The Space Between

From: National Geographic.

Over the holiday I had the opportunity to join my friend's yoga class. She's such a good teacher that I transformed from feeling like a Christmas sausage into a sinuous being capable of anything. 

Yes, she's that good.  My feet were grounded.  I could feel energy gripping the mat through my heels and better yet, extending up through my core, through the density of interlaced scars and knotted tissue in my chest wall. There was a clean, clear stream line flowing along my arm that went through to the fingertips. And out.

As we slowed and folded into a meditative pose she suggested that we consider the space between breaths. Concentrate, she said, on the space between.

The space between. The phrase still resonates. I was like a child with a new toy, calling the words up and considering them or waiting, as they did one cold, crisp evening, to settle in my consciousness on their own accord. For every time those words land a sense of calm follows.  

The phrase works from the literal to the figurative. The space between is that glorious recess between Christmas and New Year's when the big events of the past year crystallize. The space between is a constant ebb and flow of life, as we navigate one day to the next, one challenge after another.  

For cancer survivors the space between can be highly charged or restorative. The space between can be time in between one treatment to the next. As Debbie Thomas wrote last week, it can be the time we need to to adjust, to reframe our identity from being a patient to being a "normal" working woman again.  


Cancer nipped my family badly this past year. There are times I suspect it will always be around, breathing down our necks. There were wounds and losses, recoveries and grief. The space between was an unexpected gift to me, to find my way with those losses, and discover my own way again. I hope you can find your space, too.


Wishing you love and all good things in this New Year,
Jody