Healing and spaciousness

Often when we have emotional or psychological difficulties, our impulse is to try to fix things, to engage in a self-improvement campaign, to engineer results. And that can cause a certain tension in our attitude towards ourselves. John Welwood, in his book Toward a Psychology of Awakening, insists, rather, that a spacious approach is needed:

Psychological problems move in the direction of healing only when we can relate to them in a spacious way, from the space of our being. When we try to fix our problems directly, we usually pit one side of ourselves against another, and this creates inner pressure and stress - which only contract our space. This is what our mind is like most of the time - a crowded, narrow thoroughfare that is choked with traffic trying to move in different directions. One thought moves in one direction, and other thoughts move against it. ("I'm angry" - "I shouldn't be angry" - "Why shouldn't I be angry?" - "But what will people think?") These inner oppositions create a traffic jam and shut down the space. When we can give our experience space in which to be, with awareness, the jam in our mind starts to clear up and the traffic has room to move freely once again. We may not have fixed the problem, but we have found a larger space in which to hold the problems. This is how true healing occurs.

Meditation is the method by which we learn to access that inner spaciousness. This is why regular practice is so important. It is also why we need to be gentle and relaxed in our daily practice and not slip into a forced, harsh way of working with ourselves. Try using the word "spaciousness" as a mantra for a few minutes and see how open and relaxed you feel as a result!