With all this time together that the ‘Shelter-at-Home’ Mandates have created, all sorts of interesting challenges can arise, but none so troubling, it seems, than the need for space and how to ask for it. It’s easy to take offense to this request; to feel abandoned, rejected, dismissed or any of a hundred other not-nice emotions that we can interpret as in one way or the other, negatively reflecting or affecting on or ab out us. Space is necessary. As many are finding amidst this too-much-time in too-close proximity, it’s easy to feel lost or hemmed in or bound or trod upon by the Other, but it’s also just as easy, and just as natural to feel claustrophobic. This can trigger both all of the animalistic reactions of fight or flight or freeze. Freeze usually shows up as a shutting down, which can be interpreted by the Other as a shutting out, which then causes withdrawing of other ‘Other’s’ emotions and the Space becomes a tension-filled double vortex of insulation and/or isolation that often takes a long time to readjust back to some sense of normalcy. The ‘fight’ response is usually caused by a reaction (often an over-reaction) to some stimulus that is perceived as a slight, which then, in turn, triggers another reaction by the one being fought ‘against’, which then pin-balls back and forth in ever amplifying ways that, at best, gets the negative energy that is stored up in one or all of the involved parties released but like a bomb going off, there’s always collateral damage and worse can causes a complete blowout that destroys the relationship. Sometimes, this is inevitable and is for the best, but most often, it’s unfortunate and avoidable. Relationship therapy can and often does help–if intervened soon enough, but the simple ‘asking for’ and the supportive ‘granting’ of space can do wonders for both the health and the longevity of any relationship.
What causes the amplification is insecurity, and that can come in two basic forms: the person asking for the space is actually contemplating leaving the relationship and is either using the ‘space’ as an interim, trial separation and the other people senses that and either calls them out or freaks out; or the person being left/separated from with the person who is requesting need for space feels abandoned and thus then has an overreaction, and then person asking for the space then retracts their request; after which, whatever is festering either goes untreated (is repressed, goes underground, is negated) and grows worse or it is somehow dealt with in another manner that resolves or heals the need.
We have to remember that the need for space is not innately a bad thing, and in most cases should be encouraged. If it is encouraged in a healthy manner, it actually creates room into which more love can grow; it gives the involved parties a reset similar to a computer being rebooted; and both the spacer and the spacee can reflect on what brought them together in the first place and what they truly and deeply love about the other.
Space can take on many forms: simply going for a solo walk or stopping at a park or a beach on the way home from work to ‘let the waters still’ and leave one toxic environment, cleanse, and rest before entering into the environment that does not needs that previous environment’s ‘negative’ (frenetic, emotional, discombobulated, agitated, dysfunctional, or even political) energy.
In ancient Greek culture they has two ‘spaces’ (one actual and the other created ‘in the moment’) set up to do this very sloughing off of the negative or the temporarily ‘erroneous’ so that one who has just spent time in the non-traditional orientation can then return, welcomed, back into the known. These spaces were called Temenos. The actual, physical, Temenos was their version of a dressing room built just outside the theatre. In their times, theatrical performances were not costumed affairs. The actors simply went on stage with a mask attached to a stick, but they still acknowledged and honored the fact that the actor was becoming another person. The Temenos was the actual physical space within which the actor left the citizen they were and ‘put on’ and ‘took off’ that persona. The non-physical Temenos was actually created by the citizenry for the warriors who left the walled city to go out and defend it. In that time, clothing was not the de rigeur necessity we rely on, which actually confuses our culture because whatever fashion we each choose to wear symbolizes–like it or not–something about the ‘actor’ we always are–either by choice or by necessity. For war, however, armor and weaponry, of necessity, had to be worn. And, because as a natural ‘byproduct’ (odd word choice) of war is the fact that many of the men who left the walled city would not return, this time of putting on the armor was a ‘rite of passage’; and honoring of the man who leaving to that they life is acknowledged as complete, and the new life as the warrior is to now begin. After the ward (assuming that the troops were successful and, thus, the fought for ideal of the city/state could be maintained). the citizenry then welcomed the men back and both aided them in removing their armor and honoring their nakedness. Nakedness to the ancient Greeks was not just actual, it was symbolic as well. They were very much against what we call “putting on airs.” They believed in and trusted the actual person and abhorred anyone who acted amidst the citizenry. Acting was for the theatre and those arena was sacred spaces in which that type of not truths could be portrayed.
Were we able to create that same type of openly-acknowledged duality and could create and, with reverence, honor the transition, the cloistered ‘shelter-of-home’ space could be much cleaner energetically, much purer in both form and function, and could be the enriching space of love it is meant to be. In many aspects of our culture, the bar works similar to a Temenos but because of the chemicals and their intoxicating effects, the person ‘stopping in’ them on their way home does not get to the healthy purity that the home shelter most needs, They often get to an unfiltered condition, but because they are, at the same time, somewhat impaired mentally, that lack of filter often has a negative effect on the interactions once they enter the shelter of home. The Temenos can be created, but it needs to be openly acknowledged, honored, ad nurtured and nourish by both parties.