I have been thinking about space a lot recently, the space in my life and what occupies it. This SIGN appeared during conversations with several of my coaching clients and as I am prone to do, when a theme repeats in my life, I know it is a call to pay attention.
Here is an example of what the conversation has been about. You find yourself complaining about something that you really want to attract. This could be a new job or a new relationship. Despite this desire, and repeated work on the details, for example, the qualities and characteristics of a perfect mate, there are no signs that this person is showing up in your life.
At the same time you are registering this complaint about your current single status, you also notice that you are extraordinarily busy, with other friends, with your work, with life’s responsibilities. In other words, the space in your life is full.
I remember when I was involved in various change management processes back in my health care days. It was a time when we were shifting to program management. The chronic complaint from managers was the lack of time to take on all the new tasks required with this shift in focus. Part of the problem was the lack of understanding that, as you take on new responsibilities and the associated duties, you also have to release some of the things that you used to do that no longer serve a purpose. The difficulty was that people did not want to let go. It was the way things were always done, and like DNA, these tasks had become part of the fabric of each person’s working life. I can remember constantly using the analogy of the dinner plate and reminding others that the plate can only hold so much before things begin to fall off.
This was not time management, it was space management. Here I am once again, looking at this issue with others. The difference now is that space management is required for all aspects of life whether this has to do with your work and the inherent responsibilities, your relationships or even your spiritual care.
Melanie (not her real name) came to me with the following concern: “I want to know what my life means and what I am here to do.” As I coached her through an inventory regarding what currently takes up space in her life, she noted that she takes care of three men – her father, her husband and her son – in different ways. In addition she is the go to neighbor when anyone needs a ride somewhere or an errand run. Her days fill up, she is chronically busy, yet most of the activity is relatively meaningless to her. Despite wanting to understand the meaning of her life, this does not happen as there is no space left over for her.
I believe that to some degree we are all guilty of space invasions. Again, when I was in health care, I would often see on the daily OR list ‘removal of space occupying lesion’. These lesions were occasionally cancerous, but more often than not benign, slow growing tumors that simply took up space in the body. My own mother-in-law had two grapefruit size lesions removed from her ovaries in 2001. She looked about six months pregnant prior to the surgery. This was indeed a space occupying lesion (SOL). Similarly it has occurred to me that most of us have SOL’s of our own life, often not physical, frequently emotional or spiritual. Some examples: that old emotional baggage about how we were treated as a child, an old wound that never quite heals because we can’t forgive someone, an old belief system that serves no purpose today yet lingers around. You get the drift.
So what would it look like if you began to clear space in your life? This is the question I am currently resting with. Specifically I am curious about my work, what I have habitually been doing that no longer makes any difference and is simply a long term habit. I am asking myself what kinds of programs I have been offering and have on my website that no longer meet a need or are not in demand. What affiliations I have that may be tired. I can’t help but wonder what I could attract if I cleared some space. I am not clear at the moment what it is I want exactly, so I have set an intention that as I clear space I open doors to possibility and potentiality for things I cannot currently see and I attract all that is my highest good. I will keep you posted as to what shows up.
The important thing is to be curious and open-spirited, to be willing to stop and take a look at your life and to ask the important question: What SOL’s do I have in my life? You may find a few, some of which will be no surprise to you and others which may be unknown to you until you dig. Whatever they are, understand that SOL’s bind you up, leave no space, closing the door to opportunity. If something you really want is evading you at the moment, you need only ask, what is taking up all the space in my life that prevents the new from coming in?
Until next time….
Betty