Making Space
It’s interesting to think about how I’ve coined this phrase. I started saying it around 2015. Like most habits, I’m not sure how or when I consciously started saying it, I just did. I would use it in conversations with friends, when explaining my thoughts and reflections on subjects, and mostly, internally with myself. If I’m honest, saying it to someone else was (and still is) saying it to myself.
I subconsciously know all too well all the ways I’ve been rejected and misunderstood so it’s a subtle reminder that who I am, where I am is enough. This developing deep desire to both be accepted and to accept is a driving factor in why I’m choosing to become a therapist. Carl Rogers, who invented Person-Centered Therapy, called it unconditional positive regard.
It’s often a phrase I use because I don’t know what else to say and do in a moment, so, at a minimum, I want the person I’m with to know there’s always room to express who they are.
By making space, it’s my hope that the person I’m with knows that they have a belonging, an intrinsic home, per se. It’s really an invitation into the unknown with an upfront acceptance of it. The challenge is keeping that acceptance at the moment by not judging, escaping, or separating.
We always have the capacity to accept more. It’s this crazy paradoxical idea that in some ways, a space is defined as space by its boundaries and understood by its limitlessness. It’s both this and that. This same phrase has two directions: in and out. There’s a time for both and it’s flexible enough to serve what’s needed in a moment while also structured enough to help create a sense of identity for what’s happening.
“I need space” is such a commonly used phrase because it’s the easiest way to say, “Here’s where I’m at” and draw a boundary. It’s a vulnerable and courageous thing to know your limits and convey them in a way that invites someone else into them. It’s always a fearful way of creating distance in a moment that is begging for closeness. I’ve used it as a defense mechanism and also a safety net to allow myself more time.
It’s also been a phrase that’s helped me set boundaries for myself. Instead of blindly deep-diving into a chaotic abyss of an argument or defensive exchange, it gives me a healthy separation from my stimulated emotional response at the moment to really reflect, process, and better respond to a situation. Like a called timeout in a sport’s game.
I’ve started to do this with my wife when we start to have an argument and I feel my pulse rise, eyebrows raise, and body tense. My subconscious just waiting for my impulse control to fall asleep on the job so it can say something regretful. I pause, take a breath, recognize my current state and tell her that we need to revisit this conversation and that I need space.
This question and process of making space is a space-by-space expansion of an infinite opportunity of accepting myself, others, and the world we live in. It’s learning to go in and out, here and there but always accepting and loving what is.
Just like the subtle process of my resonating with the phrase, starting to say it unknowingly and now making it a conscious mantra, making space is the same. In each conversation, whether with yourself or another, you can slowly expand the space within yourself through the subtle shift in acceptance. Like a sunset that never seems to completely fade, making space.
