Practice: Gathering Space

This first practice – Gathering Space, is an exercise in liberating the imagination.

Consider the whole of your life in time and space. Consider your actions, your energy, your desires, your relationships, and your resources.

Good.

For the sake of this practice, let us imagine that everything is just right. Everything is in just the right place and qualtity — that you are in just the right place and quantity — knowing that just right doesn’t always mean easy, knowing that you may be on the edge of some new growth, feeling a bit like the whole-human equivalent of that painful sensation before a sneeze.

If things are not even close to just right in your world, I can understand that this practice might bring up a lot of pain. If you can, try to be curious. Where within you is feeling this pain. Is there pain in your body? Pain in your stories? Pain in the dischord between where you are and where you might feel safer or more valued or held with more care. Is the pain sharp or dull, prickly, or solid. How do you breathe with this pain?

Breathe into this pain and remind yourself that this is a place of imagination, a place of vision, and that you are in complete control here, in your imagination. See if you can observe the places where pain is not. Maybe there is a dullness here or there. Maybe there is a a joy or happiness that you have tucked away for yourself. Maybe there is some liberation buried under a lot of preconditions. If there is anywhere within that exists where pain is not, or where pain is shared among community, and embraced and understood, where pain is a point of connection and not disconnection, ask yourself what you can do to offer that place within you a little space today, and do just that.

Absolutely do not push yourself into further pain. If this activity arouses discomfort, back up a little, and then a little more, until you can find a relationship to it that feels supportive. Or thank yourself for taking a look at this practice and put it away, maybe today is not the day.

You are in charge of your own practice. This practice is written here as an offering, not a prescription, and I am not an expert of any kind. If something arises that needs doctoring or therapizing, I trust that you will take care of yourself and do just that.

You are the expert in you. You are worth the effort of your care and attention. You know just what to do.

Okay. So. Now we are imagining that the whole of our lives is just right. We can feel that just rightness all throughout us.

Now.

What parts of your life would like to gather a little more space around. You are gathering this space not so you can make yourself into something you are not, so imagined better you. You are gathering space as an offering to existing parts of your life in order to witness them more thoroughly, to hold them more compassionately.

What parts of your life are asking to be aired out and released?

You can do this once in a while, or every day, or several times per day. Whenever you do it, collect of your imagination all that you desire, but select One Big Thing to hold in the centre of your heart for some specified period of time. Currently, I do this once per day in the morning. But, I have been engaging with this practice for months. In the beginning, I had to adjust my One Big Thing quite frequently.

The surest indicator that you are resonating with this (or any other Gathering Space practice) is that you feel an activation when you try it out, and that activation feels desirable or energizing rather than an activation that feels overwhelmed. Or, for my fellow neurodiverse peeps, you are looking for a desirable activation that you would consider non-pathological, if you are feeling anxious, hypomanic, numb, self-harming in thoughts, words, imagination, or action – please support, or get the support you are needing in this moment, and dial back your practice to a place that feels good.

Again, I am not any kind of doctor, so don’t take my word for anything. You are the expert in you. For myself, as someone who is neurodiverse, I am so used to trying on different practices, whether exposed to them through therapy, or my own reading that I can dive really hard into them. When that happens, I feel discomfort in my body mind and I try two things. First, I ask myself: what brain chemicals are firing. The chemicals for anxiety and excitement are really similar, for example. Can I switch from my habitual way of interpreting those chemicals to a more desirable way of experiencing those chemicals. Second, I try to pull back, sometimes way back. I have a little zebra succulent named Alan, after my friend Alan, and also after that YouTube Alan groundhog video, I always feel good there. If I need to, I pull all the way back to Alan, whom I love, and who is a source of unconditional support and positive regard, and go from there.

Again. It is totally cool if this is not your day or this is not your practice. There will be a bajillion-trillion other options. And it is okay, also, if you want to work your edge.

You are the expert in you. You know just the right amount of push.

For some folks, activated as-in: energized will feel very get-up-and-go. For some folks energized will be spread out and slow. Some will feel a lifting, others will feel a comfort. Some will have it in a flicker. Some will feel a sustaining support.

If it feels like more in a desirable way, if it helps you feel more possible, that is the direction you want to aim your practice. You can have One Big Thing for the day, you can Gather Space and record hundreds of Big Things that you want to work with and be curious about.

You know exactly how to practice. And if practice isn’t working, you know just how to shift it.

The important thing is that you practice with care and kindness.

You are worthy of care and of kindness.

Gathering Space may not be easy, but it is meant to feel easeful.

May the space you gather help access the love, compassion, and courage of your whole heart.