I love the way my British friends talk. I especially like those Mind the Gap T-Shirts. Not only do they look really cool, but they point us to some pretty powerful mojo for personal transformation. That mojo is all about living in the Gap. No, I don’t mean living in the London subway. What I do mean is that the ability to get into that GAP between our thoughts, emotions, and reactions. To get into that place of dynamic stillness within from which authentic presence, alertness, silence, creativity, focus and calm energy arise. In this Gap we get to be the active choosers of what we see and how we act.
Getting in the gap is like learning to do push-ups for your nervous system. Getting in the Gap takes a pipe cleaner to the knots in our system that distorts our thoughts.
Getting in the Gap is an answer to procrastination, reactivity, projection, and toxic thinking patterns. It is an answer to feelings of stress, fear, and overwhelm. It is soothing balm for troubled relationships. It heals your body more than any day at the spa can even come close to.
Getting in the Gap is like scuba diving. On the surface of our experience things can seem so turbulent, choppy, and unstable. However, once we learn to just put on our mask and breathe through the regulator and drop below the surface, we experience an instant silence, a brand new perspective and an instant access to a whole new living world of possibility. Time stands still and we see things as they are, not as we are. And there is usually a massive difference.
The “magic” of the gap is that we learn to to get into that space between what we perceive, what we then feel, what we then think, and what we then do. It is the power to actually slow down our life and our minds and our reactions enough so that we get to consciously choose. Choose what? How we respond. Our life. How we feel. How we show up in our relationships. How we cultivate the love we want to experience. The choice is ours and enlightenment, in this sense, is simply a thought away. This is how you can, bit by bit, moment by moment, wipe the “stress response” clean. Your body, mind, and spirit will thank you.
When we can little by little live more and more in that gap, there are no limits on life. There are no limits on who we can become. All the stories about who we thought we were melt away like snow in spring. The reality, if you are really honest with yourself, is that very very very few people act freely. Sure you are free to go to a movie, to delete this blog, to eat a cheeseburger, but very few people are awake and actually consciously choose their life and their responses, moment by moment. Driven by visible and invisible forces seemingly out of awareness and control, we live, but very people live free. We are fragmented. Stressed. Frazzled. And all of that energy of a fragmented life absolutely affects our spines, muscles, nerves, emotions, thoughts, relationships, dreams, and abundance. Tremendously. In the end we are highly constrained by this “sleep-walking” and therefore sell ourselves so short on what we can become and the joy, abundance, trust, and passion we can actually feel.
So, we are asleep at the wheel and then our life takes the shape it takes when we are fragmented, disconnected, and largely unaware. Life in its amazing Wisdom *will* snap our attention back. A lot of the times this comes in the form of physical or emotional or mental “symptoms”. They are uncomfortable for sure. Just remember that the bodymind has pain for a reason and that pain is meant to interrupt your life. Your “pain” is trying to get you to wake up from the pattern you are caught in.
So often, we want to go back to sleep as quickly as possible and seek therapeutics that are more than happy to do that. In reality, our “pain” is not really our “pain”. The real “pain” is sleepwalking. I love what my mentor Donny Epstein will say to people he entrains: “I have no intention of making you more comfortable.” It sounds tough, but its actually one of the most loving things I have ever heard. When we see your potential enough, when we see what’s real, the real crime would be helping you stay comfortable in your sleepwalking. Its not about getting comfortable in your bad dream. Its about opening your eyes and waking up.
Lets get down to it. Here is a powerful exercise for getting in the Gap. Start by getting into a relaxed position. Take some deep breaths. Be on the spot, on the dot. Take some more deep breaths. Now, lets dive in. Go slow with this and stay with it. You’ll get it. I’ll chunk this down into NINE steps so you can follow easily:
1. Go back to a painful experience you had with someone. One of those rotten, yucky experiences where something occurred and you felt hurt, angry, confused, sad, irritated, or any similar response.
2. Go back to the exact moment the “incident” occurred -to the words that were said, to the things that were done.
3. Now, like an old time movie reel, slow down the reel and see the picture frames one by one. Slow it down more. Wind it back. Go to the moment just before it happened.
4. Feel your state. See and feel what was happening. How was your body holding itself. Where did you feel that? In your gut? Your chest? What was your breathing doing?
5. Run through a couple of frames just after the incident. Not too far. Look closely. You’ll notice you have a GAP before anything arose in your awareness. There was a GAP before the sensations, emotions and thoughts started to come up. There was a GAP before we went into battle, armed with our stories and defenses.
6. What did you feel right after that Gap? What were your sensations? What did you feel? What were your thoughts? What were the instant emotions? Then wind forward. What did you do? Usually we can see that our habitual patterns of defense arise and we go with it like a dog being called to dinner. There was actually very little choice in the matter, yet it felt so real, and we usually feel so justified.
7. Now, lets wind the reel back again. Right to the moment of the GAP. Here is your infinite moment of pure potentiality. You get to CHOOSE this time.
8. What emotion(s) would you choose instead? Its your choice and it can be anything. And you don’t need to pick something because its how you are supposed to act? What would have been the authentic, heart-centered response? Courageous? Compassionate? Calm? Dignified? Gracious? Empathic? Nonjudgmental? Strong? Self-reliant? What would you choose this time? What would like to experience instead. The slate is blank. Go for it!
9. Now with this empowered emotion that you choose, what action would you take? How would you see the situation? What words would you share, or not share? What would you feel? What would your body feel like? How would you hold yourself? And what if your emotion, thought, words, and action were about choosing to broadcast more of what you want in the world? What if you were consciously choosing connection, redemption, compassion, peace, understanding, and empowerment?
Mind the GAP, my friends. This exercise above is a powerful tool that can transform and shift consciousness in a massive way. Its fast. And when we do this more and more, we cultivate the habit of living in the GAP. When we are in that GAP we get to choose our responses. Responsibility is the art and practice of becoming more and more “response-able.” And the happiest, most effective, most successful people I know take 100% of responsibility for their life, their choices, and what they feel. The oppressive forces are the ones we cultivate on the inside. And we can re-write that script anytime we want. Its not easy, but its the most amazing journey I know of. Its the journey of literally waking up to each moment in its luminous grandeur. Its not some foo-foo woo-woo concept. Its real. Its your destiny.
As we do this more and more we become so much sharper, so much more able to effect real change in the real world in whatever roles we play. By taking full responsibility for the Gap, we can be more powerful in the world with more energy, more resourcefulness, and more joy. And believe me, the world needs that. Badly.
There are great tools out there to cultivate this. Network Care and Somato Respiratory Integration are incredible ways to undo the build-up of stress. More importantly they teach us, step by step, stage by stage, level by level, to become so much more empowered and resourceful in our bodies, emotions, thoughts, perceptions, and actions. In other words, they help us live more and more in the GAP. We know from research at the University of Southern California that NSA completely helps the neural circuitry become much more organized, coherent, and consciously evolved. And when that happens, its so much easier to live in the GAP. Its your destiny, remember?
Other tools I cannot recommend highly enough are having a mentor, guide, or coach, daily meditation, conscious and mindful exercise such as yoga or “focused intensity training”, learning communication skills, and writing daily in a personal journal.
If you want to learn more about what we do at the Network Wellness Center of Charlotte, please feel free to check out one of our many workshops this winter and spring. Please don’t hesitate to share your feedback or to call us if you need help. We are here to serve.
Love,
Dr. Matt Lyon
Charlotte NC Chiropractor
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