Space in Between

Living in the age of technology has offered us tremendous opportunity to expand our creativity and education. This electronic world can bring us many challenges in our daily lives. We scan and review thousands of messages from a variety of sources. Ultimately, we decide how we feel about each one of them. Keep, delete, save, like, comment - all are at the core of our daily interaction and another outlet to arouse our emotions.

Information offered through social media and news sites filter in - in record speed we are determining our feeling on these daily subjects. Our judgements become quickly - offended or liked.

Most of us have a responsibility to make a living, raise children, feed ourselves, seek education, keep our personal space clean - all on a daily basis. Just these duties alone can become an overwhelming combination.

Once the mind is set on course to keep up with the day’s events, the quality of our personal relationships can be challenged as pressures increase. Eventually even our closest relationships end up a challenge as we pick up speed to resolve issues to maintain our lives. Yet there is time to hang our emotions out on random distractions that filter in through the messages we did not plan on addressing during the day.

One of the tried and true methods for centuries and practiced in cultures worldwide is the calming of one’s mind - to slow down one’s thinking. To engage in our lives in a deliberate way and to navigate with less judgements and attachments to the distractions filtering in. Much of the narrative we read or hear we might not have given a second thought when we woke up in the morning – yet they can fester in our minds.

Once one slows the mind down, we find the gap. It is where a clear mind and clear heart begins. The space in between to keep our personal relationships with ourselves and others in good order; how we respond to what is pressing in our world. It gives us an opportunity to choose not to respond immediately and it loosens the attachment to an idea. We begin to say, “hmm, I need to think about how I feel about this.” Or we ask ourselves, “is this important to me?” We give so many subjects life even with the little time we have to offer, it can redirect our attention away from what is actually important to us. Like the wind, we can pick up speed in whichever direction we focus our energy on. When we do it can do damage in our path. The key to the space in between is to keep a moderate speed in your thinking and most importantly know which direction you want to go.