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The Sacred Space Between Feeling and Response
Dennis Merritt Jones, in his book When Fear Speaks, Listen, describes this space, a space between the stimulus and the response.
That space in between is called a sacred space. Something happens in that moment. We feel something when we are experiencing fear, and before we act, we have the opportunity to become aware of it, to become aware of what’s going on within us, so that in that moment we can claim our spiritual power.
That sacred space is available in our conversations, in the grocery store, and in the car when we’re sitting in traffic. We may need to take a moment to notice it, to breathe.
We may need to say, “Let me think about that.”
Have you ever been in a conversation where you’re immediately trying to respond to somebody? What if you just take a pause and say, “Let me think about that for a little bit”?
That pause can feel unfamiliar, especially in our culture, because our culture increasingly treats speed as a sign of competence and power.
Have you noticed that? Our culture tends to think you have to go, go, go, do, do, do. The faster you move, the quicker you respond, the quicker you stay ahead or get ahead.
We expect fast replies. We expect fast decisions. We expect content to be created instantly.
What are you expecting in your life?
Take a moment to notice:
What do I expect to happen immediately in my life? Where am I being a little impatient?
Because therein lies an opportunity.
Some of our best ideas come when we slow down long enough to understand what we’re facing, to understand what’s before us. Some of our best ideas come when we slow down and understand what is present to us.
That pause is important when we’re with somebody. That pause is important when we’re alone.
Notice the Conversation Happening Within You
We might be replaying an argument while we’re taking a shower. We might be driving home and imagining everything that could go wrong when we get there.
We may be lying awake at night rehearsing decisions and wishing we had made a different decision. We may be lying awake thinking about the next day and everything that could go wrong.
When we notice that, we can say to ourselves, “I’m having this conversation in my head again.”
Those conversations tend to roll over and over within us. When we notice that, we have the opportunity to pause.
We have the opportunity to notice, “Ah, here I am again. What does this messenger want me to understand?”
Because it keeps coming back. There’s something there for me to understand.
What am I afraid of losing? is a great question to ask.
Is there something that needs my attention or needs my action?
Eric Butterworth, the late Unity minister and author, once wrote:
“Things happen around you. Things may happen to you, but the only things that really count are the things that are happening in you.”
The things that are happening in your consciousness, in your mind, are what really matter. And we get to choose the response to our own thoughts.
We may not choose that first thought that arrives in our head, because sometimes that first thought may not be very healthy.
But we do have the opportunity to pause, breathe, and let the thought come in. We can practice choosing what we do once we notice it.
We can listen without spending an afternoon feeding it. Then we can bring our attention back to what we’re doing in the present moment, back to the garden, back to the person in front of us, back to the work that’s in front of us.
Meditation Helps Us Practice the Pause
Meditation is a wonderful practice to get us there.
When we sit down, our brain keeps doing what the brain is supposed to do. It’s supposed to fire neurons. Those thoughts are just rolling around. Sometimes worry appears.
Anybody notice that?
When we stop to meditate, those thoughts can keep rolling around.
Active MRIs of brains while people are meditating show that as people move into a meditative state, a different part of the brain becomes active. The brain is still doing what it does, but now we’re relating to that activity differently.
That’s why meditation is such a great practice. It’s an opportunity for us to get back to center.
Sometimes we meditate and think, “Oh, that was a terrible meditation. My brain just kept going and going and going.”
That can be a great meditation.
Talk about a great spiritual workout. Every time you notice that your brain is going, you have the opportunity to recognize:
I’m awake. I just woke up. Now I can bring myself back to presence.
I can bring myself back to my breathing, bring myself back to my mantra, so that I can get closer and closer to that experience of God.
In Unity, that’s what meditation is for. It brings us into that state of awareness of our oneness with the Allness of life. It gets us into that place where we can experience more fully that divine presence, that divine essence that is me.
When we notice that we’ve followed a thought somewhere, we gently bring our attention back to our breath.
Each time we return, we are practicing choosing where our attention goes and where our focus goes.
And that practice shows up when we’re actually moving through life.
“Okay, breathe. I’m noticing. I’m awake. I can feel the energy building.”
When worry builds in the car, when anger arises in a conversation, we’ve practiced it before. We know what to do.
Meditation helps us make that sacred space more familiar and more accessible to us.
Fully Human and Fully Divine
As we practice, we give ourselves permission to be human.
You may have heard the phrase, “We’re 100% human and we’re 100% divine.”
We are fully human and fully divine. Spirituality connects the two.
It connects our human aspect with that divine aspect within us so that we can live among each other, draw upon that divinity, and bring that essence to life in our interactions and in our lives.
We all experience anger and worry. These are the first two messengers.
Their appearance doesn’t mean we’ve failed at spiritual living.
We brought self-compassion with us on this journey, yes?
When we notice that anger and worry are popping up, we can have compassion for ourselves and say, “Oh, there you are, my dear friend.”
We can notice a feeling without judging ourselves for having it.
We can offer compassion to others too.
When we see anger coming from someone else, there’s that same sacred space. We can pause, breathe, and choose our response from a place of higher knowing.
When someone is angry or caught up in a moment of worry, we might wonder:
I wonder what they’re afraid of losing in this situation?
We can hold our boundary and still recognize their fear.
We can own our pause, because that pause gives us a choice to respond with care instead of adding more anger or more worry to the moment.
Anger: What Is Being Threatened?
Anger can be quick and immediate. It just flashes in front of us.
Someone might dismiss us. Someone might break an agreement. There might be some mistake or decision that we regret, and suddenly something sparks up.
Something is being threatened, and this energy arises.
The challenge with the energy of anger is that it can be very destructive. We may think of it as strong, but it’s actually chaotic and destructive unless we transform it into something different.
We can still have that same energy and transform it into spiritual strength.
We can transform it into presence.
We can transform it into active listening.
We can transform it into the questions:
What is mine to do? How can I move forward?
Anger is trying to tell us that we are feeling threatened.
Jones asks us to look beneath the anger and recognize the fear of loss that’s in it.
I may fear losing respect. I may fear losing safety. I may fear losing a relationship. Often, we feel like we’re losing control.
Certainly, we have no control over the other person. But we may also feel as though we’re losing control within ourselves because of that destructive energy.
Often it’s because we want to make the situation different, and suddenly we recognize we can’t.
We want to make the other person different, and suddenly we realize that’s not our business.
My business is making me different.
Rage and Resentment
Two descendants of anger are rage and resentment.
Rage is that energy flowing outward, and resentment is that energy flowing inward. It keeps burning within us.
We tend to replay an old injury long after the other person has stopped thinking about it.
It’s still going on in our mind, and they may have completely forgotten about it.
Listen to what anger can help us understand and what needs attention.
Maybe a boundary has been crossed.
Maybe something important has been left unsaid.
Perhaps we’re asking someone else to give us a sense of self-worth or security so that we can feel strength within ourselves, when the strengthening is really something we need to do within.
So I can ask myself:
What am I afraid of losing?
What is mine to do?
Anger always has energy that needs to move. To transform it into something productive, we have to move it into something else.
I can choose to be angry and speak quickly, or I can set a clear boundary and hold myself accountable for how I communicate it.
I can recognize that I’ve hurt someone and make a repair.
I can decide that an old resentment has taken enough of my life, and I’ll begin the practice of forgiveness, release, and letting go.
All of these are choices.
When the energy settles enough, our spiritual strength comes in, our strength with intention.
We can speak from an authentic voice. We can speak up to protect someone or act on a concern.
We can move that energy into something productive and powerful.
Turning Anger Into Love in Action
Yesterday, I had the joy of going to an event called Walking for Love.
It was a beautiful example of how we can show up differently.
There is so much division and negativity in the world. We had a wonderful group of about 60 people who chose to put love into motion by walking across the Golden Gate Bridge.
The idea was that we were walking across the bridge to bridge the gap of division and negativity, letting go of whatever side you’re on and knowing that we’re all here together in this divine energy called love.
It was a wonderful opportunity.
I believe that because we were showing up with that intention, we were changing the vibration. Certainly we were changing the vibration within us, because we were walking with the intention of love.
And as we walked with that intention of love, we were expressing that into the world.
Afterward, we gathered in the parking lot and sang Margo’s song, Walking for Love.
Everyone sang. Everyone showed up. Everyone was enthusiastic.
When anger comes up around the polarities and differences we have, we have the opportunity to shift that into a new energy, the energy of love.
We have the opportunity to shift it into a way that helps us move forward more easily and more gracefully.
What Is Mine to Do?
Next week, we have another opportunity to put that energy into action through our snack pack event.
We’re working with the Ecumenical Hunger Program to put together as many snack packs as we can for children.
School food and lunch programs don’t always operate on weekends, so we’re putting that energy, that love, into action to support our community.
We can feel angry about food insecurity. We can feel angry about economic pressures or other situations.
But anger isn’t who we are.
We can feel upset about a situation, and yet we don’t have to allow that anger to create more destruction in the world or destruction within us.
That anger may be telling us something.
It may be telling us:
I care deeply. I want to make a difference.
Anger is energy that needs to move, so the question is:
What is mine to do?
What’s mine to do may not be what’s yours to do, and that’s okay. We can honor and respect that.
Once we do that, we can put that care to work by helping other people.
We may not control the whole situation, but we may have something meaningful to contribute.
Worry: Are You Thinking or Circling?
Worry brings us to that same question of what belongs to us.
What is ours to hold?
But worry is a little different, and it shows up differently.
Sometimes worry can sound like thinking things through.
We disguise it as thinking things through.
“Why are you worrying about it?”
“I’m not. I’m just thinking it through…”
…for twenty minutes.
Sometimes thinking something through is useful. If there’s something in front of us that we need to plan for, we can make a useful plan.
But sometimes we’re just circling in that whirlpool.
We’re circling and circling and circling long after something has even occurred.
That’s worry.
Anxiety and Regret
Jones talks about two descendants of worry: anxiety and regret.
Anxiety carries us into what might happen.
Regret carries us into what has already happened.
One takes us into the future. The other takes us into the past.
Meanwhile, life is happening right here.
Beneath every worry is fear: the fear of losing someone’s wellbeing, financial security, the future we had hoped for, or something else we value.
Listening to worry allows us to see where we should put our attention, and only the amount of attention that it needs.
Keep going with what’s right in front of you.
Stop worrying about what’s going to happen two hours from now, three hours from now, or four weeks from now.
Come back to what is right in front of you.
Stop worrying about what happened in the past or regretting what we did, what we said, or what happened.
Focus on now.
There may be times when we need to make amends. There may be times when we need to make a plan. All of that is good.
But be present now and make a conscious decision.
Respond to the Wind You Have
When we were walking on the bridge the other night, the sailboats were out, and it was a wonderful reminder for me because Tiffany and I used to love watching sailing events.
We loved watching the America’s Cup.
If you’ve ever seen it, it’s not casual yachting. Every member of that crew has a job, and every member of that crew is busy doing that job one hundred percent of the time.
They need to be fully present.
They’ll prepare. They’ll exercise. They’ll run their drills. They’ll understand what they need to do.
But while they’re racing, they have to respond to what is happening in the moment.
They can’t stop and say, “Well, John, you really should have released that jib a little quicker.”
No. You have to move on, otherwise you’re done.
All kinds of things can happen if you’re not completely focused on the present moment.
Not all of us are going to be sailing on an America’s Cup yacht. Some of you may.
But life is like that. The stakes may not always be that high, but the same conditions appear.
We have to be present and ready to work with what is happening now.
Worry pops up. Is there something I can do about it now? Fine. I’ll make that plan and be present.
Regret comes up. If there’s something I need to let go of, release, or make amends for, then I’ll do that and come back to the present.
We have to learn to return.
Return to the present moment and stop dwelling in those other places.
Sailors can respond to the wind, but they cannot command it.
Their work is to do their part with the conditions they have.
There’s wisdom in that for us.
We can’t change yesterday. We can learn and make amends.
We can’t control tomorrow. We can prepare for what we know and meet the next moment when it comes.
This is what I think the great wisdom from the master teacher Jesus the Christ meant when he said in Matthew, chapter 6:
“Don’t worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Today’s trouble is enough for today.”
Be present in this moment.
Live in a Day-Tight Compartment
Consider living in a “day-tight compartment.” That’s Jones’ suggestion.
Live in today.
Compartmentalize today. Know what you need to do today. Tomorrow will take care of itself.
So ask:
What belongs in today?
What belongs to this moment?
What can I take care of with the information and ability I have right now?
With every messenger, there’s another question we can ask:
What will I miss if I keep living there?
What will I miss if I keep living in the future?
What will I miss if I keep living in the past?
What will I miss if I don’t start living here in this present moment?
If I stay in resentment, if I spend today worrying, if I keep hiding, what will I miss if I keep living in those spaces?
Breathe, Pause, and Choose
When anger and worry pop in for a visit this week, our practice is simple:
Breathe. Create that sacred pause. Then choose.
Choose how you will respond.
Breathe. Create that sacred pause. Choose how you will respond.
Don’t worry about answering the question quickly or being the first one done.
Breathe.
Create that sacred pause.
Then choose your response.
Affirmation
I pause, I listen, and I choose my response with wisdom, courage, and love.
Our spiritual strength is available in all of these situations, and our spiritual strength is available when we make that conscious choice.
Every time we use it, we help create the life, the relationships, and the world that we want to be a part of.
Rev. John Riley, and music by Margo LeDuc, and Russell Norman on piano.
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