The Space In-Between

For the layman, spirituality is a journey of inner healing and growth.

For the sadhak, spirituality is the journey to enlightenment or freedom from the cycle of life and death.

Wherever you are on the spectrum of spiritual seekers, this article is going to share the reality of the spiritual journey, the space in-between and what it really means to walk this path through my own experiences.

Spirituality and Letting Go

‘Before I can start to gain, I have to lose everything.’

When I began on this path, my life was full.

Full in the same way yours is full – I had friends, family, a career, a home, a path I was on.

It was the same path we’re all on: go to school, go to work, get married, have children, send them into the system, retire.

The only thing was… I hated it.

I hated every minute of it.

It felt fake.

Like a life that wasn’t mine.

Outside, it looked completely normal but inside? Inside, I wanted to escape my reality with every fibre of my being.

And it showed up in every minute of my life.

I spent every free minute I had scouring the internet for ways to break free and prove that the system was corrupt – that it didn’t care about me or you.

I wanted to prove that we were all just cogs in the machine of society and that we were all wasting our lives toiling away so we could collectively walk away and rethink our lives.

Crazy right?

What was even crazier was that everyone I spoke to would agree with me, then quietly go back to their lives and never speak of it again.

It drove me nuts.

Why were we doing this?

To what end?

Why do we all wake up at obscene hours of the morning, force-feed ourselves and rush out the door to sit in traffic endlessly to go to a job we hate, and then return home to rinse and repeat?

What was the purpose?

One day, my aesthetician’s brother passed away without cause. He was a healthy 30-year-old with no bad habits, great credit and a family.

It forced me to question the way of life that had been ingrained in me from the moment I was born: Work hard, save, retire and then enjoy life.

But what if I die tomorrow?

What use would it all have been?

Why did I save up? Why didn’t I take risks? Why didn’t I live my life?

These questions began to build up in me until one day I couldn’t take it anymore.

I couldn’t take the undercurrent of disrespect toward women at my current workplace. I couldn’t take the pressure of accepting the next job offer that doubled my salary but wanted me to move across the country and sell my soul in a different way. I couldn’t take the voice inside me that kept insisting I was meant to do more with my life.

So, I quit my job.

That’s when my spiritual journey ramped up.

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Accelerating my Spiritual Journey

Up until that moment, I had been last on my list of priorities.

When I sent in my resignation letter and rejected the job offer I had received, I promised myself to start putting myself first.

Every day, before I gave to anyone else, I would give to me.

That decision shifted the Spiritual Progress Gear inside me from neutral to drive.

I began starting every single day with yoga and openly pursuing the practice.

At the time, I didn’t know yoga and spirituality were so deeply linked, I just knew that at the end of my practice, I didn’t feel like my life was falling apart and that I was helpless to stop it. I felt calm, present and at ease.

With continued practice, my journey started moving on fast forward and my life began to unravel.

Losing Everything

In my teenage years, I had a severe flat foot.

When I put my foot down, my arch would collapse and my entire hip would twist outwards. It affected the way I walked and I was often teased about it by my friends and family.

An aged orthopedic doctor took one look at it, looked at me from over her glasses and told me in a solemn voice, “There’s no way to correct this. You’ll have to wear orthotics for the rest of your life.”

I gave her an incredulous look, “I’m 18.”

“If you start now, it’ll prevent it from getting worse.”

That life sentence led me to YouTube, other orthotic doctors, sports therapists and holistic massage therapists until I finally found someone who told me, “You can correct it. It won’t happen overnight, but with a little bit of love and attention, you can correct it.”

After I quit my job and committed to my yoga practice, one of my objectives had been to correct my flat foot and from somewhere inside me, these words floated up:

‘Before I can start to gain, I have to lose everything.’

At the time, I thought the voice meant the extra fat I was carrying on my body – I could feel there was some structural misalignments that were preventing my asanas from reaching my hip flexor.

Maybe when I lose that fat, I’ll be able to work directly with the weak muscles at the core of this issue to correct it.

With that in mind, I began my journey.

Unravelling

In the beginning, my practice was asana heavy. I would push myself to practice until my mind settled down. It usually took between 60 to 90 minutes.

Afterwards, I would lie on my back for a few minutes and then enjoy the rest of my day with presence of mind.

As I innocently continued, a memory of an old ex floated up and I found myself weeping on my yoga mat.

‘This was years ago. I thought I was over this. Why is it still coming up?’

I continued practicing and the tears kept coming.

That’s when I learned that though my mind is no longer reeling from an incident, somewhere, the trauma is still stored in my body.

Painful breakups, scary experiences I’d had while travelling, childhood traumas… all the ways in which I had given love to the world around me and gotten pain in return floated up to the surface to be released from my system for good.

As each trauma floated up, my mind became less of a noisy place, I felt safer to be my authentic self in the world, and I got closer to my hip flexor and the root of my flat foot issue.

Inner Knowing, Outer Reality

Sitting here now, years later, I know that voice hadn’t only been referring to fat.

As I progressed on the path and unwound the layers of what I now know was trauma and stagnant energy that surrounded the weak hip, I uncovered and released:

• Painful memories from past relationships
• Trauma from dysfunctional family dynamics
• Repressed memories of childhood sexual abuse

Releasing the leftover stress from these events and situations in my life resulted in me losing:

• Income
• Friends
• Family
• Community

And everything that used to define me as me – the patterns, the identifications, the likes and dislikes.

As I healed, I grew and so did my level of consciousness and awareness.

Instead of reacting to situations in my life in the same way I always did, I was able to step back and respond calmly.

I learned that those reactions, those responses were directly related to the trauma I was holding and once the trauma was released from my system, the world didn’t trigger me in the same way.

I was able to respond calmly and create a new version of me – one that was closer to my authentic self and who I am in my heart.

This happened over and over again.

After every major trauma I released, there was an empty space that appeared where there was space for me to expand and grow.

I didn’t have to respond in the same way – I could handle everything that was coming to me with maturity, and in a way and didn’t send me back to my old aggressive ways.

The Space In-Between

This is the space in-between.

It’s the space where we have the invitation to step into a new version of ourselves, like pulling out a blank sheet of paper and having the opportunity to draw whatever we want.

And this can be scary because you’re stepping into unfamiliar territory and you have no idea how the world around you will respond.

You’re allowing yourself to speak up where before you always kept your mouth shut. You’re allowing yourself to say no to things that feel misaligned where before you always said yes and endured. You’re allowing yourself to let go of friendships, and relationships and have hurt you for years where previously, you never had the courage to. You’re allowing yourself to finally wear the outfit that’s been kept on the ‘One Day Shelf’ for years.

You’re giving yourself the love that previously you had been seeking from the world and step into a version of yourself that never existed before.

The fear in the space in-between can be so overwhelming that it keeps you up at night, wakes you up before your alarm with anxiety and keeps you frozen in self-doubt.

This is how my life has been recently.

Intuition and Faith

A guru is a teacher – one that dispels darkness and guides you home to yourself.

My own guru – Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar – is a world-renowned humanitarian and peacemaker. His presence alone is enough to make you forget your misery and want to sing and dance.

After spending 2 weeks travelling with him, attending public discourses and courses, I came home feeling like I had gone through such a thorough cleansing that there was no part of my old life and the old me left.

Yes, I came back to the same home I’d lived in for years, but everything felt different.

Yes, I was still wearing the same body, but the person inside was different.

Family dynamics didn’t trigger me anymore and I felt more present in my daily life. There was no more pressure to grow Parm’s Yoga and be successful, only a calm resolve and a knowing that it would happen.

In this space of nothingness where nothing felt familiar anymore, I was invited to take a risk – to operate in a way I never have before.

I balked, backed away and desperately searched for alternatives only to have every door slam shut in my face.

Except the one inviting me to take one of the biggest risks I’d ever taken in my career.

Through it all, my intuition never wavered – as many times as I balked from the front lines, every time I came back, it calmly reassured me that this was indeed the path forward.

I closed my eyes, took a deep breath and surrendered.

I have allowed myself to be carried forward on this path kicking and screaming, why not swim with the current this time?

Immediately, the internal struggle ceased and peace dawned.

The Next Version of You

There will be moments, even after you’ve stepped past the threshold and into the new version of you where your resolve will be challenged.

There will be days when you regret your decisions and question your life path and there will be mornings when you dread getting out of bed.

But ultimately, following your intuition and stepping into the unknown, will only ever take you to where you’re meant to be.

You will never be guided astray by your intuition.

It is your inner compass, the only thing that can guide you home to your Self.

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