Mind The Gap
When you ride the Tube in London, there is a calm, mechanically neutral thoughtful voice, addressing commuters as the doors slide open and closed. “Mind The Gap.” it reminds, referring of course to the small cavernous space between subway and platform. It has become a bit of London tourism, and you can purchase t-shirts, coasters, and stickers labeled with this helpful adage.
I was speaking to my friend today about the gap between emotion and action and this subway voice came to me in a swoosh of air and metal, and I considered it as a useful mantra. The word Mantra literally means, “that which protects the mind”. Before we step foot on the train cars of life, let us peer for a moment right into the gap, tenderly, fragily separating us from our platform, and our car, from our feelings, and our words, from our feelings, and our actions. Perhaps we are triggered by old wounds, by trauma, by very current wounds, by a cloying fit of road rage, or by our partner or mother or child. Maybe we are like the sweet scraggly dog who has learned to expect a slap, and cringes at the slightest raising of the hand, and so we snap, defend, and argue our position in life, merely surviving, merely contracting at best, and at worst being in destructive relationships, patterns, and positions.
So here- it is helpful to get vigilant about the gap. The gap is that delicate vibrating space before the chi and fire rises up into our throats, before our breath gets short and raspy, before we check out, disassociate, and leave our bodies, shout, before we say things we regret later, before our wounds get tearing about, shredding things like small ferocious tornadoes. We blame the external world. If our partner didn’t do that, or did it differently, or if we hadn’t gone through what we went through, or if any number of things were in place, it wouldn’t be so difficult. If we are locked in trying relationships, we try in fact to change one another to ease discomfort. Our yoga and meditation practice can teach us to be comfortable with discomfort. To notice. Viphassana meditation, for example, is sitting completely still and noticing the ache, the itch, the burning at the spine. Noticing, and letting go.
The gap, is literally the time and space where we can notice, and observe, before we react. It is a good thing. We move about through life at breakneck speed, jumping onto trains without a glance, or thought, or breath. In order to slow down, we study ways to focus on breath, on the present, on smelling the roses, air, ocean, by studying yoga, meditation, tai chi, chi gong… Here, in this sweet gentle place, in these contexts, it is easy to mind the gap. It may be physically demanding to sit in pigeon, with hip crying out to get comfortable, and glutes burning, and brow furrowing, but here we can notice sensation and let it go. There is safety here. We can use this experience as a lesson to take into the field, our practice; a literal boot camp for life.
We forget to mind the gap when we are cut off thoughtlessly, calculatingly in traffic, when we are insulted, or rattled, when we are dismissed or yelled at. In my relationship with my partner, my wounds are wide open, and salted, and stinging, and so noticing, before reacting, is like holding back the ocean. Feels as difficult as stopping the rain, and this is my karma, my lesson. I fight because it is the well-worn path, rutted, carved by water, years, practice, because all of my life, for survival, I HAD TO. I fought back because I was attacked, reamed, bore down on, pushed, provoked, criticized, overpowered, imposed upon, squeezed in the vice-grip of this; and I was furious. I began to doubt my own reality. I began to check out, loath myself, get reactive and scrappy.
If any of these things happen for you, you will do well, like me, to study ways in which to slow this process, to mind the gap, and stay in it like a little respite, a reprieve. It will happen again. Something will trigger your anger, or defenses, and you will want to act without thinking, and shout perhaps, and curse, defend, leave your body, curl up, withdraw. Just keep trying and don’t lose heart. Keep trying to get quiet, taking deliberate breaths, do mantra, do whatever it takes. Notice the habits, notice the fierce desire gripping, and addictive, to resort to old ways of handling conflict and fear. Notice, but don’t judge. Send loving kindness to yourself, the situation, the traffic, the fear, the partner, the child, the boss, the stormy weather. In the noticing, is the magic, in the minding, is the space to create another reality, space and room for deliberation, consciousness, and choice. Change will come as naturally as the inhale necessarily follows the exhale, and there is great comfort in knowing you are in charge of the words and actions which come from you. There is comfort here, in this inky quiet, this poised for motion, but presently unwavering, gap.
