Mind the gap

I call them gap days. You know these days when you are inbetween two projects, or you are in the middle of a project and suddenly interrupted by something, it can be the weather if it's an outdoor project, it can be something else coming up that needs your attention or something upsets you or hurts you and you are just not able to focus on work.

The gap days often brings with them some kind of frustration. You are not able to continue your project and you were in such a good flow or you just can't focus on your next step; what to do next? Which project to focus on now? Restlessness and frustration. It can be that restlessness and frustration set the tone for the rest of the day

In the metro in Athens the voice in the loudspeakers says at some of the stops “mind the gap between the train and the platform”.

And yes, let's mind the gap. Not in order to jump safely over it into the doing of another project, but let's mind the gap as a gap, an opening, an empty space inbetween things and stay there, listen to what it has to say. See it as a call from the soul saying hey, stop the doing for a moment and listen here, got something to tell you.

For me when I do this, when I am alert enough to hear that message, I understand the frustration and why nothing seemed to work that day; it wasn't meant to work! Or rather: I wasn't meant to work. It was time to stop the doing and the mental activity for a moment (or a day).

I am not living and working in a very stressful environment, nor have I a demanding boss giving me tight deadlines, but I can still loose connection and get caught up in musts and shoulds. Things might be flowing but if I'm not paying attention I can easily drop out of the flow if I'm attached to my thoughts, to the outcome of my actions or in any other way not present in what I'm doing in the moment.

Then I need a break. I need to stop and listen. And it seems like Life takes care of that by putting something inbetween me and the work I believe has to be done, now. And so there is a gap. A Gap is a Gift from the Soul. When I can accept the gift I stop and ask:

What is going on inside me? What needs to be seen and taken care of? And usually these are the moments of my most profound insights. These are the moments when I get in touch with something inside myself that is vulnerability, gratitude and bliss in the same time. And these are the moments when something else kind of takes over and sometimes guides me into another new project that was not at all on my schedule that day but gives me the nourishment and fulfillment I actually needed.

Do you have gap days?

A gap day
An inbetween day
A day that takes a break from doing and producing
A day when there is storm outside
and thunder inside
A day when the soul invites me to the moment that is and is the only thing there is
The lightning of that realization
cracks my heart open