The Laws of Subtraction--Inserting Space Between the Notes of Your Life

When I went shopping last week for my wife's Christmas gift, I realized something important about me (and, it turns out, about a lot of us).  I walked into one clothing store and was immediately assaulted by the endless racks of clothes--they're hanging on the walls, standing on the floors, piles everywhere.  The picture on the right is what I see when I walk into any clothing store!

The way clothing stores are being set up these days, it reminds me of airplanes--more and more seats with less and less leg room and aisle width.  I stood there for a few moments glancing around the massive store with its seemingly infinite variety--and to be honest, I got overwhelmed.  Too many choices.  I just didn't have enough head space and bandwidth, not to mention patience, to start rummaging through every rack.  I didn't even know exactly what I was looking for, which made the variety of choices even more paralyzing.

So as a shopper in those moments, I always resort to the easy way:  looking for the mannequins--I have to see complete outfits.  As a visual person, mannequins are my best friends in navigating so many choices.  So I walked around surveying all of the mannequins and never saw anything I liked.  I left.

I went into a smaller store in the mall, and in a few minutes, I saw a complete outfit hanging out in plain view, and I liked it.  Very much.  And 40% off helped make the decision easier.  In a matter of minutes I was standing in the check out line, excited with my purchase and hardly able to wait Christmas Eve for my wife to try it all on.

We live in an age of excess and choice--an overabundance of both.  And spirituality isn't immune from this challenge.  There are so many options available to explore.  We're inundated with books, DVDs, CDs, seminars and workshops, religious organizations trumpeting their truths, nonprofits vying for our attention to support their good causes, all describing different ways of believing, thinking, and acting.  Our temptation is to either ignore all of these options (we're too overwhelmed, not enough bandwidth to consider everything) or to simply keep adding to our lives--after all, it's all good, right?  We can never have too much good in our lives, can we?

But the truth is, we cannot live our lives based only on the law of addition.  Effective spirituality is as much about subtraction as it is about addition.

In his book The Laws of Subtraction, author Matthew E. May makes the observation that "at the heart of every difficult decision lie three tough choices:  What to purse versus what to ignore.  What to leave in versus what to leave out.  What to do versus what to don't.  I have discovered that if you focus on the second half of each choice--what to ignore, what to leave out, what to don't--the decision becomes exponentially easier and simpler...This is the art of subtraction:  when you remove just the right thing in just the right way, something good usually happens."  (p. xii)

I think he's dead on!  All spiritual traditions consequently emphasize this significant principle and provide practices and ways to learn this art of subtraction.  The season of winter is often used as a time to reflect on this second half of the equation:  What do I need to let go of in my life?  What isn't serving me any more that I should release?  What do I need to de-clutter in order to make room for the new?  What am I holding on to too tightly that might be keeping me from spiritual growth and renewal?

We were not created with infinite head space or bandwidth.  We cannot be healthy spiritually or otherwise if we only live by the laws of addition or even attraction.  We are called to take the counter-intuitive approach from time to time to learn the art of subtraction.

So what space are you creating in your life to have this intentional reflection and self-evaluation?  The new year is a perfect time for this experience.

For these reasons, I have developed a cycle of three weekend retreats for 2013, starting January 25-26, to carve out this significant personal space for these reflections.  This first of the three weekends will be stepping into the law of subtraction.  Winter.  Letting go.  De-cluttering.  Making room for the new.  Healthy spirituality necessitates spiritual subtraction.

I invite you to consider participating in these retreats starting next month.  Here is the link for the details.  Feel free to pass it along to friends and family.  https://www.gregorypnelson.com/Retreats.php.  The deadline for the early bird discount is in 48 hours, and it's limited to just 20 people, so check it out soon.  I would love to have you experience this transformational journey.

One of my favorite classical composers is Claude Debussy.  I still enjoy playing "Claire de Lune" on the piano.  Debussy once wrote, "Music is the space between the notes."

If you know his music, you know that he is a master at spacing--intervals--when no sound exists--even if only briefly.  That silence and space between the notes serve to enhance the musicality and power of the notes.  Imagine listening to a pianist or vocalist (or even speaker, for that matter--I've endured too many of them) who never stops--they play/sing/speak incessantly--with no breaks--no silence--no pause.  How do you feel or react?  It's simply exhausting, isn't it?  Overwhelming.  Easy to ignore and tune out.  Our bandwidth gets used up before they're even done so we check out.  Effective composing is not just adding more notes to be played without rest or pause.  It's learning how to subtract strategically, thoughtfully, emotionally.

I encourage you as you face a new year to give yourself the profound and transforming gift of subtraction.  Carve out sacred space to reflect on what needs to be let go of, ignored, left out in your life.  Create more space between the notes of your life.  Engage in this difficult, counter-intuitive, but I guarantee you, rewarding work of making room for what is yet to come.

Dr. May has it right:  When you remove just the right things in just the right way, something good always happens."

Your Swan Song and The Antidote to Busyness

[If you like these posts, feel free to share them with others - click on the share button to the right.  If you would like to receive each new blog post as an automatic email, please subscribe at the right.] Do you ever struggle with the challenge of trying to balance all the different commitments in your life like work, family, personal development, spirituality?  You perhaps want to pay equal attention to every area but then feel frustrated and sometimes guilty that you simply don't have the time or energy to do it all good enough?

In an article in the latest Inc. magazine, Nancy Rosenzweig, a serial entrepreneur and CEO and the mother of two small children shared a profound insight.  That fact that she also devotes significant time to volunteer work has sometimes caused tension at home.  In responding to criticism about the potential of neglecting the most important things in her life by simply being too busy, she paraphrased the poet David Whyte and said, "The antidote to buyness is not rest but rather 'wholeheartedness.'" She says that her community commitments, for example, don't deplete her - they energize her.  "Nurturing ourselves by doing things we're passionate about in turn allows us to 'wholeheartedly' nurture others - including our families and our companies."

It does raise the significant spiritual question, How are you replenishing your body, mind, heart, and spirit?  Is there anything you're involved in that you're engaging in  "wholeheartedly?"  Are you paying attention to what really energizes you, to what taps into your deep passion?  Or are you simply going through all the right motions in all the areas of your life, giving whatever you have to give to all of them, but your heart and soul are not being utilized or plumbed or stimulated?  You're working really hard (lots of activity) but you still don't feel like you're getting anywhere?  You're dissatisfied deep inside?  Are you simply busy, working diligently and with great effort, trying to be successful in everything, but experiencing a slow burn leading to a slow death inside?  You're losing track of who you really are?

David Whyte, in an excerpt from "Crossing the Unknown Sea," describes this reality with the words, "Your exhaustion is a form of inner fermentation. You are beginning, ever so slowly to rot on the vine."

What a tragic picture.  The grape is designed to grow on the vine, to mature to the point of being able to be harvested and ultimately turned into something that brings great joy and satisfaction to others.  But if it is left too long on the vine, it experiences a slow rotting from the inside out.  And ends up being discarded.

The word courage in English comes from the old French word cuer, heart.  You must do something heartfelt, reminds David Whyte, and you must do it soon.  Which begs the question, what are you doing in your life that is truly heartfelt?  What are you doing that speaks both to and from your deepest soul, expressing your inner longings and desires and God-given passion?  To do that takes courage - a movement in the heart to bold action and risk.  That's why so few people truly possess courage.  It's sometimes easier to simply maintain the status quo and not rock the boat and try to please everyone.  But that kind of heartless living ultimately leads to a busyness that little by little destroys the soul and ends up useless to blessing others.  It's not easy living with courage.

This clumsy living that moves lumbering as if in ropes through what is not done, reminds us of the awkward way the swan walks.

And to die, which is the letting go of the ground we stand on and cling to every day, is like the swan, when he nervously lets himself down into the water, which receives him gaily and which flows joyfully under and after him, wave after wave, while the swan, unmoving and marvelously calm, is pleased to be carried, each moment more fully grown, more like a king, further and further on. (Rainer Maria Wilke, "The Swan")

In commenting on this poem, applying it to a friend who comes to see him, Whyte says, "You are like Rilke's Swan in his awkward waddling across the ground; the swan doesn't cure his awkwardness by beating himself on the back, by moving faster, or by trying to organize himself better. He does it by moving toward the elemental water where he belongs. It is the simple contact with the water that gives him grace and presence. You only have to touch the elemental waters in your own life, and it will transform everything. But you have to let yourself down into those waters from the ground on which you stand, and that can be hard. Particularly if you think you might drown."

No wonder the word courage means "heart."  Much of what we do in life (and God knows we are all extremely busy doing much) has nothing or little to do with our true powers, our truest sense of self, our God-given purpose to which we feel empowered to devote our whole heart.  We often relegate those issues to impracticality ("that's just not the way life is; we can't afford that luxury!").  We judge people who try to live their heartfelt passions as neglecting real life, shirking responsibilities, trying to live in a fantasy world, or having a midlife crisis.  So we end up going through life like a swan that refuses to enter the water and simply waddles around on dry ground - awkward, expending unnecessary effort, and worst of all, not living out its true purpose.

But when the swan chooses to step into the water the whole picture changes.  We use the swan as one of the ultimate symbols of gracefulness, coining the phrase, "as graceful as a swan."  It's a picture of inspiring beauty when a swan behaves like a swan.

What are you and I robbing the world of when we don't have the courage to live the way we were designed by God to live - a life of wholehearted purpose?  What are we robbing ourselves of?    We all need something to which we can give our full powers.  And only we individually know what that is.  Our heart, our deepest soul will tell us if we stop long enough to listen to the swan song.