Recently, I overheard from another room, two 6 yr. old girls arguing. One of their mom’s was trying, with little success, to help them sort it out. From the kitchen I could not only hear, but actually feel the escalation as they got louder and increasingly upset and emotional trying to defend themselves, blame each other and end up as “me victorious”. It reminded me of waves bouncing off walls, intensifying the energy and disruption; and then I was asked to help.

Without thinking I told the first little girl “you are absolutely right because you believe you are right”. Then I told the second little girl “you are absolutely right because you believe you are right”. The result was a startled quiet followed by adorable “missing front teeth” grins. I waited for the expected “but she…”, “but I…” howls and wails to start up again but they’d already forgotten what they were upset about and were on to something new.

If only it were that easy with adults.

Unfortunately our egos have had a lot more time to figure out how to trick us into getting hooked on our thinking, expectations and judgments about people, things and experiences we don’t like and disagree with, all of which are escalating in this period of massive change. When we can’t let go we push back, but it just makes the negative thought and energy waves bigger and stronger.

I learned something profound from those little girls. Acceptance means nobody gets to be wrong, and when we refuse to harden our positions, the waves diffuse and we’re suddenly still and poised to accept that things are as they are and anything can happen. Even a visit from the tooth fairy.

We’re made up of more space (dark energy and dark matter) than visible form and matter, but we spend most of our lives totally identified with the latter. Its one thing to think about the concept of spaciousness but yet another to experience it, for even a short period of time. Anyway, why would we want to and how do we do that?

We want to because we now know that the physical and conceptual structures that we’re identified with are unstable and will be replaced with new ones that are yet to be created. We want to be part of that. But fear and worry about that instability, and how it will affect our lives and businesses, lead to more attachment and rigidity that then shows up in how we respond to change: protection, judgment, guilt, resentment, complaining, blame, etc.

So instead of a desired growth direction we get stuck on the survival path. Life and business experience becomes relentless reactivity to an endless series of crises and lack . We know that the way towards new and better experience is through creativity and innovation, but forget that creativity comes through us. Its not something we can reach out and attain. Rather, we have to make space for it and knock down the walls that block it.

Making space for creativity in challenging times requires vigilance over individual and collective thought and action. Space is created by ceasing thinking and constant doing, and by softening the physical and conceptual boundaries constructed in attempt to keep out everything not wanted, like vulnerability. It can be as simple as taking deep breaths and setting time aside for short periods of stillness. It can also be more challenging and require a lot of courage, putting oneself on the line without a safety net for one’s convictions, so to speak.

The challenges we’re dealing with now are opportunities for dropping resistance and defenses to receive the wave of creative energy that is always available. It comes through us when we let it. It takes faith. The biblical metaphor for our self-constructed creativity barrier is the Wall of Jericho. When we blast ours down, we’re then freed to enter our Promise Land. That’s the metaphor for the place and point of power from where we can expand our natural influence, and contribute the best of who we are to what is yet to be created.