Finding the Space Between the Thoughts

While it's fresh and vivid, I want to share some inspirations coming up after listening to Eckhart Tolle videos nonstop over the past few weeks. 

For those not familiar with Eckhart, he is one of the modern teachers on presence and being in the now. Similar to the Buddhist tradition, he emphasizes how not identifying with thoughts is a key step to accessing present moment awareness, and insists that all of the joy we desire actually lives in that quiet space of possibility, which we can access once we learn to be still. One of the things that makes him so special is his meticulous choice of words that make what before sounded like esoteric wisdom, so accessible.

My first introduction to Eckhart, his book A New Earth, taught me what 15 years of exposure to Buddhism had eluded me. It showed me definitively the arbitrary nature of ones thoughts. How they are like trains and you can decide whether you want to ride them. By the end of the book I could see that I didn't have to believe my thoughts, that my thoughts are not me. It finally got through.

This was a powerful realization, but as I look back, I see how it was still a somewhat cognitive understanding. It was a piece of the puzzle, but there was much more. I knew who I wasn't (not my thoughts) but I still didn't know who I was, and therefore still identified with relatively superficial things, transitory things, even one's ability to empathize or be aware of thoughts, is still just a construct that defines and limits. 

I also inadvertently fell into the habit of using this understanding around having a choice to believe my thoughts, to spiritually bypass my negative feelings. I missed the part about needing to slow down enough to sit with ALL the feelings, not just the good ones. But I also understand why I did this. Because I needed someone to show me how to slow down through somatic therapy work.

​In this recent phase of rediscovering Eckhart Tolle, he's helped illuminate the answer to that second piece - if I am not my thoughts, then who am I? Who/where/what is this elusive self that we hear about again and again with different names - true/inner/higher self, Big I, awareness, being, presence, spirit, source, god, goddess, universal energy, etc?

Through Eckhart's audio teachings it became possible to connect with it long enough to really take it in and feel it.

Who am I?

It's the stillness that exists in the space between the thoughts. It's where joy lives (and is always living there whether we are aware of it or not). This stillness is step zero for living more fully alive. It is where the ability to check in with inner knowing resides. It's what listening to the heart is all about. It’s where love is felt and grace blooms. It’s where unconditioned life begins.

And it was this experience that finally convinced me once and for all that the most fulfilling productive thing I can do at any given moment is to become aware of the space between my thoughts. Because that's where the best most fulfilling possible feeling exists. That's where the true self exists. It's where the deeper wisdom about what the next inspired step to take resides. 

What's cool about this view is that it shifts the intention and attention for how we approach each moment, each situation, each challenge. The goal becomes simply to find the space between the thoughts; to focus on bringing awareness to that stillness.

The question is no longer, How can I find the mental answer to what will heal the emptiness inside me? but rather, How can I sit quietly enough to visit the place between the thoughts that IS the emptiness, which is actually the love out of which the entire world of possibility is born?

But then the question always comes back to: "OK, this all sounds good. But HOW do I slow down enough to feel the stillness?"

Something really profound I learned in my recent studies on healing, is that for people who understand the importance of being in the present and are very aware and observant of life patterns, but cannot seem to slow down enough to access the stillness required to change the patterns, it needs to be made crystal clear - this is not your fault.

Your nervous system, which includes millions of years of evolution, may simply have never learned how to do it at will. You may have few if any memories in your whole life of ever really feeling present, relaxed and safe. Why would you be able to suddenly will yourself to do something that you have no memory of having experienced, no reference point or baseline for? 

It's this slowing down piece that I've spent the past few years learning through somatic experiencing therapy. I needed someone to guide me through it regularly to train my mind and body on what being present in my body feels like and what it means to observe things as they arise, for that is the only way to heal and truly process difficult emotions and experiences.

And over time it builds upon itself. The learning how to calm down and tune into the body works in a beneficial feedback loop with the mind, where the mind starts to slow down too, which further calms the body and so on. 

It's a process that gets easier with time, but also never ends. It's a daily continuous practice. And what I'm so grateful for is the now steadfast motivation to never give up on this, because I can see that what I really desire exists in the stillness between the thoughts. Right here. Right now.

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