Make More Breathing Space For Things That Matter

By: John Eliason

What is breathing space? I always ask people, when’s the last time that you created more of it? And with more of it, what difference would it make in your life and work.

Imagine the things that are weighing on you or wasting your time, energy, and heart, and if we could get rid of 25% or 50% of those things. Now could we do with that space that we have that we didn’t have before. How that might feel?

So start by stepping back to get some space from the things that are railroading us. De-clutter some of the things that are wasting our time, energy, and heart.

I often say we need a heart monitor because our heart can intuitively feel what is right. I call it the breathing space meter. Imagine the meter goes from 1-10 and if you hold this up, when it feels really good, it’s a 10, right?

Ask yourself what would a 10 feel like? 9? 8? 7? Ect?

If you take the time to register these measurements, you can hold this up to everything in your life and give it a score. If it’s a 10, nine or eight, that’s good. If it’s something less than a 8, maybe we should delete it. Or if we have to keep it, then it’s something that we need to figure out how to disentangle.
But there’s a lot of stuff you could just get rid of.

Unfortunately it’s the stuff in the middle that people accumulate. The 1’s and 2’s are easy to recognize because we often hate them or they are painful. But it’s 3-7’s that will add more to your life that don’t matter and take time and energy from the 8, 9, and 10’s.

Imagine if you were playing a card game but you don’t pick up every card. Instead you just pick up the cards that are going to make your hand better. But in life, we don’t do that. We accumulate crap, you know, we accumulate a noise and garbage and load. And we spend all day with the, energy that we have just taking care of all the stuff and a lot of it doesn’t matter.

Shed the load that doesn’t matter and keep the stuff that matters by giving it your energy and time.