Allowing Space for Joy to Enter

How many ways has life shown you that allowing space is a good thing? 

Have you experienced the delight that streams in when you remove items from a jam-packed closet?  When you clean a kitchen drawer? 

Do you relish the gift of a snow day?  The soul-giving refreshment of your vacation? 

Is it time to create an altar for the quiet space you crave?  Claim a spot in your home that’s only yours? 

When our sons were young, they spent lots of time in a play room off the family room.

One day, our older son announced it was time to move headquarters to the basement, instructing little brother to make three piles:  give away, move to the basement, move to their rooms.

Pretty soon, all that remained was the remnant of a red carpet edged in beige, the odd piece added to extend the whole thing to the outer wall.

Since I’d come awfully close to hiding away in a cranny under the stairs by then, I planted a stake in the red-carpeted play room faster than you could say Ollie Ollie In Free. 

My soul was ready to have a physical space to call my own.

In time, a forest green carpet, hand built pine furniture as a gift from hubby, and a corner slide rocker in a grapevine design created a space for my inner life to blossom.

Even the air in there was different from the rest of the house.

It held no positive ions from a computer or television.

It held a sacred energy created day upon day as I wrote in journals, prayed for family and friends, chronicled synchronicities.

I found refuge from the testosterone-driven culture in our family.

I allowed space to hear myself.

Last week in the family chaos of whether or not Mom needed to be cared for by someone other than Dad, I found myself in the middle of a muddle.

The day a dear friend called to see how I was, asking why I was still there, I awoke to the caretaking role I’d adopted.  It was time to extract myself.  Thank you, Emilie.

It was time to allow some space to enter.

Dad, how would you manage if I went to a hotel? 

That shifted how much I’d been doing, and the next day when I allowed space to hear my soul’s knowing, wisdom entered.

Conveying my heart to Dad allowed him to surrender his caretaking of Mom, something many believed had been long overdue.

Where is it time for you to create some space for the joy of wisdom to enter? 

Is it time to wake earlier?  Rest the television?  Take a walk at dusk? 

May you allow space for joy!

This article first appeared in a February 2012 issue of Go In Joy!, the monthly ezine I’m honored to create.  Sign up for it today on any page of this website.