The Need for White Space and Rests

By Carol Woolum Roberts

Yesterday I was able to take advantage of a birthday present my family gave me.  I drove to the Highlands Day Spa in Post Falls and was there for over two hours enjoying the “Sensory Soother” spa treatment.

As you lay on the table, getting a massage, you have a lot of time to think.

Some of my thoughts were about what a marvelous experience it is to have someone focused on you alone, helping you relax and feel pampered.

My thoughts then wandered over the past year, and how I had such wonderful experiences in my creativity.  I was stretched in ways I wasn’t expecting and was involved in a lot of projects that filled my creative soul.

But it was too much of a good thing.

Was each experience wonderful?

Yes, it was!

Did I learn and grow from each challenge?

Yes, I did!

In music, you need rests.  They play an important part in a composition.  Rests can be as important as the notes on the page. It emphasizes and brings clarity to the music.

I learned about white space while studying Communications in college.  The white space on an advertisement or publication layout often helps clarify the message by leaving space around the message being communicated in the layout.

The same goes for living a creative life. We need rests in our routine. We need white space to help clarify our message.

Looking ahead to 2024, I want more space to help me stay a bit more grounded.  I want to rest and help make the music of my life more interesting.

If a piece of music took no time to pause, it would just be a bunch of notes strung together.  The notes themselves could be beautiful, but the rests can add to the complexity of the composition.

If an advertisement was just a jumble of words and images all crammed together, it would be hard to clarify the message the ad was trying to convey.  If the words and images are spread out, and given some space, the message is often defined.

All the good, creative projects need some space in between. This time is just as important as the actual creative projects themselves.

I want to create some rests and white space in my 2024 life, in order to not get so lost in all the good creativity. I want to give myself space between the good, leveling it up to make the good move to better, or maybe even best.

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How do you create rest or white space in your life?

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