Space: we all want and need it yet seem to find it quite diminished and elusive in the routine day-to-day. I live in Norfolk, a far cry from my many years in bustling, brilliant London. I am literally surrounded by wide open spaces in the form of beautiful, undulating fields. Furthermore, I’m largely work-free for the next couple of months which feels totally decadent but, like anyone, can still feel hemmed in by life, commitments and the constraints of my inner landscape (unruly, often).
Space and the feeling of spaciousness is not a given, even when life is constructed in the most conducive of circumstances. It needs to be mindfully created. Usually when we don’t have time for it, we badly need it the most. I walk. A lot. I find the rhythm of a long, directionless amble freeing. It gives me ‘space to think’ and ‘space to breathe’ but, practically speaking, luxuriating in this kind of strategy is often not possible when it really counts. On compressive, stressful and by far too busy days such as those, I force (have trained?) myself to remember the potency of a simple pause. A brief stop in the maelstrom, an inhale, subsequent exhale and a silent reminder to myself to ‘create the space’. Space is created in awareness. Awareness can take less than a second.
I try not to be overly prescriptive when teaching yoga. Primarily because I don’t much like being told what to do myself but also due to the keen awareness that no one thing works for or resonates with everyone. It can, however, be worth building up a little reservoir of personally helpful practices and remembering that, sometimes, just the simple acknowledgement of the thing that we are in need of can be enough to allow something to shift and create the next space for us to move into.