Inner space is hard to make.

on embodying the introspective journey of embracing space and rest

I’ve had a lot of time these last couple of months to basically just watch myself.

Watch how maddeningly I rush from one pocket of time to the next. Watch how effortlessly I fill a previously open uncluttered day with random shit. Watch my inner martyr find unhinged freaky joy in an aesthetically pleasing mental to-do list. 

As it turns out…I’ve discovered that it’s much more on brand for me to chase space than it is for me to actually be in it…and so each day I watch myself casually creating something to begrudge and overcome so that the idea of the space I’m chasing on the other side of it can stay sparkly and dreamy.

And let me tell you what…I am an olympic fucking champion at turning “pick up a loaf of bread” or “order face cream off amazon '' into an urgent and highly prioritized activity. It’s blowing my mind to watch how effortlessly I can collect and line up these little tasks into a row of landing points I then use to leapfrog through my day.

I’m realizing that actually having space doesn’t feel nearly as good as my anticipation of space used to…and actually being present is far messier than I ever thought possible.

And so I catch myself obsessively filling time so I don’t have to come into contact with…well, with myself.

Truth? Real life space doesn’t look at all like the movie I scripted out in my mind. Whoever coined the phrase “space to breath” was a masochist. There is no extra un-efforted breathing happening. There is panic…and fear…and listlessness.

Space is like this deep dark scary pit of shame and guilt when you’re not used to having it. It’s all justifying that you’re allowed to be there, fumbling around for a bit until your eyes adjust, feeling anxious and unsettled by how quiet it is, trying to make the most of the time you have, spending a lot of it totally wrapped up in worrying about all the things you’re not doing because you’re in this fucking hole…and then beating yourself up when you’re yanked out because you you didn’t do any of the spiritual, soul nourishing shit you wanted to…

At least that’s been my experience. 

But the IDEA of quiet solitude…of enough space and time to just…be? Oh babyyy that is dreamy-as-fuuuck. All those relaxing weekend trips I’ve envisioned…naps I’ve scheduled…books I’ve saved in my kindle…date nights I’ve planned to get dressed up for…and countless meditation retreats, yoga classes and plans with friends I’ve mentally committed to months in advance…damn it all feels so good in my brain. 

So then I guess it makes sense why my brain is so stealth at keeping me floating in the anticipatory illusion of space instead of shattering the dream and experiencing the realness of it. 

I mean, don’t get me wrong. There are good intentions littered all around me…notes to sign up for a meditation retreat in a few weeks…a half-ish finished embroidery project…dharma books dog eared and suggestively placed with highlighters and crystals throughout the house ready to be poured into…there’s the tarot deck I bought a couple months ago taunting me from across the room…and that damn yoga class schedule I deliberately keep open on my laptop as a daily reminder that I am, in fact, not doing the thing I said I wanted to do…

…huh, maybe I’m the masochist.

Basically I’ve found myself lost in an existential limbo where I simultaneously judge anything restful I engage with as inconsequential…while also judging anything “productive” I do as resistance to resting.

I’m either present in it and it’s not enough or I’m not present in it and I “should” be.

So here’s what I’ve decided about it all.

I’m done romanticizing space and stillness and rest and time to myself.

The dreamy idea that we should be able to drop effortlessly into all of these super relaxing, self-indulgent soul-nourishing activities without a glimmer of struggle or guilt is so unfair.

Space and rest as a birthright is “new age”…its counter culture…it triggers our sense of worth, challenges our source of security and throws our identity into a tailspin. It asks us to let go and trust fall forward into this empty void without so much as a smudge candle showing us how to actually navigate once we find solid ground.

I think it’s totally okay that space feels hard to take…and even harder to enjoy.

I also think it’s normal to feel like our experience of rest rarely lives up to our dream of it. At least in the beginning until we can soften both the dream itself and our experience of the reality of it. 

I think we are being asked to start noticing when we are spiritually striving…and aim instead for good enough.

What if taking space is so damn hard because we can’t slow down enough to notice what’s actually hard about it?

What if it’s hard to rest only because we have a crazy high expectation about what it has to look like for it to be worthwhile?

And what if we made rest more accessible simply by allowing the shame spirals to happen without trying to heal them as fast as possible (because isn’t that just layering shame on top of shame anyways?)

What if we actually expected space and rest to feel hard…triggering…and uncomfortable…if we just did our best to seek nourishment from whatever sources we have available…be them energetic, emotional or tangible…without placing fault or blame when we simply don’t have full reserves in all three to offer ourselves the peak restful experience we constructed in our dream?

And so if that means you spend your time with a green juice, a yoga class, a long candle-lit soul shifting journaling session and an instagram inspired buddha bowl? I’m so happy for you.

…but if you decide to skip the shower and become a gremlin in front of Netflix for 8 hours instead? I’m equally happy for you. 

Today I skipped my long walk by the beach and my morning yoga session. I drank too much coffee and didn’t eat enough breakfast. 

But you know what…my house is smoky with my favorite incense I’ve been lighting and relighting all morning…I wrote things…and my soul feels content.

Good enough? I think so.

xx Laura