Back to Spaciousness

For me, "spaciousness" looks like a steamy afternoon when you're lazing in your backyard with your friends - bottles of cool wine sweating like triathletes who only trained for 4 weeks - and someone says, "It's hot. Why don't we go buy a raft."  It's a statement, not a question.  No one argues, cause everyone is too hot to think.  And so you all manage to get up off your sticky lawn chairs, slide on flip-flops, and roll to the nearest store to buy a $20 raft and any other floating objects.  

Your skin is sticking to the person sitting next to you in the car, the windows are rolled down, and you soon find yourself at the lake.  Somehow the wine has found it's way there too.  Someone gathers enough energy to blow up the raft, and you all flop into the best $20 you ever spent.  No question, this is a spacious life.  A life that has room to move, to change, to get up and spontaneously play.

Spaciousness is what I started this whole blog about -  and certainly something that seems attainable on a hot, lazy day.  It's partially about space in my schedule, but more importantly, and certainly more sustainable, is space I find inside my mind and heart.   Life has been busy lately --- (about to have a baby, just graduated with a Masters, became a licensed mental health counselor, moved houses, and started my first garden.  I'm starting my private practice and trying to decorate a nursery: not sure which is harder)  --- and yet, I feel like I have room.  It's summer inside.

Spaciousness listens to myself.

Spaciousness listens to others.

Spaciousness is open, receptive and curious - not closed off or shut down.

Spaciousness feels connected to the people I love.

What is it that gives you real space in your life?  How do you find it?  In a culture of "go! gO! GO!" and where bigger and better and crazier schedules is a sign of "fulfillment," how do you, unknown friend, find the space to breathe?  To listen and feel?  To connect?  To play?  How do you do this when life is busy?  I'd love to know...