Making Room

Have you ever had the experience of someone suggesting some way of looking at something or doing something that felt true or that it might be the "right" thing, but it felt hard, if not impossible, to do? I don't mean from unsolicited advice (often criticism), but when we are seeking something from someone we respect and trust. It is one of those moments where you comprehend the new way of thinking or doing, but you can barely hold onto it. It is as though there is too much resistance pushing back from all sides of your brain, but you have enough insight that you can't ignore it. I had one of those moments recently where someone suggested another way of thinking about something in my life and when I heard it, it was as though I was trying to squeeze something into a bookshelf that is full. You pry open a space as the books keep pushing back on either side, but you just need enough room to hold it open long enough for it to fit. This is a wonderful thing. This happens in so many ways throughout our lives in the form of new opportunities presented to us that feel too big, frightening, or foreign. It happens in new relationships when we come up against making room for another's way of doing things or thinking about things. Or, in older relationships when the boat has been rocked and we have to adjust our habitual behavior for this new place. It comes up when we find ourselves wanting something, but thinking we will never be able to have it. It could never happen for me. It comes up when we find ourselves struggling and someone makes a suggestion or observation that we meet with a big "no way!" Something about it chews at us, irritating our sense of comfort. In that "no way," if we are paying attention, there is often something significant. The "no way" gives it away. We must pay attention. We must, at least try to make room.

What I know in those moments is that there is an inner struggle going on that involves growing. My larger self knows it is a good sign, even if it doesn't feel good. Last week I talked about stretching connective tissue. This week it's stretching in another way, stretching to keep that space open on the bookshelf so something new can fit in. I am finding that much like I practice anything else in my life, this too, is a practice. The image of the bookshelf helps me. Every time I would return to the sticky subject in my mind, I would ask myself if I could hold open the space just enough to slide in this new information. Even if I could not ultimately get the book in, if all I could do was try to create space, there would, at least, be possibility. Some stretching feels really good. This tends not to and part of the practice is to compassionately let that discomfort be okay.

Sometimes the new information gets revealed and the resistance comes in the form of my not being able to keep it long enough for it to stick. It is as though I am holding a tiny, delicate creature in my hand that could be crushed easily if I hold it too tightly and it is so small and slippery it could slide through the cracks between my fingers if I held it too loosely. These are the times when I need to trust that if it gets away, the lesson will come back stronger, in a more graspable form the next time around. If I crush it, then it was not the time for it to permeate my way of thinking. Something about me is needing the message in a different form. Either way, the right time and form will come.

I know I will have many more opportunities in this life to feel that specific kind of resistance to something that I intuitively know holds some truth. The next time it comes around, I am going to say the thing I have learned from my beloved meditation teacher, Thich Nhat Hanh. I am going to say, "hello! There you are again. Welcome. Please sit down to tea with me." Then I am going to listen. It could be, that in the listening, I might hear the sound of books sliding over on the bookshelf behind me.