Making Room for Something New

Video Blog Transcription:

(00:00):

Now I can almost guarantee that sometime in the last year, you've said to yourself that you wanted to awaken something new in your life.

Now it could be a new relationship, or it could be adding romance and passion to your existing relationship. It could be a new friendship, a new spiritual practice, or a new yoga practice.

But whatever it is, my question to you is, “Have you made room for it in your life?”

Because the thing is, our minds do not like the void. They do not like emptiness and space. So our minds, often unconsciously, tend to fill our lives with things.

(00:56):

Now, these things may be very productive, and they may be necessary. I certainly understand that you may be building your career or supporting your family. You may be raising your family and building a career. You may be making a difference out in the world in some way or another.

Or it could be less productive. You could be bingeing Netflix or doing whatever else. But whatever it is, our mind tends to fill our lives with things to do. So chances are, as you're hearing this video, I suspect that your life is full.

So what happens when we go to add or awaken the new thing in our life is we tend to plaster it over an already full life. And we tell ourselves, “I can do this. I made all the other stuff fit, so I'll just fit this new thing in.

(02:00):

But what that tends to do is add stress and tension, because chances are, you already have more things going on in your life than you have time in the day for. Now you've got a new thing that you're adding in as well.

So it creates tension, and it creates frustration, which you tend to associate with the new thing. Because now that I'm awakening this new thing, my life is even more stressful than it was before. So it creates a negative association with stress that you're putting with your new thing.

And the other thing is that new things require some room to breathe. They're not efficient. It takes a while to allow them to grow and develop. And we have to use trial and error and try things. They don't just fit neatly into a bit of space that we can put in our daily planner. They need some room to organically grow and develop.

(03:07):

So there's this really cool Zen story that addresses this nicely. You may have heard it, it's a pretty common story. A student wants to study with a Zen master. So the master says, “Okay, we need to do a tea ceremony.” Because that's what the Zen tradition does: when you start a new Zen relationship, you do a tea ceremony.

So the master starts pouring tea, and the tea goes into the cup and fills the cup and begins to overflow, and then goes onto the saucer, and then overflows on the saucer, and then starts going onto the table and onto the floor.

And the poor student doesn't know what to do. He's freaking out. Finally, he gets the courage to say, “Master, Master, can't you see that the tea is overflowing and going onto the floor. And the teacher says, “Can't you see that your mind is already full and there's no room for Zen.

(04:06):

So in our tradition, my teacher used to say to me all the time, “Mike, you need to empty your cup.” And it's an expression for making room. When we empty the cup, now there's room for something new, and now it can hold that new thing and not overflow.

So then the question gets to be, “What's in your life now, are you willing to let go of, to make room for the new thing that you want to awaken?” It may be that it's time to let go of something anyway.

Perhaps you have something in your life, an activity, a habit, or a behavioral pattern that no longer serves you. So this would be a natural time to let go of that, and it'll make room for the new thing that you want to awaken.

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And what it does is make time and energy. It's not just a time thing. It's not just a schedule thing. The new thing also requires energy. And so it's making room energetically. So we have some energy left to unfold this new thing.

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So it could be more practical as well. You could hire a babysitter to watch your kids, send your kids to camp, or hire a part-time employee to help manage your business, to free up some time and space. Or whatever it is, it’s rearranging your life a little bit in a more practical way.

But there's going to be a tendency to want it both ways because that's how human beings are. We tend to want it both ways. We want the new thing, but we don't want to have to let go of an old thing.