Big Sky Mind

Big things need big spaces.

I've been rebuilding my life for the last year, not something I’d planned for my 50s. The stress of creating and puzzling new pieces together to make it work has, at times, been exhausting. And progress? Definitely not linear. One added bonus: the tension this creates doesn’t always ride shotgun. Sometimes it muscles into the driver’s seat.

The feelings can have sharp edges: the concern, the worry. Corners that catch me. By now they’ve been there long enough we’ve started calling a truce. I still occasionally ask, “How the heck am I going to make this work?”

Along the way, I’ve discovered that after you've been sitting with them long enough, the corners start to round off because, well…you're still here. Plus, the feelings start getting old. You find yourself setting them down more often simply because you’re tired of it all. Who knows, maybe that’s a good sign.

I have illustrious company in my thoughts about sharp edges though. Maya Angelou said something years ago that lodged in my brain, “We start life as a square, and with age we become round.”

I’ve quoted this to a few people over the years, and most have tilted their heads and blinked. For me it was crystal clear. We start out in life full of expectations: how things should be, how life should treat us, things we’re convinced are true. Alongside those, we resist when things don't go our way or are different from our desires. We may even think life owes us something. Those are our sharp edges. We are square.

As time progresses, life has a way of wearing us down. Things happen, and with all the possible challenges in its arsenal, at some point, life hands us our share.

Some people still have their sharp edges. Perhaps they’re lucky, life hasn't sanded them down to round yet. Like she said, “Eventually we all become round.”

So I've spent this last year with my ever-rounding corners, seeking and searching, pivoting, adding this or that, reducing this or that, tinkering and futzing—figuring out how to make it all work. Frankly, if I examine too closely, all the effort feels depressing and, depending on the lens I use, can look downright futile. And yet, I’m still here, somehow, someway. Something must be working, even if I can’t see it yet.

At least one of my sharper edges is still intact: I’m determined I’ll either make this work or I’ll die trying. This in itself is cause for reflection, as I’m well aware the tone of one’s approach—the vibrational quality of the intent, if you will—greatly influences the outcome. Trust versus resistance. Surrender versus force. Not such an easy thing to align with, day after day.

I’ve mentioned in my writing how meditation helps me find my path (Lamborghini Lane), and I’m aware it’s critical for me now. But something happened recently that shifted my thinking. During a meditation my mind expanded outward much wider than I’d experienced before. Like an exhale, I stayed there, reveling in it. ‘This feels really cool!’

Then a message came through, a voice.

“You see, Valissa, when you have this kind of mind, the possibilities can flow freely to you. You’ve opened the space for it. But when you're anxious, frustrated, and especially when you're scared, your mind contracts. The contraction is like closing an aperture: it can’t allow the things you're intending, or striving for, to enter. Those energies can't fit through the smaller space. It’s an incompatible resonance. So keep the aperture wide open, keep your mind wide open.”

Ok. Wow.

Later I recalled another phrase from decades ago that also landed for me. This one came from the well-known yoga instructor, Rodney Yee:

“Big Sky Mind.”

Back then I’d call on it while running. At the point when my breath choked and I wanted to stop, I’d repeat it as a mantra: “Big Sky Mind…Big Sky Mind….” And I’d run further.

The “Big Sky Mind” is exactly what happened in my recent meditation—when my mind went so wide, so open—like the relief of releasing a tight drawstring. The subsequent “voice” confirming that this was a key really hit me. I made a mental note to look for places to apply it.

So today, while coordinating a big work trip—scheduling clients, juggling travel logistics, calculating expenses—a client cancelled, messaging that she couldn’t make her time. My reaction: disappointment. I closed the aperture.

Then I caught myself.

Big Sky Mind.

Keep the aperture open. Maybe…just maybe, the schedule vacancy was actually a response to the opening in my mind, not a loss, but a necessary space. Creating a vacuum to let something in. Nothing can come through if the gap isn’t wide enough for it to fit. It’s not like the universe is going to knock, ‘Hello, Valissa? Special delivery!’ Fat chance. It will simply wait until the aperture widens. Big things need big spaces.

Perhaps the opening in my schedule is a signal. Something wants to come through, Valissa, see it as an open invitation to move into your Big Sky Mind. What might be trying to enter? Am I unwittingly blocking it?

The universe knows what I need—I've been unequivocally clear in my thoughts, my actions, even some loud railing about it. Perhaps it’s right there, just out of reach, because the hole has been too small. So maybe—just maybe—my real responsibility is to create a wider space for it to enter. Give it a fighting chance. Stop asking it to thread a needle.

Open my Big Sky Mind.