Respect Space: yours & theirs

For some of you, the title and the image are all you need to remind yourself to take the impact you have on others into account as you act. 

Far out. Talk to you later.

For others, this 1 sentence blog may not cut it. Far out. Let’s talk.

Here’s the message I got when I saw this sign in a Santa Cruz window:

Be mindful of the space I bring into someone else’s space. 

In my view, a person’s space contains their emotions, thoughts, feelings, ideas, focus, intentions, beliefs, ego, culture, upbringing, past, desires, habits, vulnerabilities, curiosities, agendas, sense of self, sense of others, sense of the future – all that we’re conscious of and all we are not aware of.

Think of a person’s space as their unique personal ecosystem.

Mindfulness encompasses two key ingredients: awareness and acceptance. Awareness is the knowledge and ability to focus attention on one’s inner processes and experiences, such as the experience of the present moment. Acceptance is the ability to observe and accept—rather than judge or avoid—the streams of thought.

Think of mindfulness as the key that reveals what’s in the space.

Consider this: When we connect and interact with someone, it’s our spaces that are interacting. All of us, some of us in the foreground, rest of us in the background. The more mindful we are of what’s in our space and recognize that the other person has their own unique space, the more our interaction has the possibility to be authentic.

Being unaware of how our space impacts another can often feel like we’re barging into someone’s space – crashing into their party, as it were – and as if we have no appreciation for them, what they are engaged in.

Check out the image again.

The message I got is that it’s ok for me to do nothing. It’s not ok for me to bring my doing nothing space into the space of someone who is doing something.  Honoring both spaces may mean I walk away without engaging them.  That’s respect for us both.