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Finding Your Spacious Center (and Staying There)

By Stephanie Bennett Vogt

“Equanimity: The ability to meet disturbance without disturbance.” –Angeles Arrien

2020. Is it over yet?!

While we may not be able to turn off what has felt like an all-out assault to our homes and hearts – brought on by a global pandemic, an unsettling presidential race, epic losses of lives and livelihoods, heartbreaking racial and social injustices, a climate catastrophe in the making – we can manage how we react and respond to it in real time. We have the power to face these disturbances without disturbance; to release the energetic charge they hold by clearing the energetic charge we hold.

But how?

How do we find our center when everything feels like it’s coming apart? How can we meet and embrace instability without going into massive resistance, despair, or denial? How can we lean into the “messy middles” of change, and consciously stay there, until something shifts?

Below are five simple steps for how to do that – ways to take your life back when the world out there is shaking you up.

Finding Your Spacious Center: A Daily Practice

This process is designed to quiet a worrying (whirring) mind and find your spacious center. It is simple to cultivate and infinitely adaptable to anything that holds you back. All you need to supply is your presence: awareness, repetition, and an open mind.

And did I say repetition? Yes, this process takes practice. (And PS, the mind might not like it very much in the beginning if it is plugged-in or heavily-attached to an outcome. Keep doing it and watch what happens.)

  1. Step 1 – Slow down. The moment you start to feel your energy sink or drain – a clue that you might be losing your center (or falling down the rabbit hole of fear, hopelessness, or despair), stop what you’re doing. Close your eyes if you’re able. Take an easy breath in, and a slow, emptying breath out. Continue breathing mindfully until you feel more grounded, then move on to step 2.
  2. Step 2 – Simplify. Ask yourself what is one thing you can do to simplify the situation and shift the energy. Allow yourself to be guided by your intuition rather than your thinking mind (the part of you that tries to analyze, explain, and justify). The action could be as simple as continuing to breathe mindfully, or walking away from the situation, or, as in my case on the evening of the first (contentious) US presidential debate, turning off the TV. When you feel complete proceed to step 3.
  3. Step 3 – Sense. Ask yourself how this situation (issue or problem) is making you feel. Name and feel the sensations as they arise – in present time. Whatever it is that emerges – be it a painful memory, a wave of shame, a punch in the gut shock to the system, a pang of helplessness, overwhelming despair, aching loss, a gulp of fear, or any ambiguous gnawing discomfort – give it a name. Then give this “energy” all of your attention by noticing how it feels exactly and where you feel it in your body. As you continue to tune into the sensations and their location, fold in step 4.
  4. Step 4 – Surrender. Ask yourself what the disturbance is telling you, showing you, teaching you. Continue to feel the discomfort fully as it arises, but do so as a curious and unattached observer. This “emotional weather” has something to teach you. What might that be? Don’t think too much. Just put it out there as a wonder question and allow deeper insights to reveal themselves. Allow them to form and inform.
  5. Step 5 – Self-care. Finally, once you’ve expanded your internal space and increased your bandwidth, ask yourself what is one thing you can do to feel good. Reach for that thing, or things, that bring you joy (which, by the way, you are more likely to take in and fully enjoy because of your work with the previous four steps). Listening to jazz, sipping tea, and scrolling through beautiful images in my photo library works wonders for me every time I’m rattled or feel like I’m spinning out of control.

Keep cycling through these “five S’s” – consciously and daily – until they start to flow together and you notice a shift in energy: a quieting of the mind, a calming of the nervous system, an easing of inner pain and struggle, a creative solution, a sense of being in the right place at the right time… You’ll know by how you feel internally.

Give this centering process time to work its magic. Without effort, you may just notice how your small steps can lead to some beautiful, unexpected, and even bigger changes – not just in your home and life, but in the world at large.

Want more? If you could use more support with this simple and powerful “Spacious Way” process, here are two ways to deepen into it:

  1. Give yourself an hour: Click on the video below “Sheltering at Home.” In it, I help you identify an area of stuckness in your home or life that could use some attention and show you how the five steps apply to anything that holds you back.
  2. Give yourself a year: Get a copy of A Year for You, and start working with it. It will give you 52 gentle weeks to become a master of spaciousness. Learn more HERE.

PS… If you find this message helpful, please share, tweet, pin, post, or forward it to someone else who could use the support. Let’s grow the clearing energy together that can change the world!

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