Living Awake

Eckhart Tolle’s Simple Tool To Navigate Tension: “Can I Be The Space For This?”

written by

Anthony V. Lombardo


woman sitting on her bed deciding if she should answer the ringing phone.

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    It’s midday, and you’re neck-deep in work, the kind that makes your shoulders ache and your mind race.

    The phone rings.

    You glance at the screen—it’s that person in your life. You know the kind. The energy vampire, the one who always leaves you feeling drained every time you converse with them. You hesitate.

    Part of you wants to ignore it, knowing that answering will only add to your stress. Yet, there’s that nagging guilt, the little voice whispering that you should pick up, be polite, and be there for them.

    So, what do you do?

    Eckhart Tolle often talks about an exercise he calls “Can I be the space for this?” He describes it as a fundamental spiritual practice that allows you to create mental and emotional space for whatever arises in your experience, helping you foster a sense of acceptance, clarity, and self-awareness. Ultimately, it’s a tool to dissolve tension, letting unpleasant feelings arise and pass through your experience without resistance. It then empowers you to respond with conscious awareness instead of reacting unconsciously.

    “Can I Be the Space For This?”

    Here’s how this practice works using the unwanted phone call scenario.

    1. Recognition: As that person’s name flashes on the caller ID, you notice the tension start to coil in your chest You recognize the conflict between the desire to avoid the conversation and the guilt associated with not answering.
    2. Pause: Instead of immediately reacting to the tension, you take a moment to pause and bring your attention to the present moment. Maybe you a few deep breaths to center yourself or focus on something in the room, like the way light from the window dances on your desk.
    3. Openness: This slight pause allows you to embrace the tension and guilt with openness and curiosity. No judgment, just observation. You can think of this pause as a stolen moment of clarity, reclaimed from the throes of auto-pilot living.
    4. Inquiry: You ask yourself, “Can I be the space for this?” You ask again. And again. Just by asking the question, you step back from the battlefield in your mind, immediately detaching yourself from the story. This becomes the moment you create space to rest your awareness.
    5. Presence: This opening of space shifts your awareness to the spaciousness of presence within you. From here, you see clearly now that you’re not defined by your thoughts or emotions; you are the observer of them.
    6. Response: From this place of presence and clarity, you take back your power. You can make a conscious choice about whether to answer the call. Maybe you choose to take the call and set boundaries for the conversation, or maybe you decide to call back later when you feel more emotionally prepared.

    Keep in mind, all of this unfolds within a matter of seconds. But the key to this practice is remembering to pause and then ask yourself the question, “Can I be the space for this?” That simple question shifts your focus and becomes a way to reset your thoughts and emotions to help you gauge whether you indeed “can be the space” to engage with whatever is in front of you.

    Whichever you choose, you can do so from a place of presence rather than react out of habit or obligation.

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