I happened to be listening to Julia’s latest podcast, ‘What Are You Bringing Into The Space Between?’, while driving to the gym yesterday evening. Julia reminds us that there is always a space between ourselves and another, into which we bring our energy, words, thoughts, emotions, assumptions, reactions and presence. Although we can’t control what others bring to the space, we can be mindful of our own contribution. How lightly – or heavily – do we tread?
Her message stayed with me as I arrived at the gym, changed and then padded up to the main area in my bare feet. Having come to gym-going through aerial training, which is always barefoot, I’d carried the habit with me. I loved the freedom and nuance of training shoeless and, after six years without incident, barely considered it anymore. Occasionally I’d marvel that no one stopped me and my naked feet stepping onto a StairMaster or treadmill, but only when Matt asked about it recently did I properly wonder whether it might not be the done thing.
How interesting, then, that it was that very same evening – after at least six years’ training barefoot in the same gym chain – that somebody challenged me for the first time. As I climbed onto the assault bike (another first!), I noticed a personal trainer leading two young boys and their parent to the bike next to mine. When the trainer turned to me, my mind leapt ahead, assuming he’d ask if I’d mind offering my bike to the second boy so they could cycle side by side. Pulling out my headphones to greet him, I was all set to say ‘of course!’, a generous-hearted smile on my face.
Well, dear reader, that’s not what happened. And as Julia so often reminds me – and no matter how certain I might feel – we’re only ever ‘making things up’ until life definitively proves otherwise!
‘Hi there,’ he said, looking serious. ‘I noticed you’re not wearing trainers, and need to ask that you put some on, please, if you want to train.’
Time slowed to a semicolon; my senses sharpened.
And in that brief interlude, I saw several possibilities suspended like swings at the top of their arc: the impulse to argue, defend, resist and be ‘right’, and the familiar momentum waiting to carry them forward.
Such a small, innocuous request, and yet I felt the puppeteer of the past move to pull the old strings of outrage and defensiveness, turning a man asking me to put on shoes into the old story that somebody else’s rules were stopping me from doing what felt entirely right. My reactivity would have me believe that my very selfhood was at stake – not just a mild preference to work out barefoot!
So I paused.
‘Aha, here it is!’ I thought. ‘Myself and a total stranger… and the space between us!’
Did I want to fling the past into that shared space like old offal? To soil an encounter with a young man who was simply doing his job, because his perfectly polite request had snagged on something ancient in me?
No. I did not. Some taut string in me loosened. I’m here, I breathed, in THIS moment, with THIS human being. The past does not belong. There is just me and him, and the remarkable coincidence of us sharing the same tiny spot on the same spinning ball of Earth at the very same moment.
I asked him if it was a club policy, which he confirmed it was. ‘Ah, I see,’ I replied. ‘No problem, I’ll go and put some on now.’ And, dear reader, that’s exactly what I did! No railing, no cursing and muttering, just an inner sigh of gratitude for Julia’s podcast.
As it happened, I didn’t have proper trainers – only the weightlifting shoes Matt had recently given me, which had me clackety-clopping across the floor like a tap dancer as I returned from the changing rooms and crossed to the bike. Five minutes later the young man approached again, and took a moment to thank me. I smiled with genuine warmth, recognising his own care in what he brought to the space between us. Later, after I’d showered and was heading home, I passed him again in the corridor. ‘Have a good evening!’ he said, smiling. ‘You too!’ I replied, inwardly thanking Julia with all my heart.
I might still believe I don’t need shoes to protect my feet in the gym, and that I can take responsibility for the consequences. I may remain unconvinced that bare feet spread more disease than trainers that have trodden streets laced with bin juice, dog poo and regurgitated late-night vindaloos. That’s all well and good.
But the real question is, can I extend the same trust to my ego, or must I insist on donning sturdy boots of defensiveness to protect it at all costs?
On this occasion, at least, I left my ego barefoot too.
