Life can sometimes seem like an endless to-do list.
It feels as if you're trying to cross the Atlantic Ocean with the tiniest of rowing boats. You row til our arms ache, but there's still too much to cover. But being alive also has the potential to make you thrive and leap into exciting adventures:
Finishing a bachelor's degree in a topic that sparks your interest and curiosity.
Leaping into a new career path to play an essential role in an admired organization or start a business. Visit a foreign country with your partner-in-crime, explore different cultures, and run a half-marathon while you are at it. Honestly, life features both exhilarating and exhausting pursuits:
Going on dates, running away from dates. A single night together turned into years of co-existence, marriage, children, and kindergarten waiting lists. Don't forget the birthdays, dinner parties, vacation planning, car loans, lists of books yet to be read, fixing the broken dishwasher, weekly grocery shopping, playdates, football training, tax reports, pitch presentations, promotions, and sleeping. This makes up our modern lives—a hot pot of daring ventures and the mundane concerns of day-to-day life.
And yes, we agree it is challenging to fit it all into a 24-hour day, a week, or even a year... We want to do so much, but our bodies are easily overwhelmed, and we often forget that we are the conductor driving the intensity and tempo of it all. Why the rush, and why do we need to do it all at once? It would be ignorant not to mention the influence and pull we often feel from our society's expectations, social media, and work milieu. From our point of view, we've gotten stuck believing that we should strive to be busy and productive around the clock, always aiming higher and moving rapidly. The more boxes we check, the better.
Evolving and growing is part of our nature and the reason behind our thriving society. Still, this promise of never-ending industrial growth has recently started to shatter with side effects harmful to humans and nature. They manifest in the form of a rise in mental illnesses and burnout and a planet screaming at us to stop our overproducing and consumption. We've been running constantly for a long while and are starting to feel the consequences of running without breaks.
The third space
When did you last time see a to-list with the following tasks:
Take a break
Breath
Meditate
Eat well
Reflect on your day
Nap
Exercise
Spend time with your family
Walk in nature
Relax
We tend to prioritize these last, even though they often thrive high on what we say we view as important: our relationships and health. They are usually considered opposites to growth and productivity and are something we engage in when we have extra time.
Luckily, this belief seems to have played its part as science proves to us the opposite: moving forward without breaks gets us far, but moving forward with breaks gets us even further:
Dr. Adam Faster, author, researcher, and speaker on the psychology of performance, work-life balance, and development of high-performing cultures, has conducted extensive research over several years to examine how we deal with the overwhelming tasks and demands of today's world without burning the candle at both ends.
His studies find that we thrive the most when we leverage the transitional gaps between all the things we do. Faster names his theory and practice the Third Space. According to him, this theory is evident in the difference between high-performing athletes: they might have the same hours of training every week and the same gear, but what sets them apart is the hours spent between every milestone, aka the third space. Here, they take the time to reflect on the previous games or runs or their training while also resting deeply to rejuvenate their energy.
And this goes for you as well.
Fraser conducted a study with Deakin University to see if this applied to our everyday lives. The research objects were people with normal lives who commute from work directly to home. You might recognize the scenario where you hang up the last work call right before sitting down for dinner, finding it hard to focus and shutting off the office brain. The study found a 41 % improvement in positive behavior at home for those who actively engaged in the third space practice between work and home. During this break, they focused on reflecting, resting, and resetting before changing their social environment and roles. It helped them work through whatever they had experienced during their workday and put aside their stress and bad moods before spending time with their partners and family.
The same technique has helped sales agents overcome rejections and business associates transition from meeting to meeting without bringing stress with them.
We believe that the third space is flexible according to need. It can be the 5 minutes you take between meetings or longer bulks such as weekends and days to reset and rejuvenate.
If you feel called, we invite you to participate in the third space at one of our serene locations. Start prioritizing self-care with some days out in the open, with nothing more to distract you than the breathing ground underneath your feet, the sound of birds in the morning, and a fresh cup of coffee in the comfort of one of our queen-sized beds. You'll bring a notebook to reflect upon where you are in life, what you're proud of having accomplished, and what you've learned so far, and plan how to live sustainably in the future. Some like having personal evaluation meetings with their partners, best friends, or family, so feel free to bring your pack. In the quiet of nature, we can step back and view our life from the side instead of hurrying in it daily. You may find a new path worth pursuing.
It's all waiting for you in the third space. It's waiting for you at Grend.
