How to create spaciousness anywhere
Or how to survive when life feels like it's devolving into chaos
It’s difficult to explain the energy of the East—Maryland, specifically—to someone who has spent most of their life here. It’s denser, I will say, after spending years out West. People seem to be in a rush, more stressed, and there’s just generally more tension. Driving (anywhere, really) is not enjoyable but feels more like a race you’re actively trying to lose.
During all those adult years I lived and worked in Maryland, I had to do a laundry list of things—spend time alone, ground my energy, paint or play guitar—just to clear my energy enough to be able to function. And that has not changed. In fact, it has become even more critical that I do these things for myself in order to be emotionally well. Whether that’s because of me getting older or having acclimated to a slower paced, solo lifestyle, I don’t know. But if I don’t take care of myself like my life depends on it, life here devolves into chaos.
Time here is also intense simply because in no other place do I have so many deep, close, personal relationships—and there’s always a lot to work out there. Just layers of stuff.
Because I have the kind of friends who want real answers, when one of them asked last week how I was doing, I told him I was “just trying to find the light every day.”
In truth, I was actively looking for it—and most often found it in my 3-year-old niece.
She is making a lot more sense to me than most of the people I encounter in my day-to-day. I want to live in her world. It is real. It is pure. And knowing her world will slowly dissolve to become our world is sad, to say the least, but while she is living there, I want to share it with her as much as possible.
How do I survive here?
I have to create spaciousness.
I have to create it within myself, in my own energy field. I have to build my life from the center out.
How to create spaciousness anywhere
Creating spaciousness is how you survive times that feel overwhelming and condensed.
art — making art, viewing art, listening to music, playing music … it heals us
children — slow down and see into their world … they have so much to teach us, and they are full of so much light
solitude — be in your own aura, know your own energy
the natural world — connect with nature as often as possible … something as simple as looking up at the sky can be exactly what you needed
yin yoga — a much more grounding, healing form of yoga
acupuncture — if you have a good acupuncturist, they will change your life
prayer — in whatever way you know, be thankful for the miracle of this life
spiritual reading — whatever that is to you … I find it very centering, just takes me back to my center when I’ve lost it
dance — move energy out of your body … it’s clearing
meditation — to quiet the static, to create stillness to carry with you, to leave behind all the things you don’t need to carry with you
hikes + walks — the natural world + endorphins
humor — it helps, wherever you can get it … lighten the mood …
nourishing food — “you are what you eat” — and what you ingest physically, mentally, emotionally, and energetically
✦ Some of the most powerful impacts are done with such careful gentleness. We rarely know at the time how we have influenced people, unless they outright tell us, and I am trying to be more mindful about the important connections in my life—that they be real, honest, respectful, that they have the capacity for tenderness and vulnerability, that they carry no obligation or strings attached, that they be mutually supportive, and that I be fully present when I am sharing these exchanges.
✦ Highly recommend “The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes” (the “Hunger Games” prequel); do not recommend “Killers of the Flower Moon” (I wanted to love it … Scorsese is very good at bringing you into a certain time and place, down to the smallest details of its feel, but I don’t think he’s mastered the art of telling a story through both microcosm and macrocosm lenses)
✦ Saturn in Pisces transits happen every 30 years and manifest as a worldwide, cult-like following to the arts. I realized the pattern this week of the past two and the one we’re currently in: The Beatles, Nirvana/alt-rock, Taylor Swift (I’m sorry to report)
✦ Experienced my first all-day rain this week. I’d totally forgotten what that was like.
I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving. I was lucky to be among family and friends and reconnecting with people I hadn’t seen in more than a year—and, in some cases, more than five years. It was a lovely day.
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