How the space in and around you contains the seeds to healing

Feelings

Here’s what I noticed about them:

When I feel bad,

• My body begins to hurt. I’m more susceptible to illness. I get tired.
• I’m easily affected by negativity. I get easily triggered, angry, and judgy.

When I feel good,

• My ailments start to disappear.
• Children with runny noses can drool all over me and nothing happens.
• My digestion is forgiving, and I need less sleep.
• Negativity rolls off me like water on a duck’s back.

I’m not talking about the kind of feel-good that comes with a compliment, approval, or a new car. This type of feel-good can turn on a dime with just one criticism (or zero likes).

I’m talking about the feel-good that sustains. The one that comes from inside. From equanimity. The kind of feel-good…

• that can’t be rocked.
• that can celebrate the successes of others without feeling bad about myself.
• that can let go of the need to be right and also give others the benefit of doubt.
• that can sit with pain honestly without burdening said pain with a narrative that adds a toxic layer of identification, shame, blame, or justification to it.
• that understands that there is no good or bad, just what is.

Feeling authentically good is not a pollyannish notion.

In fact, it’s THE most realistic way of being that produces good health and relationships. Because in order to truly feel good, we must be present and in the moment to perceive the beauty, richness, and graces of life that makes us feel good… and connects and heals us from torment.

Everything else is illusion, and it severs us from ourselves and others. And ultimately makes us ill.

Healthy lifestyle practices support good health.

But it’s (less than) half the puzzle.

I’ve met many seekers along the wellness path who continually look for more ways to heal… and yet they still feel unwell. Why?

They are missing the other half of it.

• They are over-focused on their physical body: their symptoms.
• They are over-focused on their physical world: their circumstances.
• Their minds react to the physical body and world - positively and negatively, up and down - mistakenly believing that their thoughts and emotions, their symptoms and circumstances, are who they really are.
• When this happens, it doesn’t matter how well you eat and how much you exercise or read. Your body eventually catches up with you.

Herein lies the answer to why some people can drink and smoke to be 100 years old while others who run daily and eat heart healthy drop dead of a heart attack by 50.

They’ve forgotten the most important thing in self care. They’ve forgotten to look at the root of their symptoms. They’ve forgotten to heed their sense of deeper connection. They’ve forgotten to check in with their energy state.

Our energy state is determined by the thoughts and feelings that -

• tell our minds what to see in the world.
• tell our (obedient) bodies what to reflect back to us.
• When our energy state is incoherent, the world becomes incoherent, and the body goes into dis-ease.
• When our energy state is coherent, the body becomes at ease, heals, and comes alive.

I sometimes forget this too. It’s easy to forget…

• …in this political climate, and in a society addicted to news and social media. We get more divided, angry, judgy, and righteous. Instead of introspection, we focus on blame. This disconnects us.
• …in this culture, where moving fast is revered. We move so fast that we can barely remember why we’re doing what we’re doing, or what we want anymore. So we rely on external feedback (and the bottom line) rather than the intrinsic value of things. Pausing is required to recognize the truest of values, which connects us. Pausing doesn’t make us dumb. It makes us smart.

When I get sick or feel unhappy, I take this as my cue to remember this self care.

In holistic medicine, while it acknowledges the validity of germ theory, it leans deeper into terrain theory, which focuses on our internal terrain: our overall wellness - physical, mental, emotional, spiritual - and our immunity, or ability to prevent disease.

Terrain theory explains why when a sick person walks through the office, some of us get sick while others don’t.

I take my cues to look at my inner terrain; to re-examine my lifestyle choices, and most importantly, the energy I am creating within. Which impacts my lifestyle choices. Which impacts my energy…

My body’s cues implore me to break the cycle that would cause further deterioration.

• I pay close attention to my narratives, my own spin on things that happen in the world. We all spin. The more we insist we don’t, the more we probably do.
• When I get upset about something, I ask myself why I feel so threatened by it, and why I’m taking it so personally.
• I check in with the quality of my breath. 9 out of 10 people that used to come into my studio were reverse, shallow, and irregular breathers, which put them in continuous fight-or-flight mode, and in disharmony, breaking down their nervous systems and creating confusion. Correct (full, rhythmic, and diaphragmatic) breathing creates a relaxed-energized state where perception is clearer and life becomes easier to process.
• I remind myself that there is only ever the now. Right now, I’m blessed with all that I could ever truly want. I say this after having raised two amazing children who are living their dreams, and as I step into my next chapter focused on writing, traveling, and being with Larry, my life partner. And, I was able to say this when my children were much younger, and my marriage and financial assets imploded, and I wasn’t sure where my next rent payment would come from. By tapping into the now, the things that would have historically depressed me, like a grey cloud, now conjures up a deep appreciation for it. Being in the now doesn’t make you complacent or lazy, rather it makes you response-able with the appropriate level of urgency. It allows you to see synchronicity.
• When I’m not in a good place, I now know that it’s because I’ve forgotten the above, and that my inner terrain is suffering. When my inner terrain suffers, I become vulnerable to catching whatever virus is going around; or, I’ll unconsciously create my own aches and pains.

Space: the other half of the puzzle

Space is Energy.

Without space, we wouldn’t have life. We wouldn’t be able to experience anything.

• Take away the rests (aka space) between the notes in any symphony and even Rachmaninoff’s most brilliant Piano Concerto No. 3 in D Minor would sound chaotic.
• Take away the pauses in comedy and the joke wouldn’t land.
• Take away the silent space - the break from thinking - and we lose the present moment. We become less perceptive. Less appreciative. More agitated.

It’s not the content but the space that makes the difference. It’s not the content but the space that feeds intelligence.

Space contains massive energy. Unlimited potentiality. Non-judgement. Truth.

We manifest the “bad” and the “good” by filling this space with our energy.

The world is not our oyster. Space is. And the world becomes what we put out.

• Think and feel something bad, and space will conjure it up and reflect back at you something bad.
• Think and feel beauty, and space will deliver it in a nano-second.
• For this reason, you will always be right.
• Focus on the space itself for its own intrinsic value, and you will find clarity.
• When I’m searching for clarity, I no longer try to think myself into it. Instead, I surrender into the quiet and silent space. I don’t observe the content of my thoughts but the space itself.

Space contains the seeds to healing

It’s helpful to do the things you need to do to take care of yourself.

Just remember: the most essential part of self care is to bring your attention to this space…

• the space in between your thoughts: create lots of pauses. This is meditation.
• the space in between the things around you, in the room that you are in: notice its presence more than the things contained in the space. This brings you into the moment. Also meditation.
• the space in between your actions. Take pause before you react. Don’t pause to think or plan, but to be. This is mindfulness and will upgrade your trajectory.

Space is all around and within you. You can bring your attention to it at any moment and at any time.

It releases your need to do, do, do, manipulate, manipulate, manipulate, struggle, struggle struggle, and exhaust yourself and the people around you.

What is left can be described in a question:

What is there to do if there is no problem to solve… when there is nowhere to go, nothing to do, no one to become?

When you can sit with that, you will begin to heal. To feel whole.

From this place, you can create and grow authentically, because you are no longer desperate, lacking, insecure, hurting, or confused.

Space fills itself with the energy you bring to it.

Come to it, not for beauty or wealth, because these desires come paired with the experience of duality, the fear of aging and poverty. Come to it instead for its intrinsic value. Meaning, see the beauty and abundance in things as they already are.

Your experiences impact your beliefs.. which impact your reality.. which impact your trajectory.. which impact your beliefs..

You can choose how you want to experience something.

By choosing, you evoke your energy field to create in its likeness.

The highest tap is that of gratitude. It will raise your frequency to attract wellness.

Guided meditation

This meditation that I put together is inspired by Dr. Joe Dispenza’s meditations that help us tap into the power of space, and by Kundalini Yoga’s Ek Ong Kar meditation to balance the energy vortexes (aka chakras) which emanate from the different centers along your spine. Each of these energy centers are spaces, not visible by medical devices, just like the space in front of you, that govern different aspects of wellness. For instance, the first one, emanating from around the perineum, governs your sense of security and belonging. And so on. I will go through this in the meditation to help heal the different spaces within and around you.

In this meditation, when I say feel the space that it occupies, trust that the meaning of this will evolve over time, if you don’t know what this means. Try not to intellectualize anything. Get out of your head. Instead, simply follow the cues and take them in the best you can. You will experience the power of this meditation with much less effort by doing so.

Go to meditation.

(This link will take you to the home of this article. Scroll down to the end to find meditation.)

May we be happy, healthy, and whole,

and may we have peace in our hearts and on this planet.

Love, Savitree