Mind the Gap
If you’ve ever traveled on the Tube/Subway in London, you probably heard this statement over the intercom. When a train pulls into a station, there is sometimes a gap between the edge of the platform, and the door of the train.
The phrase “mind the gap” is supposed to remind people not to get their foot stuck in the gap, because obviously that could really ruin your day.
Hence the phrase “mind the gap”.
But there is a gap in your mind that is far more dangerous; which causes so many problems for people, and is routinely ignored by most of us. It’s the gap that should exist deep in our mind and as a part of our souls, but is mostly ignored, or even worse, unacknowledged.
When treated properly, this gap is responsible for our most profound growth, and when we ignore it, we fall prey to our greatest weaknesses.
I’m talking about the gap between observation of an event, and the meaning that we ascribe to it.
For much of my childhood and young adult life, I was ignorant of the gap. I saw no choice in the emotions that ruled me. When something happened, I reacted. That was all that I knew.
I was ignorant of how my underlying feelings manipulated how I created meanings from events, and that ignorance cost me greatly in both time and money.
And yet when I was first introduced to the gap, I fought against the concept.
Because there is a certain simplicity and lack of responsibility in living without the gap. If I have no choice in my feelings, then I have no responsibility for them, and there is a sense of freedom that comes when living without responsibility.
Of course it’s a lie, but it’s one that feels right at the time, because it allows us to fill so many emotional needs with the lies that our brain conveniently supplies for us.
Filling our needs with emotional lies is the very opposite of awareness, but it is so tempting to indulge.
When we first become aware of the gap, it’s hard to accept that we have that responsibility, especially when you come to understand that magnitude of it.
Once you accept the path of self-awareness, of self-responsibility, then you take ownership not only of what you do, but of what you think. You begin to realize your responsibility to the world to show up as the very best you that you can, and it all starts by accepting your responsibility for your own gap.
With apologies to Mr. Armstrong, accepting responsibility is one small step for you, but one giant leap for your awareness.
And the more aware we become, the wider that gap expands, and we gain control over our interpretation of what our life really means.
— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings