Looking back on your life, when you do feel you have had space to grow? When have you felt it was okay to be yourself? How do you give other people the encourage and space to space develop?
Every living thing needs space to live and grow. Human beings are more likely to develop when they feel:
They can shape their lives, care for their loved ones and use their personal and professional talents;
They can be themselves and have the physical, psychological and philosophical space to grow;
They can help other people and make a positive contribution during their time on the planet.
People often feel driven to find or create a space where they can be themselves. This is not just a modern cliché where people talk about wanting space.
They have emigrated to new lands where they can have freedom to live, think and as they wish. They have chosen to live alone rather be in relationships that are imprisoning. They have moved to professional roles where they could use their talents rather than be in painful cultures.
The following pages describe an exercise I used to give on workshops that helped people to use their talents. This involved giving each person a long roll of paper which they spread on the floor. They were then invited to do the following things.
To map out the years they had lived in their life and also how long they would like to live in the future;
To draw how much space they felt they had during each stage of their lives and to note what was happening that those stages;
To recognise that this feeling of space is subjective – they could maybe have chosen to manage their experience in a different way – but it was important for them draw what it felt like;
To look ahead and describe how they wanted to create space for themselves – and make good use of it – in the future;
To clarify how they could encourage other people in their lives to be themselves and create space to grow.
The final part was important because some people could feel it was indulgent to focus only on their lives. It was good to explore how they could use what they had learned to encourage other people to grow.
The following pages provide an introduction to the exercise. It also includes examples of what one person wrote.
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