If you’re single and looking for love –  Move Over. Get out of the middle of the bed! Make sure that there’s room for your intended by sleeping on your side of the bed.  Soon enough, your Love will be sleeping on the other side. I read this in a book many years ago and it has intrigued me since.

The suggestion was that if there is something you’d like in your life, you need to literally create space for it. If you don’t make room for it, how will it fit into your life?  You need to show yourself, and the universe, that you are ready for this change. You trust that it is coming and you are beginning to live your life as if it’s already here.

I remember sharing this philosophy with a friend of mine who desperately wanted to have a baby and had been trying, with no luck. We wondered together if she needed to figure out exactly where in her home she’d put the baby, or how to move to a larger space, if necessary,  to make room for the baby, before she even conceived. I’m thrilled to say she did make room for a baby and has successfully continued to make space for her growing child, so many years later.

I also had a time when my desires weren’t yet being met. As I became certified as a Life Coach a while ago, I felt blocked from coaching paying clients. Up to that point I had coached people, for practice and for free, over the phone, by Skype, or by travelling to their homes. For me, the most comfortable way to coach my clients is face-to-face, in person. I truly couldn’t picture how that would work, though. I really didn’t feel like shelling out the money to rent a local space, especially before I had paying clients. I would have loved to have a home office but couldn’t figure out how to make that work. I ran through many scenarios, thinking about how to use various public rooms in my homes, and no ideas worked well. So I stalled and didn’t look for paying clients, deciding that I had nowhere to actually coach them. If someone came close to hiring me, I took a step back, not sure how I could close on that deal. I didn’t feel like a real coach. I felt very defeated.

And then my daughter said she was moving out of our home. Built as the master bedroom for a previous household, her bedroom is a spacious space with a bathroom attached. It is a corner room with light that streams in. The door to her bedroom is the first one you see as you enter my home. I at first wondered, quite tentatively,  if I would be mentally and physically able to turn her bedroom into a home office. I then felt a powerful sense of inspiration as a flow of innovative ideas came pouring into me, breaking through the walls I had encountered in the past.  But I was also conflicted. The Mom in me felt like I was betraying my daughter, and tried to say that I needed to keep the bedroom as is, so that my daughter would have somewhere to come home to. That limiting thought got pushed out by my daughter’s enthusiasm for my project and her help as together we moved things around. I am so glad that I stepped into the Me of the future to broach the topic with her. The old Me would not have taken that risk, for fear that someone might think I was putting myself before my kids, heaven forbid.

I worried that a former bedroom wouldn’t feel professional enough. But my new visionary-self saw the potential. I completely redecorated, making the space feel airy, zen-like and light. I removed some furniture, repurposed other furniture, and purchased new furniture that called to me.  I redecorated the bathroom with all of my favorite accoutrements. I painted the walls of the room in a calming color and covered the floor with a soft, beautifully-colored new carpet. We moved a lovely, new loveseat that had lived in the basement, serving no previous purpose, into the room.  I put my accents and special touches around. And I loved it! We began to call it my ‘office’ right away. I started using it immediately to Skype my current clients and make all work-related calls.  I could breathe in this space. It became my favorite room in the house. My youngest daughter also started doing her homework in the room, benefiting from the calm atmosphere.

And no more than a few weeks later, my first paying client literally walked through my door, asking to be coached. Into my office we went, commencing the first of many sessions that have taken place in there. I literally and figuratively made room for my Coaching profession.

And now I am also making space for my Reiki profession. The massage table is en route to my house, and I know that its arrival later this week will propel this incredible healing experience and profession as my clients move  off of the chair or bed onto the table.

So, why am I thinking about all of this today? I’ve had some extra time on this long weekend as my daughter is studying for finals and the cold weather is compelling me to stay in.  With my extra alone time, I decide to tackle my overstuffed bedroom closets and master bathroom drawers. As I empty out these spaces of everything old or superfluous, I see how much more room there is. What’s left of my stuff only takes up some of the area now.

Realizing this, I suddenly stop, sit down on a stool in my bathroom, catch my breath, as it dawns on me that I have just possibly created space for another new stage in my life…

What do you need to make space for?