Spaciousness is Good for the Soul
October was a busy month. Barb Patterson and I enjoyed another very inspiring Engaged Space. The Soul-Centered Series started. There was a visit to our eldest daughter in college for Family Weekend, an amazing Business Summit in Portland, three corporate trainings, and client intensives.
What I am so grateful for is that with all of this going on my stress levels have been low. I have eaten candy this month, but that is because we bought Halloween candy early to be prepared. This was a very bad idea because then we had to buy more candy for Halloween. But other than that, I haven’t been trying to get by using coping mechanisms.
This is a clear example of how my internal experience is internally generated and not a reflection of what is going on outside of me. At one point, I even wondered if there was something wrong with me that I wasn’t feeling nervous before doing a training. I was concerned I might be losing my edge. Fortunately, I got to experience for myself how my best performance happens when I am not feeling pressure.
However, even though my experience is internally generated, and I have not been feeling stressed, I do notice that I enjoy and respect a slower pace in my life these days. This month’s pace is no longer the norm. I used to keep myself busy like this all the time. Previously I would feel nervous if there were any openings in my calendar. Spacious days with nothing in them or big gaps in my schedule typically meant I wouldn’t be able to enjoy the time off because I would buy into insecure thinking and feel like the antidote was to make up work to do so I could feel better.
It was revolutionary for me to take two months off this past summer from working with clients. I had fearful thoughts about whether or not that was the right thing to do for my business, but I am so grateful I did. It allowed me to take care of myself and really helped me to see the benefits of slowing down and having more spaciousness in my life. My internal set point shifted and with it, I found I was getting better ideas. It also gave me a new normal that I got used to in terms of my internal state of mind.
Now as I come off of this extremely busy spell and look at the spaciousness available to me starting mid-November, I no longer feel compelled to fill that time. I experience my internal okayness more and don’t need to be busy to try and escape my insecure feelings. I’m not going to be homeless because I have a quiet week or two. It sounds crazy now, but it used to look to me that my hard work was required for my survival.
Participating in the Engaged Space last month was a great reminder to come back to the simplicity that all there is in life is following the next step that is right in front of you. That is how everything gets done from cooking a meal to building a multinational corporation. Our internal well-being has nothing to do with our doing or not doing. It is there — always. Having more spaciousness in my life has helped my mind to settle more so I can experience the feeling of my true nature more fully. And I got used to it so even when my external life isn’t so spacious, I appreciate my internal spaciousness that is still available.
How do you enjoy and prioritize spaciousness in your life?
Rohini Ross is excited to present The Soul-Centered Series: Psychology, Spirituality, and the Teachings of Sydney Banks with the original students of Sydney Banks in Santa Monica, CA. She is passionate about helping people wake up to their true nature. She is a transformative coach and trainer, and author of Marriage (The Soul-Centered Series Book 1). She has an international coaching practice helping individuals, couples, and professionals embrace all of who they are so they can experience greater levels of well-being, resiliency, and success. You can follow Rohini on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, watch her Vlogs with her husband, Angus Ross, and subscribe to her weekly blog on her website, rohiniross.com.
Christine Heath & Judy Sedgeman – Spirituality and Resilience
When you no longer give authority to the fear-based thoughts in your consciousness, all you are left with is happiness. Through the teachings of Sydney Banks, you can see how your psychological functioning works, which makes you less compelled to follow those thoughts that do not serve you. Becoming more aware of the wholeness and integration of both your human and spiritual natures helps to ground you in the unchanging essence of who you are, and ride out the ups and downs of your emotional experience more gracefully. Accepting the normalcy of your humanness will naturally reduce your anxiety and fear and enhance your joy and happiness in each moment. By placing less pressure on yourself to feel a certain way or be hung up on self-improvement, you may find that low moods do not derail or debilitate you; instead, you will become much more attuned to your innate wellbeing and peace of mind and experience more happiness as a result.
Greater psychological freedom is the gift that keeps on giving. How grateful would you feel if you no longer had to listen to your negative, self-punishing and painful inner narrative, day in and day out? Understanding the role of thought and recognizing how it creates your feelings of insecurity and self-doubt is truly liberating! You will be better able to hear and heed your inner wisdom and become less driven by the noisy thoughts of fear and constriction. As an ongoing practice, this allows you to more fully experience your resilience and reach a greater sense of clarity about how you want to move forward in your life. As a result, you can live in a way that feels authentic and true in every area, including your career, family, home, creative expression, play, relationships and overall well-being.
Your ability to enjoy life comes from being present in the moment rather than caught up in habitual, negative thoughts that take you out of the Now. Sydney Banks’ wisdom supports you in becoming aware of how you get seduced by your limited personal thinking and thus, create a painful reality of misunderstanding, fear and restriction. When you recognize how and why this happens, you can step free of the pattern. This understanding assists you to dismiss unhelpful thoughts and not take them seriously. Unlike traditional self-help or therapy, experiencing more psychological freedom and enjoyment does not rely on techniques. There are no magic bullets on the path of well-being. All you need to do is follow an internal compass that points to the truth of who you really are—beyond transient thoughts to your unchanging, formless essence.
In our culture, success is often associated with hard work and narrowly defined as material gain. However, authentic success, as shared by Sydney Banks, includes such intangibles as happiness, well-being, love, joy, compassion, and peace of mind that are innate in each one of us, along with outward goals and achievements. It honors the whole person in all walks of life, whether you are a professional, leader, executive, solopreneur, employee, mother, teacher or student. From this knowing and experience, you can access the infinite wellspring of love that is your essence, then share your gifts with the world from a place of fulfillment and meaning, through a profound understanding of the interaction between your psychological and spiritual natures. While conventional success can deplete you, authentic success only fills you up.
Are you self-critical, hard on yourself, and constantly trying to “fix” whatever you think is wrong with you? Perhaps you have tried all kinds of different personal growth techniques and spiritual practices in the hope of solving all your problems. This cycle can be exhausting and never-ending, because there will always be something to improve about yourself, from that mindset. Sydney Banks’ teachings can help you to see how your humanness is normal and not something that needs fixing: as a spiritual person, you don’t need to change or eradicate your humanness! Seeing yourself as normal allows you to love and accept yourself exactly as you are—warts and all. Adopting this perspective naturally brings out the best in you and helps to find peace with your personality. Self-love and self-acceptance is your natural state, and any disconnection from your true nature is only temporary. What a relief!
One of the first areas people often experience profound transformation from the teachings of Sydney Banks is in their relationships, both personal and professional. While it often seems like another person’s irritation, anger, indifference, insensitivity, rudeness, etc., directly affects your experience, in reality your disturbance is a product of your own individual thinking. By making someone else responsible for how you feel, that person automatically becomes the cause of your suffering. Once you understand that you always have a place of well-being inside, independent of another’s behavior, it is easier to maintain equanimity through their changing moods and behaviors. Romantically, you may experience deeper love and intimacy with your partner, but the teachings benefit all relationships. This awareness supports more authentic connection and expression, while facilitating greater understanding, improved communication, reduced reactivity, more acceptance of self and others, and improved ability to work out differences and find common ground. Best of all, just one person shifting in a relationship is enough to transform it.
Barbara Patterson
Scott Kelly
Barbara Patterson
Clare Dimond
Michael Neill
Rohini Ross
Elsie Spittle – The Soul of the Principles
Spiritual Facts 
Chip Chipman – The Simplicity of Syd’s Teachings
Dicken Bettinger – The Spiritual Nature of the teachings of Sydney Banks
Mick Kubiak
05.11.2018 at 10:57Right now spaciousness and leaning into it rather than fearing it has been such a gift. “Free falling” by Tom Petty captures the feeling of it well. It feels like I’m falling but in a good way. It’s unfamiliar and thrilling not to be busy and pressured.
Rohini
16.11.2018 at 13:28Thanks for sharing Mick! That song is a great metaphor! Glad you are letting go and allowing yourself to see what emerges for you!