Hopefully you have a chance to slow down, rest and refresh as one year ends and the new year starts. Perhaps you have intentions for healthier habits, more fulfilment, greater self care. You may even have set a specific goal to waste less time – to cut down on mindless scrolling, apps or games.
And if you have, it’s likely in service of a deeper desire to make a contribution, make a difference, make someone else’s life that bit better. And if so, thank you.
While we focus on what we want to do more or less of, it’s also valuable to make room for not doing anything at all. A deliberate non-intention, an actively blank space in our diary.
In art, the idea of negative space – the space between objects, between notes – is an essential part of the overall composition. It adds to the rhythm, the texture, the movement of a work of art. And without negative space there would just be too much going on. It’s a place of relief and respite as well as anticipation for what comes next.
In our own pressured lives these spaces can be hard to find. There’s always something pulling at our attention, and even if we’re doing nothing, it’s often with the feeling we really ought to be doing something. And yet without these pauses it’s so hard to catch our breath, to recover from the unexpected, or to create space where we can relax, trust our deeper intuition and discover what emerges.
So as you look ahead at the coming year, seasons, weeks and daily routines, where will you find your moments of nothing? Block out more than you think you could possibly need. Then maybe block out a bit more. You can always choose to spend it however makes best sense at the time. But if it isn’t built in, it’s harder to wrestle it back from your schedule when you need it.
Helen Mentha 