The challenge isn’t that it’s hard to create more time (for some people, it is actually very hard) … the challenge is that no matter how much time we have, we are not likely to experience it as spacious, restful, joyful, playful.

We can create all the time in the world … but the truth is that we’ll probably have a very similar experience in that spacious time that we have already. If you take a sabbatical, you’ll probably experience some spaciousness for a little bit, but then restlessness and fears will start to take over, and you’ll create a lot of things for yourself to do, and a feeling that you need to be productive (for example).

Whatever you experience already … is likely to be what you’ll experience no matter how you arrange your life.

The real spaciousness you crave isn’t in rearranging your life (though that can be helpful) … it’s in changing how you experience life.

Let’s take a look at how you can do that.

A Spacious Experience of Life

No matter what we’re doing, we can experience it as rushed and stressful … or we can experience it as spacious and peaceful. Or really we can have any kind of experience of the activity.

For example … if you’re out for a walk, you can be on your phone checking messages and feeling the anxiousness of all the things you still need to do. Or you can experience the spacioiusness of the walk, feeling expansive wonder about all the nature around you, feeling the freedom of being outdoors and being alive.

In any moment, we can experience spaciousness. Whether you’re responding to messages and emails, writing, washing a dish, talking to someone, sitting in on a meeting, doing something courageous and inspired … you can experience it as spacious.

The thing to recognize is that it’s a choice. You can choose to feel anxious and rushed in any moment, or to feel expansive and spacious and at peace. You get to choose your experience of any moment.

As you practice moment to moment, you can expand how spacious your life feels as a whole. You go from feeling constantly rushed and behind … to feeling life as abundant, free and much more peaceful.

How to Practice

So how do you practice this miraculous way to create spaciousness in your life? It’s all yours for the low price of $500 … kidding!

Try to practice right now, as you read this … 

1. Take a moment to sit still and allow your awareness to expand outward, so that you feel more expansive. 
2. Allow your breath to be deeper and wider, so you feel a spacious nourishing breath.
3. Allow yourself to feel as wide as the sky, so that all of life feels expansive and spacious.
4. Allow yourself to slow down for a moment, so that life feels more spread out and delicious.

This is the kind of practice you can do in any moment, with any activity. You don’t have to do all 4 of these steps, but you can try whatever helps you to feel spaciousness, peace, freedom and expansiveness in each moment.

Try moving a little slower, so you aren’t so rushed.

Try savoring each moment.

Try imagining that you can do anything within a wide open fresh expanse of the universe.

What would it be like if your life could be experienced with greater spaciousness?

If you’d like to train in this, please consider joining The Fearless Living Academy. We’re going to relish in this kind of training, together.

What’s the struggle to make this transition all about?

And how can we more consciously make the transition into action?

Let’s look at a couple of typical examples so we can see what we’re dealing with.

• There’s a task I know I want to do (or maybe I feel I should do), but I keep putting it off. Something about it brings me uncertainty, and that makes it uncomfortable, so I put it off over and over. When I finally do it, it’s way easier than I feared it would be, and I wonder what took me so long.
• There’s a project I’ve been wanting to do for some time, but I keep telling myself it’s not the right time. I’m not ready, or things are too busy. Even when I find more space, I find other reasons not to do it, because I’m not sure how to do it, and taking it on will be stepping outside of my comfort zone.
• I want to hire a coach or start a program that I know will give me the support I’ve been looking for, but I hesitate. I am not sure if I’ll do good enough, if I’ll be right for the program, if I’ll do what’s needed to get the value out of it. So I stay in indecision and put off making the commitment.

You might be able to tell what’s stopping us: uncertainty, the unknown, and fear.

Fear and uncertainty about the unknown keep us from crossing the threshold into action.

The ironic thing is that often the most powerful thing we can do in uncertainty is to step into action – it’s in the realm of doing that we learn anything, that we’ll get the answers we’re looking for.

So how do we cross from uncertainty and indecision and avoidance … into action?

1. Intention. Set an intention to be in action, rather than getting stuck.
2. Turn towards. Notice the uncertainty and fear in your body, as sensation. Can you mindfully be with it, when it shows up, and bring it love?
3. Ask what you really want. Is this something you care deeply about? Is there a possibility this represents that is meaningful to you? Do you want this?
4. Make the smallest movement. Often the smallest step can get the ball rolling, and we always forget that.
5. Find the joy. How can this action feel joyous, wondrous, sacred, alive for you?

The more we practice this, the better we get at it. And being in action not only feels good, it starts to clear up a lot of the stuckness of our lives.