Just Breathe.

I am marking a new start in my life that I'd been reluctant to step into for different reasons, the most prominent being the feeling that I am "not quite there", not quite professional enough, not quite open-hearted enough, not quite smart enough, not quite [___] enough. I know we all have that "not quite enough-ness" part that speaks quietly but oh so insistently within us -- that voice that keeps us from knowing our gifts and stymies our ability to take in our greatness. 

It's that voice that stops us from breathing. 

What I have discovered in the last several months is that there is a space in-between, where the voice whispers and the breath gets suspended, that is connected to our desire to separate and/or connect. In truth, our desire to separate is in equal measure to our desire to connect. In reading many spiritual teachings, most say we come from a unitive space, where we are connected through time and space. If we believe that to be true, then it follows that our experience in our bodies, throughout our life, is an innate exploration of being separate as well as an incessant quest for connection. 

In all the communities I have been in and am still connected to, I've observed some sense of judgment that separation is "bad" and needs to be constantly "worked on" and that connection is the ultimate goal and is "good". In some cases, resistance can be quite strong to accept separation as a space that has a right to exist as much as connection does. 

What if, instead of judging our automatic response of separating as something that needs to be overcome, we actually gave it permission to "be" in its own space -- if we accepted our desire to separate as a natural evolutionary response that lives within us and that, throughout our life, will never really go away, no matter how hard we work at it?

What do you think could happen if we gave the desire to separate some space to breathe and let it learn how to dance with the part of us that does want to connect? Can you feel the possibilities and space that opens up even with the thought, "Separation is not bad"? Paradoxically, we can be separate and still be in connection; if we look at our lives, from birth until death, we are separate and connected. It just depends on where our attention goes, whether to our heart or our negative self-talk.

In my recent experience, I have found that giving space to my desire to separate, without reservation, has opened up a new awareness of how much limitless space is available to  just breathe.