Your Spacious Self

Change happens slowly
and then all at once.
—Unknown

It seems we spend half our lives winding ourselves up, like mechanical wind-up toys, and the other half of our lives unwinding, or trying to unwind. If we’ve learned to live well, our unwinding will be even and steady. We’ll have energy to spare right up to the very end. If we’ve wound up our “toy” too tightly or too fast over the years, however, we’ll either find ourselves stuck in a lock jam that keeps us spinning in circles, or we’ll unwind so fast that we’ll careen off the table, hit the wall, and keel over.

This book shows you how to unwind the slow and steady way.

But it also teaches this little mind-bender: You are not the wind-up toy.

Behind the coiled-up mess that is your stress and your clutter there is an infinitely spacious place one might call stillness, or joy. This is our natural state of being, but we hardly know it because most of us are caught in a tangle of worry, fear, negative beliefs, material attachments, and endless, mechanical “doing.”

This book invites you to embark on an adventure of discovery as you gently unwind and shed the layers of your tangled self. You know which self I’m talking about: that grumpy, overwhelmed, and fragmented self that has lost the ability to live fully and think big; the self that is fully padded with all kinds of protections and stuff to ward off the calamities which are certain to come at any moment; the self that feels like there is more to this thing called life, but can’t seem to figure out where it is and how to find it. Yes, these are the layers that will be melting away.

Believe it or not, behind all that padding is a very rich and spacious being, a new self that is juicy and whole, grounded and present. This self can be innocent and curious like a child, deeply happy like a dog on a walk in the woods, giddy like an explorer who has just found hidden treasure, or content and complete like a grandma sitting in her rocking chair recounting stories of her remarkable life. This self lives in awe and wonder. To this self, everything looks and feels new, and fresh, sparkly and amazing—and clear!

Actually, this self is not really all that new—it’s just new to you! This new, bigger, self has been there all along, patiently waiting on the sidelines to come out and play. I’m sure you’ve experienced her or him in flashes from time to time. This self is the one that laughs a lot, doesn’t take everything so seriously, and has a lot more fun.

Excerpted from Your Spacious Self: Clear Your Clutter and Discover Who You Are
Copyright 2007 © Stephanie Bennett Vogt - All Rights Reserved

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