Don’t avoid the void.

What do we do when we’re in the void? That timeless space between knowing where we are and not knowing where we are or where the hell we’re going. How comfortable are we in that place of not knowing? Well I thought I was pretty OK with it and generally I think I still am. But faced with a 7 month stretch of being on a remote island, alone, it seems I got a bit lost in the wilderness of the unknown. I thought I knew who I was…until I got here.

How should I relate to this solitude day in day out? How should I spend my time? How should I make the most of this incredible experience? How much meditation and yoga should I be doing? How much writing? How often should I go swimming? What time should I get up? Go to bed? What should I eat? How much time should I spend on video calls to friends? How much Netflix is too much? Who the hell am I here???!

So I did what we do when we don’t know what to do…I fell back on unconscious habitual old patterns. But the really interesting thing is, it took me 2 months to spot it. That’s how sneaky and insidious these old comfort blanket behaviours can be…you don’t even see them coming.

I’d been here for a month, the stunning late September/early October weather had made way for more typical Hebridean squally winds and lashing rain, I’d explored all the walks and seen the best views that the island had to offer, the house sitters (see Oct blog) had left, and I was well and truly alone. The honeymoon was over and the fact that I’d signed myself up here until the end of April was beginning to sink in. So in the absence of knowing what the future looked like, I opted for looking to the past for some guidance – like a glass of red every day whilst preparing dinner, like eating meat again more than a few times a week, like picking up the phone to someone my head told me I was missing, and like stopping meditating virtually overnight.

Now I’ve been a teetotal meditating vegan (well, mostly) for some years now, so all of this was quite the lifestyle change. And the picking up the phone to someone…well what I didn’t see was that I was really just missing myself.

So here I am, 2 months later, suddenly realising with a smack in the face that as I’d stepped into the void…I’d fallen off my path. But I’m learning that the void isn’t the scary vacuous black hole we’ve been led to believe it is. The void is actually a place of opportunity, of curiosity, of observing, of resting, of letting go, of being, of manifesting, of expanding. So as I no doubt re-visit the void once again, I intend to be more mindful of not avoiding it next time it comes around, which I’m certain it will, which I hope it will.