Cramming never gets me more. For example, cramming more food never fills me up. It only makes me panicked. Panicked for “the more.” I’m not even aware of this bite, since I am so focused on “the more.” Focused on the next bite. Cramming amps up and adds to my feeling of hunger on all levels – physical, mental, emotional…. Cramming seems to come from panic, perpetuates panic and keeps the feeling of emptiness going.
When I rush around in my days, fitting one more chore or one more errand into that five-minute gap, that feels like panic too. It’s really the same exact feeling as a binge, or that wild-eyed, on-line shopping spree. It feels like an out-of-control frenzy for….. For what? For more, more….. more, something. It gives me the niggling, nervous feeling in my body of some vague pressure. The feeling maybe of not enough time, not enough accomplishment, not enough whatever.
What is it? What is the desperate, wild need to get…. To fill up a sense of missing out? To sooth that vague, uncomfortable sense of lack. What have I lost? Lost touch with? Disconnected from? What is it that is driving me? What is that sense of not okay, not enough…?
The doing more, cramming more in, buying more, one more bite, one more YouTube video doesn’t fill it in but covers it up. Covers me up.
Sometimes I can remember to let there be space. To pause. To take a breath and actually question the weird pressure, panic and oh-my-god-make-it-stop discomfort and tension my body is screaming at me.
When I do, it always amazes me that it actually doesn’t take long before I can feel myself again. I come back to my senses, come back to the moment, my mind and my body calm down. Noticeably, palpably. There is a slower pace and room around me instead of the squeezing, vague anxiety and pressure. Somehow, gently there it is: I feel the richness of this raw, sweet, wild and peaceful moment of being alive. It is quietly waiting in the stillness, the open space of a pause.
Let there be space.
When I let there be space, my honest, simple connection to Life Itself is just, well, present. It’s just there, waiting in the wings for me. Then it becomes obvious that all of the things I did to try to get connected to life aren’t necessary anymore. All the things I did to try to connect to wellbeing are clearly seen as substitutes for the Wellbeing Itself.
I don’t need to rush around in hyper-drive, bingeing on action or things, consuming anything and everything to try to get okay, doing crazy behaviors that never satisfy. I don’t have to cram my mouth, my schedule, my moments, my mind with all kinds of food, noise, doing, information from one more book or podcast or….. I can let there be space to see and feel. The clarity and the connection show up. Suddenly I am aware of the true security and the contentment that this moment is. This moment is the fullness. It is not an empty stepping stone to the next moment where my mind says everything is promised.
“You can never get enough of what you don’t need, because what you don’t need won’t satisfy you.” — Dallin H. Oaks
Most of the time, when it comes down to it, we really don’t need more. It’s working for me to pause and let myself become aware again of the truth and wisdom and insight all around me, always.
Let there be space, and let it fill us up with the beauty of what we already are, and the full, connected enoughness of what already is.
