The Empty Place
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The Empty Place
I posted this in another thread and it was suggested to give it its own thread so here it is. This is a passage from Charles Eisenstein's The more beautiful world our hearts know is possible. I carried a photocopy of this page with me for a long time and read it often.
Do not be afraid of the empty place. It is the source we must return to if we are to be free of the stories and habits that entrap us.If we are stuck and do not choose to visit the empty place, eventually we will end up there anyway. You may be familiar with this process on a personal level. The old world falls apart, but the new has not emerged.Everything that once seemed permanent and real is revealed as a kind of hallucination. You don’t know what to think, what to do; you don’tknow what anything means anymore. The life trajectory you had plotted out seems absurd, and you can’t imagine another one. Everything is uncertain. Your time frame shrinks from years to this month, this week,today, maybe even to the present moment. Without the mirages of order that once seemed to protect you and filter reality, you feel naked and vulnerable, but also a kind of freedom. Possibilities that didn’t even exist in the old story lie before you, even if you have no idea how to get there.The challenge in our culture is to allow yourself to be in that space, to trust that the next story will emerge when the time in between has ended, and that you will recognize it. Our culture wants us to move on,to do. The old story we leave behind, which is usually part of the consensus Story of the People, releases us with great reluctance. So please, if you are in the sacred space between stories, allow yourself tobe there. It is frightening to lose the old structures of security, but you will find that even as you might lose things that were unthinkable to lose, you will be okay. There is a kind of grace that protects us in the space between stories. It is not that you won’t lose your marriage, your money, your job, or your health. In fact, it is very likely that you will lose one of these things. It is that you will discover that even having lost that, you are still okay. You will find yourself in closer contact to something much more precious, something that fires cannot burn and thieves cannot steal, something that no one can take and cannot be lost.We might lose sight of it sometimes, but it is always there waiting for us.This is the resting place we return to when the old story falls apart. Clear of its fog, we can now receive a true vision of the next world, the next story, the next phase of life. From the marriage of this vision and this emptiness, a great power is born.
Do not be afraid of the empty place. It is the source we must return to if we are to be free of the stories and habits that entrap us.If we are stuck and do not choose to visit the empty place, eventually we will end up there anyway. You may be familiar with this process on a personal level. The old world falls apart, but the new has not emerged.Everything that once seemed permanent and real is revealed as a kind of hallucination. You don’t know what to think, what to do; you don’tknow what anything means anymore. The life trajectory you had plotted out seems absurd, and you can’t imagine another one. Everything is uncertain. Your time frame shrinks from years to this month, this week,today, maybe even to the present moment. Without the mirages of order that once seemed to protect you and filter reality, you feel naked and vulnerable, but also a kind of freedom. Possibilities that didn’t even exist in the old story lie before you, even if you have no idea how to get there.The challenge in our culture is to allow yourself to be in that space, to trust that the next story will emerge when the time in between has ended, and that you will recognize it. Our culture wants us to move on,to do. The old story we leave behind, which is usually part of the consensus Story of the People, releases us with great reluctance. So please, if you are in the sacred space between stories, allow yourself tobe there. It is frightening to lose the old structures of security, but you will find that even as you might lose things that were unthinkable to lose, you will be okay. There is a kind of grace that protects us in the space between stories. It is not that you won’t lose your marriage, your money, your job, or your health. In fact, it is very likely that you will lose one of these things. It is that you will discover that even having lost that, you are still okay. You will find yourself in closer contact to something much more precious, something that fires cannot burn and thieves cannot steal, something that no one can take and cannot be lost.We might lose sight of it sometimes, but it is always there waiting for us.This is the resting place we return to when the old story falls apart. Clear of its fog, we can now receive a true vision of the next world, the next story, the next phase of life. From the marriage of this vision and this emptiness, a great power is born.
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It is not that you won’t lose your marriage, your money, your job, or your health. In fact, it is very likely that you will lose one of these things.
This bit almost makes me laugh now. I lost all these things and more. And less than four years on I am ok, more than ok, I´m good. I would never have believed it at the time if someone had told me then where I would be today. Faith, as well as hope, helps us to keep moving towards that light at the end of the tunnel, even when the tunnel is so dark and we can´t see the light.
This bit almost makes me laugh now. I lost all these things and more. And less than four years on I am ok, more than ok, I´m good. I would never have believed it at the time if someone had told me then where I would be today. Faith, as well as hope, helps us to keep moving towards that light at the end of the tunnel, even when the tunnel is so dark and we can´t see the light.
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I printed it, too! It's perfect timing for me as I navigate a new, challenging health diagnosis. And I'm keeping it on hand to share with several different friends who are facing tough times; one a likely divorce and another the death of a spouse.
This might be my favorite line, so poetic, such a beautiful image: "There is a kind of grace that protects us in the space between stories."
This might be my favorite line, so poetic, such a beautiful image: "There is a kind of grace that protects us in the space between stories."
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