Over the last six or so months, many couples have experienced the disappearance of space. We used to have business trips, gym sessions, outings with friends, and all sorts of other activities that provided the kind of physical space and separation needed in a healthy relationship. Now, because of lockdowns, quarantines, and social distancing measures, most couples are stuck at home together, all day, every day.
But that’s only part of the problem. We are also experiencing the disappearance of mental space. This form of space is less tangible but perhaps even more significant. It’s space from screaming children, your partner’s virtual meetings, and other distractions. It’s the space that allows your mind to rest and open up to new and creative possibilities.
The loss of physical and mental space is a problem for many reasons. And yet, it’s particularly problematic in marriage because space is essential for love and intimacy. We found this again and again when interviewing over one hundred people for our forthcoming book. Couples told us that, with physical and mental space, they experienced a heightened sense of love, connection, and intimacy. Without space, they experienced the opposite: more conflict, resentment, and stress. Space, it turns out, is like rocket fuel for desire and love.
So how can we create space in marriage when we’re stuck at home together?
The Power of Emotional Space in Marriage
1. Create Physical Space
The new normal of pandemic life limits our ability to do this. But it’s still possible. You can create physical space by making an intentional effort to go for a walk each day alone or by reading your favorite book outside with headphones on. Even if it’s only for 30 minutes or an hour, giving yourself space away from your partner leaves you refreshed, excited to come back, and more open for connection when you return.
2. Create Mental Space
One of the key insights from the mindfulness practice is this: your experience of life is a reflection of your mind. If you live with a claustrophobic mind, churning through endless streams of thought and digital distractions, all of life can feel like you’re crammed in a packed subway car. The world begins to reflect your cramped mind. If you cultivate a more open mind, however, this expansion of mental space changes everything. It makes life feel slower and more manageable, regardless of your external circumstances. That’s the power of creating space around your thoughts.
To get more mental space, you can use daily meditation, mindfulness, or yoga practices. You can also build more mental space in less formal ways. Lie down in the grass for 10 minutes and gaze at the sky. Wander around your neighborhood while paying close attention to the sound of the birds.
The more you do this, the more you may notice that the space you crave most in these challenging times isn’t physical. It’s this subtle space in the mind—a kind of space that allows you to be connected, engaged, and attracted to your partner.
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Adam Avin, now 16, became passionate about teaching mindfulness and social-emotional learning skills when he was just nine years old. The Florida resident created a cartoon dog as a mascot, inventing songs, games, and other fun ways to teach these capabilities to more kids—and that was only the beginning. In this TED talk from 2019, Avin shares his work on getting mindfulness into schools, and his guiding principle that learning mindfulness can empower children and teenagers to own their power and make a big difference in the world.
Watch the video:
Abbreviated transcript:
Think Well to Be Well
When I was young, we would visit my great-grandparents once a week. I’d usually sit on the living room floor with toys, but sometimes I would just sit and talk with my great-grandpa Jack.
My great-grandpa was a very mindful person, a yogi at heart, even though he didn’t do any yoga. He taught me all of his positive mantras, like “Think well to be well.” He explained the mind can be a healer or a killer, that the mind can control the body. As a reminder to be kind to others, he’d say “Smile, and the world will smile with you,” and that kindness would come back to you.
He also talked a lot about gratitude and would encourage me to smile and say, “Thank you, Grandpa.” He believed that a positive attitude was one of the most important things in life. Once he wanted to help a woman find her lost car in a mall parking lot. She was super upset and crying, and had been walking in circles for an hour in the sun. He just wanted to cheer her up. So he said something funny, and they started laughing and then they couldn’t stop. Everyone around them started laughing too, but no one knew why.
Grandpa knew what scientists have since proven: that smiles are catchy and healing, even if we don’t feel like it. If we smile, our bodies get the signal from our brains and it becomes true. If we have compassion for ourselves, we have compassion for others. It’s like a chain reaction. A smile is a road to peace, and something that can change the world. My great-grandpa passed away years ago, but his lesson stuck with me.
I honor him by teaching his mindset to other kids. I believe that the key to ending violence is teaching kids when they’re young to be mindful and deal with emotions and stress. By teaching coping tools to kids today, we may prevent another suicide or a school shooting in the future. That’s why I created the Wuf Shanti Children’s Wellness Foundation.
A Pup with a Purpose
Wuf Shanti is a dog character that teaches mindfulness and social-emotional learning through fun and games, and promotes health, wellness, peace, and positivity. In fact, shanti means peace. We teach kids ages 3 to 10 years old relaxation and happiness techniques, including breathing exercises, mindful movements, positive thinking, and how to interact with others.
All of this is supported by science, which shows that mindfulness, social-emotional learning, yoga, and meditation can help reduce illness, increase focus, help kids do better both academically and athletically. And when you practice these things on a daily basis, they really do help with your mental and your physical health.
When I interviewed pediatrician Dr. Zhung Vo, he told me there’s a lot of science behind mindfulness. We can see how it affects our body, our physiology, our blood pressure, the way our brain functions. We can see how it affects our own breathing or muscle tension or heart rate. This sounds a lot like grandpa’s “think well to be well” mantra that became Wuf Shanti’s main message as well.
Teaching Mindfulness to Children
As Wuf Shanti, I traveled to schools and children’s hospitals to share our curriculum with kids. These hospital visits may have been the most emotional part for me. When Wuf would walk into the hospitals and see the kids with cancer, many of them were brought from treatment or hooked up to tubes. They’d all forget that for a few minutes, and would run up to us to hug them or dance or give a high five.
But the parents’ reactions were different. They would cry with the joy of seeing their kids happy and smiling. I felt sad seeing them like this, but happy how my being there was helping their lives, even for just a few minutes.
Wuf Grows Up
In the five years since we started Wuf Shanti, we’ve produced seven books, a free mobile app, signature games, like our gratitude and laughing games, and over a hundred videos, which run on local PBS stations, in schools and in children’s hospitals nationally. I also wrote the Wuf Shanti songs, working with my dad who also scored the music:
“A smile is a gift that makes you happy and free and makes the world a nicer place to be.
And if you smile to brighten everyone’s day, a smile will come back to you the same way.”
Even my little sister and her friends haven’t guessed yet that the voice singing in the Wuf Shanti songs is me, before my voice changed! I can’t sing it, or fit into the costume, anymore—we have to get other people to do it now—but neither my sister or her friends have ever looked around the room and said, “Where’s Adam?” not realizing that Wuf and I are never in the same place at the same time.
We know that Wuf Shanti videos, books, and the mobile app work to get our message out to kids in a way they can understand, because I first tested them on my sister and her friends who had just turned four at the time, and they enjoyed playing with the app while still learning basic life skills. Once my sister was crying and I told her that she had a choice to make: that she could continue to cry about whatever it was that she wanted, or she could choose to be happy for what she does have. And about five minutes later, I overheard her calming herself down by repeating “Think well, be well,” and “Peace begins with me,” while tapping her fingers to her thumb, which is one of the exercises that Wuf teaches. You don’t realize how much of an impact you’ve made until you’ve witnessed a five-year-old control her own temper tantrum and bring positivity and gratitude back into her life to keep her emotions under control.
It’s so important to teach kids the tools to stay healthy physically and mentally, to help them deal with stress and emotions in productive ways. So they can grow up to be less depressed and anxious teens and happier, peace solving, content adults. Anxiety, depression, bullying, anger, suicide, and homicide have doubled among kids and teens. In the past few years, suicide is the number two cause of death among minors. Seventy percent of teens, according to the New York Times, say mental health issues are the number one problem they face. Why is this? Is it because of social media, academic pressure, these scary events like school shootings? Because adults aren’t modeling the behavior? Maybe all of it. Adults should be making mental health a priority. And if they won’t, we have to, because cyber bullying is not okay. And killing people in schools, the grocery store, nightclubs, places of worship, or yoga studios must not become the norm.
Making a Difference
So what made me think that as a kid, I could do something? Nobody ever told me I couldn’t. If you believe in something, stand up, make yourself heard! We have to use our voice to make the world a better place to live in. If not us, then who? Look around. The world needs us right now. So I’m doing what I can to use my voice to make the world a better place, and to get Wuf Shanti’s message out to kids and into schools and hospitals.
Sure, I’ve been sad before, been anxious, been angry. But these mindful and social-emotional learning techniques have helped me have a purpose. Something positive to focus on has helped me, too. And I believe that these tools can help others. We need to reach as many kids, parents, healthcare practitioners, even government leaders as possible. So we can teach about mental health education and stopping the violence and stop the next kid from hurting himself, herself, or someone else.
It all starts with mindfulness and social-emotional learning. Some people think mindfulness is just all about deep breathing. We all know that breathing can’t change the world, right? But we all know that breathing is important. You need to breathe to live. Science has shown that if you breathe right, it can add two years of your life. For example, something as simple as breathing in for a count of four, holding it for a count of four and releasing it for a count of four. As you breathe in, you’ll feel calmer.
Teens can do this before a test and no one would even know they’re doing it, but mindfulness isn’t only about breathing. Mindfulness is about paying attention to what’s happening now, instead of focusing on yesterday, or tomorrow. Focusing on something other than the negative thoughts going on in our head, and if our mind wanders, learning how to bring it back.
Living Mindfully, Every Day
We can practice mindfulness by listening to a sound in the music that we like, like the drum beat. There are also mindful art activities or self-reflection activities. I like to listen to music while I’m golfing. It’s like meditation. It helps me find peace, which then spreads to my parents, my teachers and friends. Remember, it’s contagious. You have more influence than you know. But it takes practice to live mindfully so that when stressful things happen, and they will, you already have the tools to deal with it. Even practicing for just five minutes a day can help.
So if we can reach kids while they’re in school, they’ll be better prepared to face all the ups and downs in life. Social-emotional learning can help, too. It’s about coping with your emotions, self-awareness, self-regulation, self-compassion, and resilience, all of which are so empowering because no one controls them other than you. It’s also about communication, interacting with others and collaboration.
“Play a Greater Part” – Bodhisattva for Our Times [REDUX] – During scary and uncertain times, the habitual reflex is to try to find ground by creating stories about what’s happening and hardening into us-them blame. This only perpetuates the aggression and violence that is so prevalent in our societies. This talk is a reflection on how we as awakening bodhisattvas can evolve our consciousness in a way that serves authentic societal healing and transformation (a favorite from the archives).
“Though I do not expect a plant to spring up where no seed has been, I have great faith in a seed. Convince me you have a seed there, and I am prepared to expect wonders.” ~ Thoreau
This meditation awakens the senses with a mindful scanning of the body, establishes an anchor for presence, and invites us to arrive again and again, deepening the pathway home. When difficult or intense experience arises, the practice is to learn to open to what is here with a clear, allowing and kind attention (a favorite from the archives).
“…widen your heart and mind so you sense your hand is on the heart of the world. Sensing whatever prayer for the world most resonates at this moment and offering it…”
This meditation awakens the senses with a mindful scanning of the body, establishes an anchor for presence, and invites us to arrive again and again, deepening the pathway home. When difficult or intense experience arises, the practice is to learn to open to what is here with a clear, allowing and kind attention (a favorite from the archives).
“…widen your heart and mind so you sense your hand is on the heart of the world. Sensing whatever prayer for the world most resonates at this moment and offering it…”
Establishing a routine that recognizes the body’s natural response to light and dark can help keep your circadian rhythms in sync. Here are some expert-recommended strategies to move toward optimal circadian health.
1. Stick to a Sleep/Wake Schedule
Try to maintain a consistent sleepwake cycle (and thus a consistent dark-light cycle) by going to sleep and getting up at the same time every day. Try not to deviate more than an hour on weekdays, and more than two hours on weekends.
2. Consider the Quality of Light
Get as much daylight exposure as possible during the daytime. If natural light is not available, you can use bright, blue-enriched white light bulbs indoors. Sleep in the dark, at night, or wear an eye mask to block light from reaching the eyes.
3. Create Natural Wind-Down Lighting Between Dusk and Dark
Just as the sun goes down, you can mimic that fading light by minimizing bright light and moving toward a warmer orange light, which promotes sleep, ideally three hours before going to bed.
4. Pay Attention to Your Nighttime Light
Any light tells the brain it’s daytime, encouraging alertness, and suppresses melatonin, the hormone that tells the brain that it’s night. If needed, use a dim red-orange night light in the hall or bathroom.
5. Sleep at Night
Focus on getting all the sleep you need at night, so you don’t need a nap during the day. If you need to nap, make it short—no more than 20 minutes.
6. Eat Smarter
Avoid eating three hours before bedtime. Ideally, you want to consume more of your calories in the daytime when your metabolism is most active.
7. Practice Screen Hygiene
Dim the lights and don’t use screens within two hours of bedtime. The blue light emitted from TV, tablets, phones, and computers can have a delayed, negative effect on your sleep, even with the use of apps or eyeglasses that block blue light.
8. Establish a Wind-Down Routine
Create a transition time that separates day from night. Do something relaxing before bed, such as breathing exercises or yoga. This is a good way to calm the mind and body.
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In a time of crisis and uncertainty, compassion for everyone may feel even more difficult than usual. This doesn’t mean we should not engage in activism and assertively take care of ourselves, while practicing compassion. But since anger and conflict always generate more anger and conflict in the world, it’s beneficial to remind ourselves of other people’s perspectives along the way.
Any mindfulness practice includes compassion. We see our own challenges (like our utter inability to focus our mind where we want for long) with care and patience, instead of self-recrimination and frustration. And then, aiming to see with unbiased clarity how the world around us works, we can recognize that even the people we find difficult face many of the same, human challenges, and crave happiness and health in their own ways.
Loving-kindness practice means wishing someone well, like a friend; compassion means seeing their suffering and wishing them free of it.
Loving-kindness practice means wishing someone well, like a friend; compassion means seeing their suffering and wishing them free of it. These wishes aren’t meant to be forced, but to act as signposts for our best intentions. In other words, we cultivate them patiently, even if we don’t always quite get there. As Joseph Goldstein says, even knowing we will likely fall short of those intentions pretty often, how many people even try to live that way?
Traditionally, loving-kindness practice involves bringing various groups of people to mind and wishing them the same wishes we would for ourselves. The version that follows, as shown to me by Gina Sharpe, cofounder of New York Insight Meditation Center, is subtly different in structure: It guides us to develop a perspective of loving-kindness more gradually. With practice, we can take care of the world, take care of ourselves, and also stay in touch with the fact that all beings everywhere are driven by the same core wishes in life.
A Guided Loving-Kindness Practice for Difficult Times
A 17-Minute Loving-Kindness Meditation
16:59
1. Begin this practice by finding a comfortable and upright position. See if you can find a posture that portrays both dignity and strength, but let go of striving or tightness.
2. As you begin, you can focus initially on the feeling of each breath, noticing if you’re caught up in thoughts or emotions with a sense of kindness and patience. Then, come back to the breath.
3. Loving-kindness practice typically focuses on phrases that remind us of our best intentions. We’re not forcing ourselves to feel anything in particular or striving to change what we actually feel. So bring to mind a person, a child, or even an animal or a pet for whom you have unambiguous feelings. Picturing this other person or being, shift your awareness to a series of phrases that capture your wish that this person be free of suffering. That this person live a life of ease. Those phrases are often summarized as may you feel happy, may you feel healthy, may you feel safe, and may you live your life with ease.
4. There may be nothing you can actually do to change that person or being’s experience right now, but with an open heart, continue wishing them well.
May you be happy,
May you be healthy,
May you feel safe,
And may you live your life with ease.
5. And now, shifting your awareness to yourself, recognize how much stress you’re under, how much may feel out of your control right now, and also how much criticism we have for ourselves. Quite often, we may judge ourselves differently than the people we most care for. And see if you can bring the same care you did for the other child or being, or pet, or whoever came to mind for yourself right now—you deserve the same.
May I feel happy,
May I feel healthy,
May I feel safe,
May I live my life with ease.
Not wishing yourself better than anyone else in your life, but also not wishing yourself less. And if it feels like that’s easy right now, continuing on with wishes for yourself.
6. And then, if you like, instead bring to mind a good friend. Again, they could be anywhere in the world. There may be nothing literally you can do for them right now. But you can offer them the same wishes you just wished for yourself, wherever you are.
May you be happy,
May you be healthy,
May you feel safe,
And may you live your life with ease.
7. You can move your awareness next to someone we often refer to as a stranger or a neutral person. Somebody who works in your neighborhood or across town, or someone you might see once in a while. Bring that person, that being, to mind, and see if you can offer them the same wishes you did for a friend. Recognizing, whoever this person is, they have their own struggles. They have their own fears, their own need for safety, for food, for ease. So picturing the stranger, offer them the same well-wishes:
May you be happy,
May you be healthy
May you feel safe,
And may you live your life with ease.
8. Now, bring to mind a difficult person. It’s not the most difficult person that comes to mind for you, but someone challenging—you may not see eye to eye. Noting those wishes you had just now for someone you hardly know at all, see if you can wish the same for this challenging person. It doesn’t mean condoning anything they’ve done. It doesn’t mean you won’t take proactive action to take care of what needs to get taken care of in the world. But as you do, recognize that all beings need to and have the drive to be free of suffering.
May you be happy,
May you be healthy,
May you feel safe,
May you live your life with ease.
9. Often for this part of the practice, it may be easier to include yourself at the same time:
May we both be happy,
May we both be healthy,
May we we both feel safe,
And may we both live our lives with ease.
If ever this part of the practice becomes overwhelming or too stressful, it’s okay to come back to the breath or wishes for yourself.
10. For the last two minutes, expand your awareness out to all beings everywhere: to ourselves, to our friends and family, to strangers, to difficult people.
May all beings everywhere be happy,
May all beings everywhere be healthy,
May all beings everywhere feels safe,
And may all beings everywhere live their lives with ease.
11. And when you’re ready, you can open your eyes if they’ve been closed. Take a moment and then, with a sense of intention, choose when to get up and continue on with the rest of your day.
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