I’ve made some quiet time and space in my life recently. Having some space in our lives has some similarities to meditation. Making space in our lives doesn’t necessarily mean we do more – it can mean that we do less . . . what a novel idea!

When we meditate, we are making space to allow whatever wants to come up to come up; we make space to know ourselves better. We don’t have an agenda. Of course, also just like meditating, at first when I have some extra time, I do think of a lot of things to get caught up on, take care of. When we first sit down to meditate, all our lists and thoughts come up and we just practice noticing them, not suppressing them, just allowing them . . . and letting them go. Over and over and over.

So when this quieter time presented itself, I thought of all the things I wanted to attend to. I noticed them. And then I chose what to do and what to let go. When we make space, slow our pace, it’s easier to make a choice about what’s really important right now. And I did take care of some things. And I rested, a lot. Even more than I thought I needed to rest. I watched a movie. I didn’t work out or go to yoga. I made choices. I let myself just be, without an agenda, meeting what came up in the present. We’ve had three deaths in our extended family this past month; we made time to grieve and reflect and be together in companionship and support.

So in having some time and making some space, the word and feeling of spaciousness kept presenting itself. Listen to what the Jamaican spiritual teacher Mooji says about spaciousness; you might even take a few moments and read it aloud, slowly:

There is a presence, a silence, a stillness which is here by itself. There is no doer of it, no creator of this stillness. It is simply here in you, with you. It is the fragrance of your own self. There is nothing to do about this, it is naturally present. This fragrance of peace, this spaciousness, it is the fragrance of your own being. —Mooji

In spaciousness, we touch the depth of our own being. We inhale the fragrance of our own self. We rediscover our inherent stillness, our inner peace. We are present. That spaciousness gives us the infinite capacity to embrace our lives and ourselves just as we are, with love and compassion.