I've recently started including the awareness of spaces in between objects as part of the centering exercise I do with clients and students. As we look at objects with a curious attention--seeing them as if for the first time through the eyes of a child--they have a tendency to come alive in a new way. A fresh crispness is experienced when our pure attention is focused.

I'm noticing that clarity to be even more pronounced when I focus on the spaces in between objects. Their three dimensional nature becomes more apparent, but something else quite fascinating happens, too.

There is a visceral connection with the object as I become aware of the spaces in between. A deeper realization that I am a part of a bigger something eventually emerges. There's a direct experience of just being an extension of the object--the object and I are one and there is no space in between.

I don't usually subscribe to the "5 Things You Can Do To ____<insert some great outcome here>____" format of writing, or the use of an astonishing headline that boasts powerful transformation devised to pull in a reader. Oh, I know these are the trend for writers and marketers in our fast-paced, information-overloaded culture, but it seems somewhat deceiving and belittling to think that my audience's needs and happiness can be reduced to a bullet pointed list that they can read over breakfast. (I have to say, though, when I do get pulled in by this style, I do glean some great benefits from the information shared.)

That said, I have discovered one simple (but not always easy!) thing to help me in the current wrestling match I'm involved in with binging and weight gain.

Significant progress was made when I began looking at the deeper issues of what was happening in my life--what was causing me to go numb at night when I was home alone and when I was out and about with friends or traveling, but I unearthed another contributor that has made a huge difference...