Curating the Empty Space

Curating the Empty Space

Today we hear a lot about self-care, wellness, staycations, retreats, and the need to unplug.

But perhaps we should ask a deeper question:

Why have these things become so necessary for so many of us?

There seems to be an underlying exhaustion running through our lives—a constant pressure to do, produce, accomplish, and become.

We fill our calendars.

We fill our homes.

We fill the silence.

And somewhere along the way, we can begin to measure our worth by how much we accomplish.

But who are we without our titles, responsibilities, achievements, and productivity?

This is where I have become interested in curating the empty space.

Not emptiness as something missing, but emptiness as something intentionally left open.

In Buddhism, emptiness is not simply nothingness. It points toward a spaciousness in which we loosen our grip on the identities, judgments, and attachments through which we usually experience life. The Tao similarly reminds us that usefulness often comes from what has been left open. A cup is useful because of the empty space within it. A room becomes livable because of the space enclosed by its walls.

Perhaps our lives need that same openness.

We can intentionally leave places in our days where nothing needs to be accomplished.

Space to sit.

Space to walk.

Space to listen.

Space to connect with someone we love.

Space to notice the wind moving through the trees.

Space where we do not have to improve ourselves, optimize ourselves, or prove anything at all.

I continue to work with this in my own life. Much of my drive toward doing and accomplishing grew from a need to prove my value. Productivity became intertwined with worth.

Releasing that conditioning is itself a practice.

When we begin releasing the need for our value to be confirmed by productivity, recognition, titles, or outside validation, something interesting happens:

space appears.

And this space is not empty in the sense of having nothing within it.

It is fertile.

It gives the body an opportunity to rest and the mind an opportunity to settle. It creates room for relationships, creativity, intuition, joy, and simple presence.

We begin moving from a life organized primarily around doing toward one that also makes room for being.

This does not mean abandoning responsibility, ambition, or meaningful work. It means allowing those things to arise from a more stable and spacious place rather than allowing them to determine our worth.

Perhaps balance is not something we finally achieve.

Perhaps it is something we continually curate.

Making room.

Letting go.

Returning.

Creating enough empty space that we can hear what remains when there is nothing left to prove.

And perhaps, within that emptiness, we discover that simply being here has always been enough.

The practice is not only what we add to our lives.

Sometimes the practice is what we are willing to leave empty.

— Fusatsu, Apriel JessupSearcy

Three Mountains Way