone hasn’t widened a whole lot. But I’ve come to redefine my ideas about spaciousness and realise what I actually craved was not so much a slowing down of life on the outside, but a slower sense of myself within it.
For one, I recognized that as it stands at the moment, I’m in the rush hour zone. Little people in my life for one, ideas for what I want to do and create, 3 horses. None of which I want to change. Instead, I’ve come to understand that spaciousness is a feeling state, and one that is assisted by small moments of not-doing, and a gradual whittling down of things that create mental clutter.
Social media and how I use my phone are one such example. Neither are inherently bad but engaging in them in a mindless way makes my head feel full. This feeling of fullness means that I have less capacity to engage in things that really matter and have created a level of internal pressure that doesn’t need to be there.
Intentionality in how you are using your time creates spaciousness. It creates definition from one moment to the next, and it’s that definition that allows for brief moments of pause. The pause is where the magic is; a momentary suspension that allows you to realign and recentre and to remind yourself everything you are doing is, in fact, a choice.
So, I’ve adjusted my understanding about what spaciousness really is to settle on this:
Spaciousness is carrying a feeling of expansion in the midst of closely packed action.
Onwards.
❤️ Jane
