The Space Between

In mid-August I wrote on my kitchen noticeboard: ‘I am not having the summer I wanted, but I’m having the summer I need: the space between.’ I had been yearning to be away on holiday with loved ones by the ocean, somewhere cool and peaceful but instead, at the end of July, I fell sick with covid and was stuck in London in yet another brutal heatwave. I live a very interactive life in the centre of London. I love it and it brings me huge energy and vitality, but it comes…like my baby granddaughter is experiencing at nursery… at the price of being open to infectious bugs going round.

I am strong and healthy, but I was also very exhausted, physically and emotionally. My father had died 4 months before and it had been an intense time subsequently. I thought I was allowing myself the time and space needed to grieve as well as juggling all else, but I was controlling too tightly. So, my body took over and propelled me to stop and go into the ‘space between’. And of course, this is exactly where I needed to be. With great relief, I let go of trying to fix and control everything and I surrendered, knowing I needed to heal on all levels and find real peace and stillness. And, to my surprise I did. The weather changed: with soft breezes flowing and the sun beaming kindly, it was a joy to be in west London which is always quieter in August. I slept, I pottered, I eased up on socialising, and I went to my gym: focusing on Pilates and yin yoga mediation. In essence I created a retreat in the heart of London and allowed myself not to ‘do’ but simply to ‘be.’

I also knew that if I didn’t create that precious time to heal and recharge, I would not have had the emotional or physical bandwidth to embrace whatever was coming next. And so it proved: in late August, all changed with the joyous homecoming of my son, his wife and my beautiful granddaughter, back from living in New York, and in early September, work was full on again with my clients returning from their holidays and it was the start of the new ‘School Year’. I was ready: fully rejuvenated and raring to go!

I have recently given a TEDx talk at Warwick Business School: The Space Between: where we find our truth and power. I talk about the crucial perspective of self-leadership and how understanding our inner landscape can shape the bigger picture of our impact and influence. I frame the talk around 3 stories which explain what I mean by the ‘space between’. The stories also reveal my ongoing journey towards discovering my own truth and power.

I introduce my third story by asking: why does this matter? Why do we need to do the challenging work of joining our separate, often disconnected and conflicting, aspects into a unified and integrated Authentic Self? My professional field is Leadership, and Leadership is ultimately about power. Power has the propensity to do great harm yes, but power is not good or bad: it is an energy. It is how we use and work with this energy that makes it good or bad.

And core to this is great decision-making: the right decisions for the right reasons. My third story describes how we do this: not by getting caught in the chaotic vortex of the ‘busy fool syndrome’…busy, busy doing nothing…but by using the skill of ‘Detached Involvement’ and by training our intuitive intelligence to listen to our inner voice. And we can only do both by going into 'the space between’. Here is my TEDx talk: https://youtu.be/is2k7wMYwyM 

It has been very touching to hear the feedback, and it means a lot to me that people take time in their very busy lives to pause and watch. Below is a comment from a very dear friend of mine, Loren, who describes its essential messages beautifully and who also asked me to explore the concept of the ‘space between’ further.

‘The talk was very powerful on the connection between deep psychological work and the practical exercise of leadership and power and will strike a chord with your key audiences: senior leaders and founders, who often enjoy considerable authority but maybe not so many opportunities to reflect how they exercise it. CEOs and leaders are rewarded for decisiveness, speed and certainty, even though many of their most important decisions require the opposite: the ability to tolerate uncertainty, resist immediate action and create space for a different perspective to emerge.

For founder-led businesses, this might also strike or chord or even get them to think about this for the first time. Founders often succeed because of their extraordinary drive, speed and personal involvement. But I think underlying your talk is the idea that those enviable qualities can become obstacles as their organisations grow. The ability to step back, tolerate uncertainty and allow others to contribute may be one of the most difficult leadership transitions they make.’

Loren has captured a crucial aspect of why the ‘space between’ is so critical for leaders and great decision-making: ‘the ability to tolerate uncertainty, resist immediate action and create space for a different perspective to emerge.’ I call this different perspective, the finding of an ingenious ‘Third Way’ solution.

‘What do I mean by ‘finding a third way? First, it is not a grudging compromise between two polarities which satisfies no-one, a 50:50 half measure. It is taking the best elements of each and creating a third, and the crucial first step is letting go of our ego and fixed mindset and accepting that we need to create a very different new vision. We won’t immediately know what it will look like. In fact, if we do, then it’s not a true third way, so the next crucial step is letting go of our need to control everything. And then, without knowing the outcome, we take a leap of faith. We intuitively know that the first two paths are defunct and that we need to create something very new and different, and we learn to trust that the third way will come only when we have made the leap. In fact, holding on tightly to our old way is a guarantee we will stay stuck there. It’s the letting go that brings in the new …and often unexpected …trajectory.

So how do we move into the right mindset to find a third way? How do we pull back from that knee-jerk reactive response? First, we embrace the wisdom of not reacting, understand the potential of the pregnant pause, and prime ourselves to pounce only when the time is ripe. In other words, we must enter the ‘space between.’ What helps me when I’m at this point is saying to myself: ‘I know there’s a third way. Just because I haven’t seen it yet, doesn’t mean it isn’t there. It will come and I’ll know what to do - how to act - when that moment comes.’’  https://www.cascad.co.uk/post/finding-a-third-way-through

And this is the real magic of the ‘space between’ and why so many people resist going there. We cannot enter the unknown while simultaneously insisting on remaining exactly who we are. The outcome is external, yes, but to create something fundamentally new, we need to be open to change within ourselves.

This space requires us to let go of what we think we know: our certainties, our assumptions, our attachment to being right, even our familiar sense of who we are. We step into the unknown without knowing where it will take us. We cannot control what happens there, and we cannot predict what will emerge. And that is terrifying for those of us who like to control and hold tightly: I will only let go if you guarantee this will work!

But here's the extraordinary paradox about this space. It is not a de-void place but a profound one and the container of deep feelings and wisdom. When we stop trying to force an answer, when we stop trying to control, plan and predict, when we allow ourselves to become curious rather than fearful, something begins to stir: small shoots in that field that we have allowed to lie fallow. We start to see what we couldn't see before, hear what we couldn't hear, and sense possibilities that were previously beyond our imagination. And then…and then…something emerges: a sudden intuitive knowing, an unexpected insight, a whole new possibility. Every time this happens, I say in wonder, ‘I don’t believe it!’ And increasingly I now pause, smile and say…’Yes I do believe!’

And the greatest gift of entering this space, beyond what we find there…the right decision, a different way forwards, the lowering of our cortisol, the recharging of our energy etc…is what happens to ourself…how we transform, We become more expansive, more courageous, more trusting of our own wisdom, our intuitive intelligence and our capacity to exercise judgment and navigate uncertainty. We learn that instead of experiencing uncertainty and seeing the unknown as a threat that must be eliminated, we know they are the necessary conditions for discovery.

We start to enter this space consciously, knowing that the experience will very probably transform us, yes, but…and this is the sophisticated paradoxical leadership insight…we know and understand we are choosing to surrender our certainty without surrendering our agency. This requires our courage and humility, intention and receptivity and our greatest guide is our intuitive intelligence, and why I focus so much on this skill in my teaching. We learn to recognise and trust that something very special is emerging even if we can’t logically quantify it: just because we can’t see or touch something does not mean it doesn’t exist!

The more trusting we become to enter this space between, the more we are willingly to enter, not because there is no other choice, but because we know that it is only here, in this mysterious and fertile void, that genuinely new and exciting possibilities begin. It stops becoming a necessary pitstop for recharging, decision making, finding that Third Way forwards etc and it becomes a rich and joyous way of life.

Hannah Elizabeth Greenwood