Running on Empty (hopefully)
I am running on empty. These days are exceptionally full - extra doctor appointments, holiday preparations, end of year school programs. Not a moment to catch my breath. Not a moment to refill my cup. So what’s getting me through isn’t fullness…. it’s emptiness when possible.
Dropping Leaves
Have you watched the trees in the forest drop their leaves one by one? Down they float leaving bare branches above. Have you notices the final blooms leaving the rosebush? The bears turning to their dens? The sun dipping low before dinnertime?
Nature is closing her doors where I live. She’s dropping all pretense of work, creation, generation, growth. She’s getting quiet and resting.
Now is the empty time of year. Like a pitcher all is poured out. She waits; hollow, empty. (ready to refill, yes . . . . but NOT . YET)
Empty Cycle
Emptiness is part of the rhythm of life. Nature knows she cannot sustain perpetual movement and growth. She knows there must also be times of stillness and letting go. Times of movement balanced by times of stillness. Times of filling balanced by times of emptiness.
It is in our breath - inhale / exhale. In our heartbeat. It is in our very cells because what are we but miniscule particles swirling around empty space?
Nature’s secret, the way she returns year after year is that she takes time to rest. She unapologetically stops and empties out before beginning again. It works every time.
As ever, she has much to teach humankind. Emptiness is not much celebrated and sorely overlooked. We run round with full minds and full schedules, wondering why we’re not fulfilled in all of our busyness. But empty times are also necessary if one wants to sustain anything of value. Without emptiness there is no rest; no time to gestate what’s to come.
So when I say I’m running on empty I don’t mean on fumes, but on the richness of purposefully emptying again and again.
Filling the Emptiness
I would like to tell you that I’m really excelling at this emptiness thing. That you’ll find me slowly turning to moss as I sit by the walnut tree in my backyard. But that is not the case.
Emptiness -which is always here - feels maddeningly elusive. It’s here for a moment, half a breath, and then instantly refills itself. Another appointment on the calendar, a new worry to obsess over. It fills itself.
And if not, if emptiness dares to linger longer or threatens to take part of the day well, that is pretty darn confrontive to my acheivement oriented brain. So, no worries, I’m bound to fill myself on purpose even though I know…. I know in my bones: emptiness has much more to teach me than busy ever will.
Practicing Emptiness
And so. Emptying, like most everything, is a practice.
The practice of emptying is subtle, mysterious. One has to almost sneak up on it. And it is intimate. As intimate as one’s own breath, for that’s the place to start.
Notice the emptiness at the end of your exhale - not even forcing or changing a thing
Just notice yourself as empty… just for a moment
Perhapse keep the empty feeling as breath moves again, fills, then empties, landing once more at the bottom.
Close as your breath, here in every cycle.
Empty. Empty. Empty.
If you want more
Empty and soften. - your skin, your eyes, your body , unclench your gut.
And linger - practice staying empty as thoughts come and go.
Anxiety - that nagging feeling that”I should be DOING something” comes too. And you tolerate it until it too d i s s o l v e s
with your softening on the out breath, it will dissolve… eventually
All things do
Even you
Can you sit with your own emptiness, and dissolve?
After Emptiness
When the noise quiets down / the doing stops / when you are empty and still… that’s when something else can arise
Call it the Being (your capacity for Being vs doing)
Call it Awareness
Call it Presence Witness Compassion
Call it Hrdaya the Heart, the Essence
When all empties out we find FULLNESS
the fullness of the Being
The biggest surprise is that true emptiness isn’t empty at all. It’s full. Full of wholeness, connection and peace. This is the vitality that powers all of life. Empty out and find yourself caught in her loving embrace.