With the amount of information that gets firehosed at us each day—it’s no wonder we so often rush when taking in words.
But it’s the space in between reading pieces—especially pieces that have different authors—where all the magic happens.
…Space for the words to saturate in the mind.
…Space for the mind to exhale after having taken a fresh inhale.
…Space to turn inward and see what’s been stirred up from what’s just been introduced.
Space (and time) is how we move from surface understanding towards internalization.
The image I hold in my head is like the lifecycle of rain:
- Evaporation: The movement of words from paper or screen to the sky of my mind.
- Condensation: The formation of those words into thought clouds… maybe even insight droplets that grow in size proportional to the space given and time they’re held.
- Precipitation: The heat of our attention mixed with the cool vastness of our mind’s vast unconscious understanding create water droplets that eventually fall onto the surface of our mind.
- Understanding: Depending on our attention, intention, and internal environmental condition of the space we create and hold for the rich precipitation that runs down the crevices of our mind… will determine our level of understanding, application, and internalization.
When we rush one piece to the next, the clouds in the sky of our mind move as quickly out as they came in.
Slowing down allows those clouds to linger. To plumpen up. To create a rain droplet size worthy of a rainforest.
Precisely what the environment of our mind deserves.
…Precisely what precipitation-less, fast moving clouds do nothing for.