Forest clearing

Psychologist and author Tara Brach mentioned a quote and a poem in a meditation she offered recently that really moved me.

Viktor Frankl, an Austrian neurologist, psychologist and Holocaust survivor said, “Between stimulus and response there is a space.  In that space is our power to choose our response.  In our response lies our growth and our freedom.” 

That space.

How many times have we reacted and regretted it immediately?  We made someone feel bad, we yelled, we pressed send, we wounded with words.

If we breathe or close our eyes or count to ten after the stimulus and before the response, how might our day or year or life change?  How might our friends and family and colleagues see us?  How might that moment make all the difference?

That space is a little thing.  A little thing we can do every single day.

As Martha Postlewaite wrote in her poem The Clearing

“Do not try to save the whole world
or do anything grandiose.
Instead, create
a clearing
in the dense forest
of your life
and wait there
patiently,
until the song
that is your life
falls into your own cupped hands
and you recognize and greet it.
Only then will you know
how to give yourself
to this world
so worth of rescue.”

That space is the clearing in the forest of our life.  It will allow us to be in the moment, recalibrate, decide and accept.

Creating that space is in our hands.  Our power is in our hands.  We can choose freedom, peace and growth if we take a moment to sit in our clearing.

Author(s)

  • Siobhan Kelleher Kukolic

    Mother-of-three. Freelance writer. Author. #HuffPost blogger. Believer in dreams. www.siobhankukolic.com

    Siobhan Kukolic is a storyteller at heart. She writes to inspire the belief that we have all we need to be the change we wish to see. She recently published her first book, available on Amazon and Indigo. The Treasure You Seek is about following your heart, believing in yourself beyond reason, embracing failure and knowing that you are enough. It includes inspirational stories about famous failures, cultural icons, world leaders and regular folks like you and me. The goal is to remind us that we have all we need to be the change we wish to see. A perfect read for graduates from elementary school through university, people starting their career, changing jobs or retiring, friends going through a medical crisis, new parents, empty nesters and anyone who wants to be inspired. She started her career as a copywriter working on campaigns for organizations including Esso, Mead Johnson Nutrition, Grand & Toy, Labatt, and SC Johnson. While raising her kids, she volunteered as co-chair of her school council for seven years, helped get eight 20-foot maples donated for an eco-classroom and co-ordinated the building of a school peace garden with 115 donated trees and shrubs for Earth Day. She co-founded a not-for-profit movement called Blueberry Shark, named after a healthy fruit and the only animal that doesn't get cancer, with a mission to create the healthiest kids in the world. By providing a voice for those who didn't have one, she rallied enough media attention to help crowd-fund $105,000 in two weeks to pay for an unfunded drug for a mother of two dying of stage-four brain cancer. She also used media attention to nudge the government to change drug coverage policy right before an election and get a $360,000 a year drug covered for a 12-year-old cystic fibrosis patient. Her letters to the editor are frequently published in the National Post and she has represented her neighbourhood by making deputations at city council and the school board. She spends her time blogging, speaking to students and corporations about grit, and juggling the schedules of her three kids as they follow their dreams in competitive Irish dance and ice hockey. www.siobhankukolic.com