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Recently, my husband and I re-watched the movie To Kill a Mockingbird. Based on Harper Lee’s novel and set in the 1930's, the story revolves around a Southern lawyer and widower, Atticus Finch, raising his daughter Scout and son Jem to value a simple, yet meaningful life.
Just Sitting Here Watching the Wheels Go Round and Round
In the film, we see Scout wiling away an evening, laying on the floor of her porch with her feet on a rocking chair. She’s thinking…about her life and the people who inhabit it. Watching Scout, Jem and their friend Dill (no relation) play outside and tell stories, I vicariously enjoyed the contentment that comes with these simple pleasures.
It’s not just the rose-colored glasses of memory that suggest that life’s just a little too complicated these days. Most Americans are rich by world standards. Still, most of us are more anxious than ever about politics and the things that come through our screens. While most of us enjoy connecting, learning and playing on our gadgets, we also feel that social media can be a negative space and that being “always on” our phones is a strain.
Finding Your Wide Open Space
Recently, my yoga teacher, Cynthia Haas, shared how she’d complained to her teacher that her mind, her emotions--and her living room, garage, etc.--felt terribly cluttered. Cynthia was coping with a brain injury she’d received in a car accident, and her cluttered house and garage resulted from her physical limitations. When Cynthia complained at the mounting mess, her teacher said, “But your [yoga] mat is not a mess.”
What clutters our minds can come from many sources: 24-hour bad news, social media misinformation, or the stress of feeling like there are too many demands in our over-busy lives. If you practice yoga, then you’ll know what I mean by the clarity and serenity of your uncluttered mat. For more on that, you can read Cynthia’s blog entry on the subject: Not a Mess
Open Minds are Powerful
The power of finding space in your mind and your life cannot be underestimated. The simple things are often the most profound. From a Machiavellian perspective, clarity of mind gives you an edge over almost everyone else who has not found it. Beyond competitive motives, finding open space where you are away from gadgets, distractions and stressors will change your life.
Find Your Space
Finding mental and emotional space can happen on a yoga mat or a meditation cushion, definitely. But it can be found a thousand other places. Where do you find your open space?
Do you find it in a swimming pool, on a tennis court, taking a walk in the forest or on the beach? Do you find it driving, showering, painting or cooking? Space can take many forms. I’ve mentioned some natural, athletic, and artistic spaces, among others. But space can be auditory, visual, kinesthetic…space is unlimited.
Not Working
Recently, I read a review of Josh Cohen’s book Not Working: Why We Have to Stop. The book argues something similar to Cynthia’s idea of finding space: that we need ...absolutely need...open time. If we don’t have it, our work actually suffers. More importantly, our quality of life suffers. I found it ironic that, Rachel Cooke, the journalist reviewing the book, utterly rejected the idea that she’d be capable of following Cohen's advice. She writes (Cooke, 2019, para. 10), “It is very nice – comforting, even – to be told that it’s OK to stop, even if such a strategy is, for you, impossible.”
One thing I’ve learned as a psychologist who coaches people to do difficult things is that people often stumble when they convince themselves that they can't meet a goal because the next step is "impossible." Of course, there are things we literally can't do or don’t choose to do; that’s not what I mean. It's amazing how often we know what we need to do, and we actually could do it, but we are utterly convinced that we can't. We say it's "impossible," and we focus on just how impossible it is. Well, many times, it is not impossible. In fact, if you find yourself thinking that you WANT to do something, but it's IMPOSSIBLE, try asking yourself, "What if I just do it anyway?"
In modern times, that might be something as simple as thinking that you absolutely can't turn your phone off for an evening, or you can't master a new skill. This is a complex topic, with facets outside the subject of this blog entry. For the present, I'll say that finding open space in your life a) can be done and b) will likely pay you high dividends.
Open a Space, Show Up, and See What Happens
When I think about the time I spend on my yoga mat, I am flooded with gratitude. Cynthia’s garage may be a mess, but she’s made a profound difference in my life. She didn’t tell herself that she absolutely can’t do something that seemed hard (though she probably wanted to). She continued to show up on her yoga mat after a car accident and brain injury. She taught her students, like me, how to unclutter our minds, accept ourselves as we are, and build strength, flexibility and balance. We could all learn a lot from that lady with the messy garage.
References
Review of Not Working:
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/jan/08/not-working-why-we-have-t…
