Every time I have added space into my life, every time I have dared to let go, great things have followed. Amazing things, in fact. When I have let go of the crippling feeling of trying to fill any hole within me left by the past, I have stepped into a space of freedom and creativity. But the creativity and freedom never came easy. It was always a struggle to let go, to allow there to be emptiness and space around me, and trusting that life would indeed carry me further.
It was a struggle to let go of my marriage, but it needed to be let loose. Few years after that it was a struggle to start letting go of all the physical things I had gathered around me, and to create space into my life, literally. But once I started, it got easier and easier. The more space there was, the more space I craved for. The more freedom I felt. At the end I was sitting in the middle of my empty apartment, after ridding myself of all things heavy, and I felt so incredibly light. I moved to another country, and had so much space around me. Space in my tiny apartement, space in my calendar, space in my evenings to wonder around and get lost. It was fantastic, because anything could happen.
Clean your house, clean your soul
We are becoming obsessed with organizing and cleaning out our houses, organizing because we realize we feel better because of it. The habit of accumulation is most evident when you move house. The amount of crap that is coming at you from all closets and drawers never seems to end. But we only seem to notice this when we have to clear everything out. Majority of the things we own, or carry within us internally, are not even needed. They are just gathering dust, taking space. So we organize and through away, wondering how we ever lived in such a mess to begin with.
The same mess is within us, and the same method can be used internally. We ought to take everything out regularly, rid ourselves of the useless knickknacks we carry around, enjoy the space it creates, and then carefully assess what we allow to come back. Taking each item, looking at it, feeling it, and deciding – is this necessary for me, or could I live without it?
All the things that are light and free
The past few months have I have tried to do just that. To add space into my life by letting go of things. And by things I mean tasks, friendships, demands, to-do-lists and obligations. Anything that felt like a task, I let go. I wanted to re-assess anything and everything in my life. I tried to be more gentle with myself, tried to recognize things that felt good, creating more space and time to do nothing and allow myself to relax. I took an inventory of my life, and realized that it was full of things I supposedly should do. So I stopped doing all of them, and watched what happened.
It was uncomfortable, mainly because I was not used to NOT doing things, or having so much space and openness.
I stopped doing yoga, because it felt like I SHOULD do it. I stopped working so hard, and observed my mind yap on about how useless and unproductive I was. Never mind I was happier, but my ego felt useless with all that space. I finally let go of some of my friendships, a space I was most afraid of creating in my life. Because if I was to let go of some people (who did not really fit anymore), would I be alone for the rest of my life? Who would be left when all these people were gone? I thought maybe I should compromise, understand and try once more? But I decided I didn’t need to. I would just let go, because in order to attract something good into my life, something new, there needed to be space. So I let go of the old and stale, and embraced the promise of something new.
And of course the universe delivered. There was space in my life, and as soon as I got used to the space, there was faith in my life. That’s when those empty spaces started to fill up with new things, better things. New people came into my life, people who had far better intentions for me than anyone I had known for +10 years. New ideas came to change me, to develop me, and new habits developed which made me feel more energized and alive.
And then, there was the desire to do yoga again. I didn’t have to, I really, really wanted to.
“I have waited a long time for you”, I told my yogic self. “But I knew you would not leave me.”
I suppose like anyone it also needed to feel the freedom and acceptance instead of tightness and rules.
And so I go on with the rest of my life as well. I wait until it feels good, until there is joy and lightness. That will tell me the time is right.
